GrünRaum Landscaping: Mobile Time Tracking Saves 15 Hours Per Month

About GrünRaum GaLaBau GmbH

GrünRaum GaLaBau GmbH is a landscaping company based near Munich, Germany, with 32 employees. The company covers the full spectrum of landscaping — from designing private gardens and commercial outdoor areas to ongoing green space maintenance. Multiple crews are deployed to different job sites every day.

The Challenge

In landscaping, accurate time tracking per job site is critical for profitability. This is exactly where GrünRaum had significant problems:

• Paper timesheets: Each crew leader filled out a handwritten timesheet at the end of the day. These were handed in at the office on Fridays and manually entered into Excel.
• Inaccurate allocation: Hours attributed to individual job sites were often estimated. Particularly when a crew visited multiple sites in one day, the records were unreliable.
• Delayed billing: Due to the manual process, it often took two to three weeks before the hour breakdown for a project was available. Post-calculations were correspondingly inaccurate.
• Missing weather data: When bad weather caused work stoppages, there was no systematic documentation, leading to disputes with clients.
• Communication via WhatsApp: Schedule changes were communicated through private WhatsApp groups — problematic from a data protection standpoint and difficult to trace.

The Solution with Crew Active

After a demo, Operations Manager Markus Weber chose Crew Active, primarily because of its combination of mobile time tracking and scheduling.

Implementation in Three Steps

Step 1: Set up project structure — All active job sites and maintenance contracts were created as projects in the system, complete with addresses, clients, and planned hours.

Step 2: Configure crews — The five crews were set up with their vehicles and team members. Qualifications like tree surgery certificates or equipment licenses were recorded.

Step 3: Roll out the mobile app — Each crew leader received a brief introduction to the app. Usage was intentionally simple: check in at the site in the morning, check out in the evening. Switch jobs during the day with a quick re-check.

The Results

Precise job site allocation: With GPS-based time tracking, the office now knows exactly how many hours were spent at each job site. Workers check in directly at the location — guesswork is a thing of the past.

Faster post-calculation: Instead of waiting weeks, Markus Weber can now view the daily hour distribution per project. Projects that are going over budget are identified immediately.

Less office work: Manual transfer of timesheets has been completely eliminated. Administrative overhead dropped by 15 hours per month — time the office now uses for client acquisition.

Better project profitability: Through accurate cost transparency, GrünRaum identified unprofitable maintenance contracts and renegotiated them. Average project profitability increased by 12%.

GDPR-compliant communication: The integrated team chat replaces private WhatsApp groups. Schedule changes, material lists, and photos are now shared through Crew Active in a data-protection compliant way.

Photo documentation: Crew leaders now document project progress directly through the app — with automatic timestamps and GPS coordinates. This significantly improves communication with clients.

Conclusion

For GrünRaum GaLaBau, the investment in Crew Active paid off quickly. The combination of accurate time tracking, transparent project analysis, and simple communication has made the operation noticeably more efficient.

Running a landscaping business and want to digitize your time tracking? Try Crew Active free for 14 days — purpose-built for the needs of landscaping companies.