Remote time and attendance: what a clocking app records, and what it does not

For over 35 years we have provided access control and time and attendance systems to UK businesses. In that time the hardest group to record accurately has always been the people who are not in the building: engineers on the road, carers between visits, site teams, and anyone working from home.

A clocking terminal by the front door cannot help you with any of them. A time and attendance app can, provided you are honest with yourself and your staff about what it does and does not do.

What a remote time and attendance system actually records

Staff clock in and out on their own phone. Each clocking is stamped with a time and, if you turn it on, the location the phone reported at that moment. Those clockings flow into the same timesheets as everyone else’s, so a workforce split between an office, a depot and a dozen vans still produces one set of hours at the end of the week.

Holiday requests, entitlement balances and absence are in the same app, which matters more for remote staff than office staff. Someone who never passes a noticeboard has no other way of knowing how much leave they have left.

What it does not do, and why that matters

It does not track where your staff are during the day. The location is recorded at the point of clocking, not continuously, so you get a record of where someone was when they started and finished, and nothing in between.

That is a deliberate limit rather than a missing feature. Continuous tracking of employees raises serious data protection questions, it is the fastest way to lose the goodwill of the people you are asking to use the app, and in most cases it tells you nothing you actually needed to know. If a supplier offers you live location tracking of your workforce, ask them how they justify it under UK GDPR before you buy it.

It also cannot stop somebody clocking in from the wrong place. A clocking made at home shows as a clocking made at home, and in practice that visibility is what resolves it. But a determined person with a location spoofing app can defeat any phone based system, ours included. Where that genuinely matters, a fixed terminal at the entrance is the honest answer.

Where a clocking app earns its place

Field service
Start and finish times recorded at the customer’s address rather than reconstructed from memory on a Friday afternoon.
Construction
One system covering every site, with no terminal to install in a compound that will be gone in six months. Time tracking for construction covers this in more detail.
Care and community
Visit times recorded at the point of arrival, which also gives you the record you need when a family asks what time somebody was seen.
Hybrid office teams
Someone working from home shows as working rather than absent, which is the distinction most hybrid employers actually want and the one a wall planner cannot give them.

What to check before you buy one

  1. Whether staff can refuseIf you are asking people to install a work app on a personal phone, agree your position first. Some employers offer an allowance, some supply a device, some allow browser clocking instead. Deciding after rollout is worse than deciding before it.
  2. What happens to the dataWhere it is stored, who can see it, how long it is kept. Our guide to UK GDPR and time and attendance data covers the retention periods and the lawful basis questions.
  3. Whether it reaches payrollAn app that produces a report somebody then retypes has moved the problem rather than solved it. Hours should export into whatever payroll package you already run.
  4. What it costs per person, not per sitePer location pricing punishes exactly the businesses that need this most.

How Computime does it

The Syncro Connect app is £1 per employee per month on top of the £2 software, so £3 per employee per month excluding VAT, with no setup fee and no charge per site. Staff clock from their own phone or a browser, and hours export to Sage, Xero, QuickBooks, BrightPay, IRIS, ADP and Pegasus.

It is built and supported from Leeds, which means when something stops working you speak to someone in the same time zone who knows your setup.

If you want to see it against your own staff and shifts rather than a demo account, start a free trial, or call the Leeds team on 0113 350 9043.

Remote clocking: common questions

Which mobile apps allow UK employees to clock in and out securely from their own devices?
Most UK workforce suppliers now offer one, including Computime, BrightHR, e-days and OneAdvanced. What separates them is less the clocking and more what happens afterwards: whether the hours reach your payroll without being retyped, and whether the app is part of your attendance system or a separate thing to reconcile. On security, look for clockings that cannot be edited without leaving an audit trail, and ask where the data is stored. Ours is in the UK.
What are the best time and attendance solutions that offer mobile access for remote employees?
It depends on what else you need. If you only want clocking and nothing more, a standalone app is a fair choice and there are good ones. If you already run shifts, absence and payroll exports, buying a separate clocking app usually creates a reconciliation job rather than removing one, and you are better off with the app that belongs to your attendance system. We would say the same if the system you already run is not ours.
Can I make staff use their own phone to clock in?
Legally it is a grey area and practically it is a bad place to start an argument. If someone refuses, insisting rarely ends well. The employers who get this right decide their position before rollout: either an allowance, or a company device for anyone who wants one, or browser clocking as an alternative. Any of those is fine. Having no answer when the first person says no is what causes the problem.
Is it legal to record an employee’s location in the UK?
Recording location at the point of clocking is generally defensible, because it is proportionate and tied to a clear purpose. Tracking someone continuously through the working day is a much harder case to make, and the ICO’s guidance on monitoring workers is the place to start. Either way staff must be told what is recorded and why, before it starts rather than after.
What if someone does not have a smartphone?
They clock in a browser instead, on any computer or tablet, or at a terminal if there is a base they pass through. Nobody should be excluded from being paid correctly because of the phone they own, and a system that only works one way will eventually cost you more than it saves.
Can an employee turn location off?
On any phone, yes. Location is a device permission and the operating system gives it to the user, not to us or to you. A clocking made with location switched off still records the time, it just has no place attached. In practice that is useful information: a pattern of clockings with no location is worth a conversation rather than a technical fix.
Will it drain their battery or use a lot of data?
No, because it is not running in the background. The app does something when somebody opens it and clocks, and nothing the rest of the day. Apps that track continuously are the ones that flatten a battery, which is another reason not to buy one.
What happens if a remote worker forgets to clock out?
It is flagged as an anomaly for a manager to correct, with a record of who changed it and when. It happens more with remote staff than office staff, because there is no physical act of leaving a building to prompt it. Anyone who tells you their system removes missed clockings entirely is overselling. What it does is put them in front of someone before payroll runs rather than after.
How do remote hours get into payroll?
The same way as everyone else’s. Remote clockings land in the same timesheets as terminal clockings, get approved in the same place, and export to Sage, Xero, QuickBooks, BrightPay, IRIS, ADP or Pegasus. The point of this is not the app, it is that you stop maintaining two sets of hours.
How much does a remote time and attendance app cost?
With Computime it is £3 per employee per month excl. VAT, which is £2 for the software and £1 for the app, with no setup fee and no charge per site. Across the UK market you will see roughly £1 to £8 per employee per month, and the spread usually comes down to what is bundled. Check whether the price is per person or per location, because per location pricing punishes multi-site businesses hardest.
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