If you're in my shoes, how would you approach automating time sheet tracking for a mining company?

Well, this is an established system, so you have a couple of options. You could develop a brand‑new system because the client is unhappy with the current manual process, which is prone to dishonest reporting and hurts margins. Expect resistance from low‑level workers when you change the workflow, and the transition may initially feel worse than the current setup. People are often the bottleneck, so consider simplifying the process first. For example, replace manual Excel entry with an OCR solution that lets clerks upload scanned timesheets. You could also add barcodes or QR codes to each employee’s sheet; a clerk photographs the code, OCR converts it to data, and the information is uploaded automatically. Payments could be processed on a bi‑weekly basis with a quick audit to catch major issues. If you want a more robust solution, install NFC/RFID tags for each worker. They tap in and out, and you enforce rules such as a required tap‑out time or a maximum shift length. Pair the RFID system with a camera to verify taps and resolve disputes quickly. Disputes will still happen—perhaps once a week—but you can review the footage and the tap data to settle them fast. Enforce an SOP that unpaid overtime is forfeited if the worker fails to tap out. This physical, hardware‑based approach isn’t as simple as a cloud‑only solution, but modern phones can read RFID/NFC, and platforms like UniFi can trigger webhooks when a tag is scanned. Those webhooks can feed into a central employee database and automatically generate timesheets in tools like ClickUp, Toggl, Harvest, or any other system you prefer. This should give you a solid starting point for automating time‑sheet tracking in a mining operation.