Using the time clock

The clock lives at /time. It records what a person was doing and for how long, and it is where a repair order's labour cost comes from — so every figure on it is to the minute, and nothing on a saved entry can change without leaving a record of who changed it and why.

Getting on the clock

1. 1

   Step 1: Pick an approved job, or pick shop time

   Job is what the clock runs against, and it is what prices the labour on that repair order. The picker offers only services whose customer decision is Approved; draft, awaiting-approval, declined and deferred work cannot receive a new punch. Shop time — no job is a real answer, not a blank one: sweeping the floor, a parts run and a staff meeting are all legitimate shop time with no ticket.

2. 2

   Step 2: Press Clock in

   Clock in opens the entry at that moment. Job and Clock in are the only controls on this state of an employee's clock. One person can have one punch running at a time, and the database enforces that, so a second tab cannot open a second one.

   
3. 3

   Step 3: Managers can move their own running clock

   A manager or owner working on their own clock can open Manage, then Move your clock. Pick Move to another job and then Move. It closes the punch you are on and opens a new one at the same instant. The hours already worked stay on the job they were worked on; nothing is carried across. This control is not on a non-manager's Time clock.

4. 4

   Step 4: Press Clock out at the end

   While the punch is running, the employee clock shows only Current job and Clock out completes the entry without waiting for a location. A missing reading or a phone that cannot see a satellite never blocks the press. The thirty-six-hour safeguard is different: an entry that old is refused as a likely forgotten clock-out and a manager closes it under Manage with the actual end time.

On approved services, the same controls are on My day and on each job of a technician's own repair order, so they need not leave their work: Start job when clocked out, Switch to this job when a punch is already running, Stop job on the job you are on, which moves the punch to shop time without clocking you out, and Clock out on the clock card. Work that is not approved stays visible on those technician screens as Waiting on the customer without Start or Switch, and it is absent from the Time screen's job picker. Those job-workflow switches live on My day and the technician's repair-order work, not on the employee Time screen. Clocking in with no job stays here on the full clock screen. Manual entries and corrections are manager work now, kept together under Manage.

A repair order's Time Clocks tab draws one timer card for each technician the order is on, beside yours. Your own card carries the service, prefilled with the order's first one, and Start; once you are on the clock it carries Clock out and Move. A colleague's card says where they stand and what they have spent on this car. For a manager or owner — whoever may manage the clock — it is the same card as yours: the service, an activity when the shop keeps activities, and the same Start, and Clock out while they are on. That punch is recorded as entered by the person who pressed it. For everyone else a colleague's card has nothing to press.

What the screen says while a punch is running

On the Time screen, the running state is deliberately short: Current job names the work, or says No job, beside the large Clock out button. It does not show Activity, Note, elapsed status or review copy to a non-manager. My day still keeps the live job context beside the work itself.

Today's punches marks the running row Open and shows an em dash for its out time. An open punch is in no total. It is never counted as zero and never counted as running, because the first undercounts real work and the second lets a forgotten clock-out accrue days of pay.

Reading your clock

Beneath the large clock button, Today's punches lists today's entries newest first with their in time, out time, job and hours. A punch that is not attached to a repair-order job says No job. Every day boundary and displayed time uses the shop's timezone, not the tablet's.

My hours this week is the rolling seven-day figure. My pay this period appears only when the same money grant that already protects pay allows it; hiding management tools does not widen that gate. With their default role keys, a technician, advisor or front-desk teammate gets only the clock and current job, today's punches, weekly hours and, when allowed, their own pay. They do not get Manage. If an owner explicitly grants one of those roles a reports or settings key, Manage contains only the matching punch-export or shop-location group; that custom grant does not reveal team time or payroll tools.

Demo and test entries never appear in a live shop's table or its totals. A manager or owner sees the same personal view plus one native Manage disclosure. Its contents keep their existing, separate keys: the time-clock key opens people, Team punches, manual entries, corrections and Payroll export; the reports key opens the punch export; the settings key opens Shop location; and Pay segments remains behind its money grant as well as the manager key. A custom role sees only the management groups its own keys allow.

Inside Manage, Today, Week and Month move the detailed workspace through shop-timezone periods. A card per person shows who is on the clock and their paid hours; when a running punch began before today, the card also names its shop-calendar day. View time opens that person's log. The detailed table carries review, activity, job, note, How and Where. How says whether the punch was made at the clock or entered afterwards. Reading somebody else's log shows their clock state, not a punch button: nobody clocks anybody else in.

The review flag

In the manager's detailed Team punches log, at sixteen hours an entry stops being presented as ordinary and carries a Review flag. That is not a cap and nothing is refused: a genuine double shift has to stay recordable, or people start lying to the clock. While a punch is still open the detailed row says how long it has been running. Once the entry is closed the flag is measured from the saved clock-out, so it reads the same on every manager screen and never depends on the browser's clock.

An entry whose end somebody typed in by hand carries the flag too — Closed by a manager — however short it turns out to be. The length is not what is worth a second look there; the fact that the end was stated afterwards, instead of recorded when it happened, is.

Fixing a punch after the fact

The correction controls are inside Manage so everyday clock users do not have to read payroll or audit vocabulary. A manager can add missing time, attribute a punch to a job or close one left open. Adding missing time creates a new row stamped as entered by that manager. Every change to a saved punch takes a reason, writes the value that was there before beside the value that replaced it, and puts the editor's name on the change. The audit row is in the same save as the change, so if it cannot be written the change does not happen. Correction history reads every append-only change as Changed, By, What, Before, After and Why. If the editor is no longer named it says A former teammate.

Add time manually

For the shift that never got punched at all. Give the day, the two times in the shop's own clock, a break if there was one, and the job. Tick Ends the next day for a shift that ran past midnight. The entry is stamped as entered by hand with your name on it.

Attribute a punch to a job

For the punch that went on the wrong job, or on none. This moves the whole punch, including time already worked — which is exactly what Move to another job deliberately does not do.

Close a punch you left open

For the clock-out that never happened. It appears only while a punch is actually running. See below.

A punch left open overnight

Somebody forgets to clock out on Friday at five. On Monday morning Clock out will refuse: the entry is now longer than thirty-six hours, and thirty-six hours is almost always a forgotten clock-out rather than a shift. Switch to this job gives the same answer, and Clock in says you are already clocked in, because a person can only have one punch running.

The way out is inside Manage, in the group headed Close a punch you left open. Say when the shift actually ended and why the punch is being closed by hand, then press Close this punch. Day it ended and Time it ended are the shop's own calendar and clock. If your shop has set opening hours, the suggested time says Ended at closing time. If it has not, or the shop was shut that day, the box is left empty for the manager to type rather than filled with a guess.

The entry closes at the time the manager gave, the correction goes into the trail with their name and reason on it, the entry is flagged for review in the table, and the clock is free straight away — the next press of Clock in works. The control is manager UI; the write still rechecks the time-clock capability and the person's membership at this location.

Fill in your payroll export

1. 1

   Step 1: Open Payroll export

   Go to Settings › Payroll export.

   
2. 2

   Step 2: For ADP, copy two codes

   Fill in Company code and Default batch ID from your ADP account, then press Save export settings. Leave a box blank rather than guess.

3. 3

   Step 3: For Gusto, there is nothing to set

   Gusto matches each row on the person. Then press Export a pay period to go to the time clock.

What the clock refuses