Custom labour registration app for greenhouse horticulture
Appfront builds apps that let greenhouse growers record who does which task, in which bay or row, and what it yields. Harvesting, crop work and packing, per employee and per hour, with permanent staff and agency workers in the same record. On a scanner or phone in the greenhouse, not after the fact in the office.
What is a labour registration app for horticulture?
A labour registration app records which employee did which work at what time: harvesting in bay three, rows twelve to twenty, deleafing the tomatoes, packing at line two. Each task is paired with a quantity, in kilos, pieces or rows, so the app can calculate per person and per hour what has been done. That forms the basis for labour cost per kilo and for fair performance-based pay.
Without an app, this is handled on slips of paper and in spreadsheets. The foreman notes who was in which row, the hours come separately from the staffing agency, and at the end of the week someone in the office has to piece the two together. The result is an average per week, whereas the differences between employees and between varieties need to be visible per day in order to manage them.
We build custom solutions because every business records differently. A tomato grower works with rows and harvest trolleys, a pot plant nursery with benches and batches, a rose grower with bunches per bed. The tasks, the units and the way the staffing agency supplies hours all differ from one business to the next. The app should follow your way of working, not the other way around.
Recording in the greenhouse
Scan the employee and row on a scanner or phone, with the task and quantity added. Also works without signal in the greenhouse.
Performance per hour
Kilos, pieces or rows per hour per employee and per variety, so you can see where the work is going well and where it is not.
Hours to payroll and staffing agencies
Permanent staff hours go to payroll, agency workers' hours go to the agency as an hours statement, with no re-keying.
How we build your labour registration app for horticulture
We start in the greenhouse, with the foreman and the people doing the work. From that we determine what needs to be recorded for each task and what the app must handle at the end of the aisle.
Which tasks occur, which unit each is measured in, and how the work is currently allocated. We shadow a shift and note where the slips of paper originate.
Scanning the employee, location and task, with the quantity alongside. We test with work gloves, in the humid air of the greenhouse and without a connection.
Performance per hour, per variety and per period. The foreman sees it at the end of the day, the operations manager per week.
Hours go to payroll and to the staffing agencies in the format they expect. After that, we take over management of the app.
What a labour registration app for horticulture actually does
The components you need depend on your crop and on how many different tasks you want to distinguish.
Scanning employee and location
A pass or badge per employee and a code per bay, row or bench. Two scans and the registration is under way.
Task and quantity
Harvesting, crop work, packing or cleaning, with the unit that goes with the task: kilo, piece, bunch or row.
Performance per hour
Per employee, per task and per variety. With a comparison against the team average.
Agency workers
Agency workers are registered in the same app, with an hours statement per agency and per week.
Breaks and working hours
Start, end and breaks per shift, so that the recording of working and rest times is accurate.
Overview for the foreman
Who is where, what has been done and what is still outstanding. On a tablet at the start of the aisle.
Who we build a labour registration app for horticulture for
The app is intended for businesses where labour costs are the largest item and where the differences between employees and between varieties are currently not visible.
Vegetable growers under glass
Tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers, with harvest recorded per row and crop work in fixed rounds. You want kilos per hour per worker and per variety.
Ornamental and cut flower production
Bunches per bed and per species, with peak weeks around the holidays when many temporary workers are on shift.
Potted plants and propagation
Tasks per table and per batch: potting on, spacing out, sorting. The unit is the batch, not the row.
Businesses with many temporary workers
The office hours and your own records need to match. The app shows that difference day by day.
Test your idea first: a working prototype in 1 day
With OneDayBuild, we turn your idea into something tangible in one day for €1,150, so you can see whether further development is worth the investment. Decide to go ahead with the full build? Then we credit the full cost.
Explore OneDayBuild →Technology and integrations
The app runs on scanners and phones in the greenhouse and keeps working where there is no signal. If your interest is cultivation records for an audit rather than labour, see our page on GlobalG.A.P. cultivation records. For the wider operations of a nursery there is nursery software, and you can read about how we work at building an app.
For the office side, covering standards, budgets, labour costs and piece-rate pay, there is our labour recording software for horticulture.
If you pay pickers in tunnels or greenhouses per tray or per kilo, see our piece-rate recording software for soft fruit.
If you pick apples or pears with crews on piece rates, recording boxes per picker rather than hours, our picking list app for top fruit is the right fit.
Why choose Appfront for your labour recording app for horticulture?
Labour recording in a greenhouse rarely fails on the arithmetic. It fails when recording takes longer than the work itself.
Two scans, nothing more
Scan the worker and the location, done. The task and the quantity come from context or from the foreman, not from a form on the path.
Your units, your tasks
Kilos, bunches, tables or rows: we build around the units you actually use, rather than forcing you into the layout of an off-the-shelf package.
Your own code, no per-worker subscription
The app belongs to you and runs in your environment. A peak week with a hundred temporary workers doesn't cost extra licences.
Security and privacy in a labour recording app for horticulture
The records contain personal and performance data about workers, including temporary staff. We build with roles: the foreman sees his crew, the operations manager sees the whole, the staffing agency sees only the hours of its own people. Performance data per person stays within the business and is not shared with the agency unless you agree otherwise.
Every record receives a device timestamp and is stored unchanged. A correction by the foreman sits alongside the original record, with name and reason, so any dispute over hours or performance can always be traced back.
Frequently asked questions about a labour recording app for horticulture
Questions growers ask before getting started.
Recording who did which work, where, and with what result. Not just the hours, but the task and the quantity: kilos harvested per row, bunches per bed, tables processed. From this follows the output per hour per worker and the labour cost per unit of product.
Yes. Records are stored on the device and sent on as soon as a connection returns, with the original timestamp. Signal in greenhouses is often patchy, and an app that stalls in those conditions will be abandoned within a week.
Yes, and that is usually the point. A temporary worker receives a pass or badge for the period they work with you, records in the same way as permanent staff, and the hours go to the agency as a summary. That way you can be sure the agency's invoice matches what was actually worked.
The app calculates performance per hour and per period; the pay rule you attach to it is for you to set. What counts as a standard, how the supplement builds up and whether it applies per person or per crew is an arrangement within your business and your collective agreement. We model that rule and make the outcome visible to the employee.
As accurate as the measurement. For harvesting by trolley or crate, the app can take the weight from a scale; for bunches or pieces, the employee or the supervisor counts. We assess per task what is feasible without the registration slowing down the work.
Yes. Approved hours go to payroll processing each period in the format the package expects, with the supplements and differentials you apply. We match what you already use, including a package with limited integration options.
No. Cultivation recording is about the crop: spraying, fertilising and the data needed for certification. Labour recording is about people and their work. The two can be linked, for example to combine the harvest per row with the labour per row, but they are separate records.
Would you like insight into your greenhouse labour per task?
Tell us how you currently register and where the slips originate. We will shadow a shift and show what an app concretely delivers in your cultivation.