WageTime is payroll for independently owned Lawn Doctor franchises, where the technician holds a state applicator license, sells the next program, and runs a route alone. The license, the commission, and the solo route’s hours all run through one payroll.
For independently owned and operated Lawn Doctor® franchise businesses. WageTime is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Lawn Doctor, Incorporated. Lawn Doctor® and Turf Tamer® are trademarks of their respective owners, used here only to describe the businesses this page serves.
Your field labor is licensed to spray, paid to sell, and dispatched one to a truck. The paycheck has to carry a state credential, a commission board, and a solo route’s hours all at once, and generic payroll was built for none of it.
Every technician putting product on a lawn carries a state applicator or registered-technician credential, and it expires. When the paycheck lives in one system and the license lives in a folder, the recert date slips, and an unlicensed application is a fine, not an oops. The premium you pay a licensed tech should sit next to the license that earns it.
Techs earn on the upsell: the mosquito add-on, the grub program, the fall aeration, the customer who renews. That commission is real money and, under federal rules, it is part of the regular rate, so a heavy-sell week quietly raises the overtime owed. A spreadsheet that pays the commission and forgets the overtime is building a back-pay balance one good week at a time.
A route tech loads a Turf Tamer at the shop and runs the day alone. The drive between properties is payable time, the stops need a punch that proves the visit, and there is no crew leader to sign a timesheet. Without a GPS clock on the phone, the day’s hours are a story told at 5 p.m., not a record.
Analyses of the brand’s franchise disclosure document put the royalty at 10% of net revenues, plus marketing funds and a technology fee. The fee stack is fixed. Labor is the line you actually run, and the office that can’t read it per route and per program is running its one controllable cost blind.
Pre-emergent in spring, grub control in summer, aeration and overseeding in fall. The headcount swells for the rounds and thins in the off-season, and per-head software bills you for the winter roster whether a spreader turns or not. You should pay for the techs you run, not the ones waiting on the spring round.
Hours sit in a route or scheduling app, then somebody exports the week, cleans it up, and re-keys it into a payroll system that never heard of a treatment program. The program codes fall off on the way, so labor cost per route is a guess by the time the invoice prints.
Yes: WageTime tracks the commercial applicator certification most states require for regulated chemical application, and keeps that license and the rate it earns on one employee record, so a recert deadline surfaces before it lapses.
| Technician | Expires | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Marco T.Commercial Applicator, Cat 3A | Renews Mar 2027 | Active |
| Devon P.Registered Technician | Renews Aug 2026 | Active |
| Rosa L.Commercial Applicator, Cat 7 | Renews Sep 2026 | Active |
| Alex R.Registered Technician | 1 credit short | CE due |
| Sam K.Commercial Applicator, Cat 3A | Renews Jan 2028 | Active |
Replaces the glovebox certificate nobody checks until the renewal notice is a lapse notice.
Upsell commission settles as its own earning inside the WageTime payroll run and folds into overtime where federal law puts it: in the regular rate, so a sell-heavy August earns overtime on the blended rate, not the base alone.
Replaces the commission run that paid the bonus and skipped the overtime it just raised.
WageTime’s mobile clock turns each stop into a punch from the phone the solo technician already carries: a GPS stamp inside the geofence you set per property, so a one-person route has proof it showed up and no crew leader has to sign the day.
| Stop | Hours | Status |
|---|---|---|
| 118 Maple RidgeGrub control | 0.6 | In geofence |
| 24 Birchwood LnFertilization | 0.5 | In geofence |
| 9 Cutter CtMosquito | 0.4 | 1 outside geo |
| Drive timeBetween properties on route | 1.8 | Paid-time code |
| Shop load-outLoad and mix before the route | 0.5 | In geofence |
Replaces the solo route’s hours reconstructed from memory after the trucks are back.
Every hour and wage dollar tags to a job-cost code, so labor comes out by route and by treatment program, and the mosquito program that burns more drive time than it bills shows up before you re-price it.
| Program | Hours | Labor cost |
|---|---|---|
| Fertilization & weed control3 routes on this program | 214.0 | $4,922.00 |
| Mosquito & tick control2 routes on this program | 96.5 | $2,219.50 |
| Grub & insect control2 routes on this program | 78.0 | $1,794.00 |
| Aeration & overseeding1 route on this program | 41.5 | $954.50 |
Replaces pricing next season’s program off a hunch, and the shoebox reconstruction when the comp auditor asks what the mosquito route earned.
A flat number you can read without a quote call: $50 a month per company plus $10 per person paid that month, unlimited runs included. The techs you laid off after the last fall round cost nothing until spring.
Replaces the payroll bill that needed a sales call to read, and the winter invoice for techs who are home until March.
Full-service payroll is $10 a month per person paid that month, plus $50 a month per company, with unlimited runs. No long-term contracts, no per-run charges.
Off-cycle runs and bonuses cost nothing extra. No long-term contracts; cancel anytime.
Example: 50 people paid × $10 + $50 company = $550 for the month
HR & hiring, onboarding, PTO, time tracking, benefits, and workers’ comp are optional add-ons, priced separately when you’re ready.
See a demoThe independently owned franchise company does. Technicians are W-2 employees of the local franchise business, so the franchisee files the employment taxes, owns the liability, and signs the W-2s. WageTime is built for that owner-as-employer reality: new techs self-onboard from a phone, the electronic I-9 captures documents front and back, and an E-Verify case is created once the I-9 is complete.
Applying fertilizer, weed control, and mosquito or insect products is a regulated chemical application, and most states require a commercial applicator certification, with registered-technician status for those spraying under a certified applicator. The exact category varies by state. WageTime tracks each credential on the employee record with 30/60/90-day expiration alerts and sets the licensed-applicator pay rate on its own code.
Commission on program upsells and renewals settles inside the payroll run as its own earning, on the same check as the hourly base. Because commission is part of the regular rate under federal rules, a week that mixes hourly hours and commission earns overtime on the weighted-average rate, not on the base alone. WageTime does that blend automatically every payday.
We import clock hours so there is no double entry. Tell us your route or scheduling app on the demo and we will confirm the exact flow for your setup, including how hours land against your route and program codes. No app? Solo techs can punch on WageTime’s own GPS-stamped, geofenced mobile clock, so every stop carries proof of the visit.
The off-season layoff is one pass through a bulk termination wizard, not a dozen individual terminations. When techs return for the spring round, their records are still there: returning workers confirm details rather than starting over, and anyone new fills out everything from a phone before the first route runs, I-9 and E-Verify included. You pay $10 only for the people actually paid each month.
$50 per month per company plus $10 per person paid that month, with unlimited payroll runs, weekly pay day at no extra cost, and off-cycle and final checks included. Every federal, state, and local tax files automatically with year-end W-2s and 1099s. Set against a 10% royalty and the marketing and technology fees FDD analyses describe, payroll stays the predictable line. Multi-territory owners run each company under its own EIN.
One tech across a day of stops, your commission rules, and the licenses your crew holds. Twenty minutes with a payroll specialist on a live demo company: you’ll see the applicator credentials tracked, the commission fold into overtime, the GPS route punches, and the labor cost by program next to your royalty line.
Book a 20-minute demo