A specialty contractor based in Bryan, Texas, Horseshoe specializes in water and wastewater infrastructure rehabilitation using trenchless technologies, methods that repair or replace underground utility infrastructure without extensive surface excavation. Horseshoe serves municipal and industrial clients across six states: Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Alabama, and Louisiana, with plans to expand into additional states.

Much of Horseshoe's work is funded by federal or state infrastructure programs, which means certified payroll is a routine requirement on many projects.

The field workforce faced language barriers, had varying comfort levels with digital tools, and struggled to capture paper documents.

These factors became requirements for Horseshoe as it searched for a new workforce management platform.

The Challenge

Before Lumber, Horseshoe ran its back office on a patchwork of paper-based processes and a national payroll and HR outsourcing platform that was not built for construction. The company was paying between $5,500 and $6,500 per month, roughly $66,000 to $78,000 per year, for a system that could not keep pace with the way a multi-state contractor actually operates.

The most acute problem was the mid-week project and state changes. Certified payroll requirements are tied to individual projects, and Horseshoe's crews regularly moved between certified and non-certified jobs, sometimes crossing state lines within the same week.

That rigidity was not an isolated inconvenience. It created a compliance gap every time a crew's schedule shifted mid-week, which, for a company operating across six states, was a regular occurrence and extremely time-consuming to correct with manual entries.

Time tracking added another layer of manual work. All field employees recorded hours on paper timesheets, which were then keyed in by hand. There was no GPS validation or project-level allocation at the point of entry, and the company had documented instances of employees rounding up hours or clocking into jobs they were not physically present for.

Because much of the field workforce faces language barriers and has limited familiarity with technology, foremen typically logged time for an entire crew, which meant a single missed entry could leave a crew's hours incomplete.

Per diem added further complexity. Horseshoe pays different daily rates for salaried and hourly employees, with ad hoc, project-specific exceptions, all tracked in a manually maintained spreadsheet.

Workers' compensation classification was a particular pain point. Employees often split time between different classification codes, and water and sewer work carry different codes and risk rates within the same project.

On top of these operational gaps, HR ran entirely on paper. Onboarding forms, including safety documentation, were emailed or handed to each new hire individually, with no reliable centralized repository and no way to track the expiration of credentials such as work visas or driver's licenses.

Why Horseshoe Construction Chose Lumber

Several factors shaped Horseshoe's decision, with Lumber's construction-specific feature set standing out as a key driver:

• Certified payroll and compliance capability built for construction, able to follow crews across state lines mid-project, a clear gap in the prior system
• AI paper time card scanning and foreman-level time entry, matching how the field workforce actually tracked hours
• Workers' compensation classification codes that are configurable at the task level, removing a manual audit-season burden
• Centralized applicant tracking and onboarding through a single digital link, replacing a paper, per-email process
• General ledger reporting that could be formatted to match Horseshoe's existing chart of accounts, so the switch would not disrupt its QuickBooks Desktop workflow

Beyond these key features, the decision reflected a generational dynamic inside the company. The payroll and HR lead, who worked daily alongside crew members, was eager to introduce new ideas, including AI-based tools, to a workforce accustomed to older methods.

With payroll issues mounting and communication increasingly scattered as the company grew, a platform like Lumber, built specifically for construction, stood out as the clearest path forward.

The Solution

Horseshoe rolled out Lumber's time-tracking, payroll and compliance, applicant-tracking, onboarding, and two-way messaging modules together.They also added modules such as productivity, forms builder, and benefits within the first 60 days of going live with Lumber.

In the field, employees who preferred paper time cards could continue using them, with Lumber's scanning feature capturing the entries digitally, while foremen retained the ability to log time for their crews.

Geofencing was added to verify job-site presence, and the mobile app and two-way messaging were available in both English and Spanish, so the entire field workforce could use them without language barriers.

On the back office side, payroll and certified payroll reporting were configured to follow projects across state lines, so a crew moving from a non-certified job to a certified one mid-week no longer created a compliance gap.

Per diem calculations, including the different rates for salaried and hourly employees, were built into the payroll workflow rather than tracked separately. Workers' compensation classification codes were set up at the task level, so time logged to a specific type of work automatically carried the correct code without manual review.

Onboarding and applicant tracking moved from paper to a centralized digital system, with a single shareable link replacing individual emailed forms and automated tracking for credentials with expiration dates. The Lumber general ledger report was formatted to match Horseshoe's chart of accounts, so the existing QuickBooks Desktop workflow continued without disruption.

Horseshoe also expanded its Lumber footprint to include benefits administration, moving that function off a separate third-party administrator and onto the same platform used for payroll and HR.

Results on the ground

• Payroll Consolidation and Cost Savings: Horseshoe's projected annual spend with Lumber came in meaningfully lower than what it had been paying its prior provider, consolidating payroll, HR, time tracking, and onboarding onto a single platform in the process.
• Compliance Readiness Across State Lines: The midweek project and state-change problem that had created a recurring certified payroll gap was resolved through project-level compliance configuration, allowing crews to move between certified and non-certified jobs and across state lines without creating a billing or reporting issue.
• A Lighter Audit Season for the CFO: Task-level workers' compensation classification coding automated a manual process performed for every employee-project combination during annual insurance audits.
• A Bilingual, Field-Ready Time Tracking Tool: AI paper time card scanning, foreman-level crew logging, and a Spanish-language mobile app and messaging system gave Horseshoe's predominantly Spanish-speaking field workforce a time tracking system they could actually use, without requiring every worker to adopt a new digital habit.
• Faster, Centralized Onboarding: Applicant tracking and onboarding moved from an all-paper, per-email process to a centralized digital workflow with a single shareable application link and automated tracking of credential expiration dates.
• Organic Expansion into Benefits: Seven months after go-live, Horseshoe expanded its Lumber contract to include benefits administration, consolidating a function that had previously run through a separate third-party administrator.