Clocking In & Out

This guide covers the day-to-day mechanics of tracking when someone's actually working.

Purpose

This answers: "Is this person at work right now, and how long have they been here today?"

Clock In & Clock Out

An employee clocks in when they start work and clocks out when they stop — from the web interface, or automatically through a biometric device if the company uses one. Each in-and-out pair is recorded as an activity; if someone clocks in again later the same day (after a break, for example), that's a second activity, and the day's total worked time is the sum of all of them.

Clocking in again without having clocked out first automatically closes the previous, still-open activity first — there's no way to end up "double clocked in."

Night shifts are handled automatically. If a shift runs past midnight, the system attributes a punch to the correct shift day rather than splitting it awkwardly across two calendar days.

Late Come & Early Out

If tracking is enabled, clocking in after a shift's start time is flagged as a late arrival, and clocking out before its end time is flagged as an early departure — each compared against the employee's actual shift schedule.

Grace Time

A grace period can absorb small amounts of lateness or early departure before they're flagged at all — for example, allowing a 10-minute cushion at the start of the day. Grace time can be set as a company-wide default, or overridden for a specific shift.

Minimum Working Hours

Each shift defines how many hours count as a full day. A day that falls on a company holiday or a configured recurring day off isn't held to that minimum — it's excluded from the calculation entirely rather than being flagged as short.

Auto Clock-Out

If a shift has auto clock-out enabled, the system automatically closes out anyone still clocked in past a configured cutoff time — useful for employees who forget to clock out at the end of the day.

What Each User Sees

Action	Employee	Reporting Manager	HR Administrator
Clock in / out	✅	✅	✅
View their own daily attendance	✅	✅	✅
View their team's daily attendance	—	✅	✅
View every employee's attendance	—	—	✅

How Visibility Is Decided

1. Ownership. Everyone clocks in and out for themselves, and can see their own record.
2. The reporting line. A reporting manager can see their team's attendance.
3. Permissions. Company-wide visibility requires the relevant permission.

Customization Options

• Whether late-come/early-out tracking is on at all is a company-wide toggle.
• Grace time — company default, or per-shift override.
• Auto clock-out — opt-in per shift, with its own cutoff time.
• The web clock-in button itself can be turned off company-wide, for organizations that rely entirely on biometric devices.

Good to Know

• A day's status reflects what actually happened. Present, partially present, absent, or still-in-progress are all derived automatically from the recorded activities and the shift's minimum hours — nothing needs to be manually marked.
• Grace time only softens lateness flags — it doesn't change worked-hours totals. The actual clock-in and clock-out times are still what's recorded; grace time just decides whether that counts as "late."

One punch, the whole picture.