Employee self-service portals: what they do, and what they cost

An employee self-service portal lets staff see and update their own work records. They book holiday, check the hours they have worked, see what leave they have left and keep their own contact details current, without going through a manager or an HR inbox.

On Syncro Connect that portal is the mobile app. Staff clock in, request time off and check their balances from their own phone, and the request lands with their manager for approval in the same system that holds the clocking data. There is no separate HR platform to reconcile it against.

It costs £2 per employee per month for the software, plus £1 per app user per month, excluding VAT. So an employee who self-serves costs £3 a month. You only pay the extra £1 for the people who actually need the app, not for everyone on the payroll.

  • More than 800 UK businesses
  • UK workforce software since 1989
  • Your data stored in the UK
  • Built and supported from Leeds

How an employee self-service portal works

The employee does four things on their phone, and every one of them writes straight into the same record the payroll run is built from. There is no form to fill in, no email to a manager and no spreadsheet sitting between the request and the record.

Clock in and out from their own phone

Useful for drivers, engineers and anyone who never walks past a terminal. Location can be recorded with the clocking so you can see where it happened. If there is no signal the app still clocks and sends the record through when signal returns, which matters more than it sounds on a basement site or a rural job.

Book holiday and see what is left

The balance on screen is the live one, so nobody books time they have already used. The request goes to their manager for approval and, once approved, it is in the absence record immediately. Most of the value here is the questions that stop being asked rather than the booking itself.

See the hours they have actually worked

Their own clocking record, as it stands today rather than at the end of the month. Disagreements about hours are far easier to settle when both sides have been looking at the same figure all along, and they surface before the payroll run instead of after it.

Keep their own details up to date

Address, phone number, next of kin. Small, and the reason it matters is that the person who knows the details have changed is the one updating them, rather than somebody retyping a form weeks later.

What it does not do

Syncro Connect self-service covers time, attendance and absence. It is not payroll software and it is not a full HR suite, and most of the disappointment people have with self-service portals comes from finding that out after they have bought one. Here is where the line sits, so you can judge it before rather than after.

Payslips
Staff cannot view payslips here, on either of our products. Payslips belong to your payroll software and are issued from it. What we do is send the approved hours across, so the payroll run starts from the right numbers.
Tax codes and tax declarations
Also payroll, for the same reason. Any supplier offering you clocking, absence, payslips and tax in one place is either running a payroll bureau as well or is counting an export as an integration.
Expenses and mileage
Not on Syncro Connect. Mileage claims are available on Realtime, our installed product, and it is not something we push. If expenses are a priority, a dedicated expenses app will serve you better and we will say so.
Viewing a published rota
Coming to Syncro Connect, not there yet. If staff checking next week’s shifts on their phone is the thing you are buying for, ask us where that work has got to before you commit rather than taking a date from a web page.

If you do need staff records alongside the clocking, the HR module adds training records, certificates and documents for £1 per employee per month on top of the £2, in the same system rather than a second one.

What an employee self-service portal costs

Ours is £2 per employee per month for the software, plus £1 a month for each person who actually uses the app, excluding VAT. Across the UK market you will see anything from about £1 to £8 per employee per month, and the spread usually comes down to whether hardware, support, setup and modules are counted in the headline figure or charged on afterwards.

What you are paying for Price How it is counted
Syncro Connect software £2 per month Every employee on the system
Mobile app, which is the self-service part £1 per month Only the people who use the app
HR module, if you want staff records too £1 per month Every employee, optional

Everyone self-serving. Fifty staff, all on the app, is £150 a month excluding VAT.

Only some of them. Sixty warehouse staff clocking at a terminal and eight drivers on the app is £136 for the software plus £8 for the app users, so £144 a month. That is the part most quotes get wrong in their own favour: you are not charged for an app your warehouse never opens.

Billed annually or monthly, with no setup fees, 30 days’ notice and no minimum term. There is a free trial you can start yourself, and if the price is not what you had in mind you have lost two minutes rather than a procurement cycle.

Who an employee self-service portal suits

There is no minimum headcount, and no set maximum either. At 250 to 1,000 people you are squarely in the middle of what we do, and that is usually the size where self-service stops being a nice idea and starts being the only way the holiday requests get dealt with.

The more useful question is not how big you are but whether your people clock in. That is what decides whether we are a sensible choice or a slightly awkward one.

Where we are a good fit

  • Your people clock in. Shifts, sites, warehouses, factories, shops, care homes, anywhere attendance is recorded rather than assumed.
  • Your workforce is mixed. Some at a terminal, some on a phone. You pay the extra £1 only for the ones on the app.
  • You want self-service inside the system that already holds the hours, rather than a second platform to keep in step with the first.
  • You are a UK business and you want your data held here and a Leeds phone number to ring when it misbehaves.

Where we are not the right answer

  • Nobody clocks in. If everyone is salaried and office based and all you need is holiday booking, a dedicated HR tool will do it more cheaply and there are good ones.
  • You want one platform for payroll, recruitment, appraisals and onboarding. That is an HR suite. We are the workforce half of it, and we export to the payroll half.
  • You have staff in several countries with local payroll and leave rules. We are built for UK working time and UK holiday.
  • Expenses is the thing driving the purchase. Look elsewhere, and we would rather tell you now than three months in.

Employee self-service questions, answered

What is an employee self-service portal?

It is a way for staff to see and update their own work records without going through a manager or an HR inbox. In practice that means booking holiday, checking the hours they have worked, seeing how much leave is left and keeping their own contact details current. On Syncro Connect the portal is the mobile app, and everything an employee does in it writes straight into the record your payroll export is built from.

How does an employee self-service portal work?

The employee signs in on their phone and acts on their own record, and anything needing permission goes to their manager for approval. A holiday request is checked against the live balance, sent to the manager, and once approved it is in the absence record immediately. Nothing is retyped and there is no second system to keep in step with the first.

Can employees see their payslips in it?

No, and not on either of our products. Payslips come from your payroll software and are issued there. We send the approved hours across so the payroll run starts from the right numbers, but the payslip itself is not ours to show. If a supplier offers you clocking, absence and payslips in one place, it is worth asking whether they actually run payroll or are calling an export an integration.

What does employee self-service cost per employee?

£2 per employee per month for the software, plus £1 a month for each person who uses the app, excluding VAT. So an employee who self-serves costs £3 a month. Across the UK market the range is roughly £1 to £8 per employee per month, and the difference is usually whether hardware, setup and support sit inside the headline figure or arrive later.

Do we have to buy the app for everyone?

No. The £1 is charged per app user rather than per employee. Sixty warehouse staff clocking at a terminal and eight drivers on the app means £2 for sixty-eight people and £1 for eight, so £144 a month rather than £204. It is worth checking how a competing quote counts this, because per employee and per user are very different numbers once you are into the hundreds.

What if someone does not have a smartphone?

They clock at a terminal instead, and you pay nothing extra for them. That is the normal arrangement in warehouses and factories, where a wall unit is quicker than a phone anyway. The thing worth deciding early is who genuinely needs self-service in their pocket, because it is rarely everybody and you should not be quoted as though it were.

Can someone clock in from home and pretend they are on site?

Location can be recorded with each clocking, which makes it obvious when one happened somewhere it should not have. It does not make it impossible. Someone determined enough can spoof a location on a phone, and any supplier telling you otherwise is overselling. What you get is a record and a pattern over time, and in practice that is what settles these conversations rather than the technology.

Will staff actually use it, or will we spend our time chasing them?

Holiday booking gets adopted without being pushed, because the alternative is waiting on somebody else. Clocking takes longer if people are used to a paper sheet, and a minority will be unenthusiastic about anything that records where they are. The practical answer is to launch on balances and holiday rather than on clocking, so the first thing staff meet is something that works in their favour.

Is it a problem under UK data protection law to have staff records on a personal phone?

The records are not held on the phone, they are shown from the system, and the data sits in the UK with access logged. Compliance is something you achieve as the data controller rather than something software hands you, so you will still need to tell staff what is recorded and why and keep that in your privacy notice. The ICO’s guidance for organisations is the right place to start.

Is this suitable for a business with 250 to 1,000 employees?

Yes, that is the middle of what we do, and there is no set minimum or maximum headcount. At that size the reason people come to us is usually not the software but the admin around it: a few hundred holiday requests a year arriving through an inbox is roughly a day a month of somebody’s working life.

Can staff see their rota or next week’s shifts?

Not yet on Syncro Connect. Rota is being built and is due in the next few months, and it already exists in Realtime, our installed product. If staff checking their shifts on a phone is the main reason you are buying, ask us where that work has got to rather than taking a date off a web page, including this one.

What happens to an employee’s access when they leave?

Access goes when you mark them as a leaver, and their historic records stay for as long as you need to keep them. If you later move away from us entirely, Realtime on your own server means the data simply stays with you. On our hosted platform we provide an export and then delete it. Worth asking any supplier that question before you sign rather than after.

See whether it suits you before you talk to anybody

Start the trial yourself and have a look. If the answer is no, you have spent a few minutes rather than sitting through a demo to find out. If you would rather be shown round it by someone who knows it, book a demo and we will be straight with you about where we fit and where we do not.

Left Menu Icon