Daybook
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Product guide

Everything the product means by everything it says

This page is the whole product in words: how to set it up, how a week actually runs, what each role can reach, and the exact meaning of every term you will see on screen. It is worth ten minutes before your first period close.

Getting started

A new organisation can record time immediately, but it cannot judge time until it knows two things: who works here, and when they are expected. Four steps get you there, and the checklist on Home disappears once they are done.

1 · Set the organisation up

Country, timezone and workweek start are chosen when you register, and everything else inherits from them: the currency on payroll, the day a week rolls over, the pay-period anchor. Get them right first — they are the assumptions every later number rests on.

2 · Import your public holidays

On the Holidays page, import the published public holidays for your country and year in one action. Every person in the organisation inherits them immediately. You can add your own days too — a shutdown week, a founding anniversary — and mark them to repeat every year.

3 · Create a schedule and assign it

A schedule is what makes late and absentmean something. Create one under Schedules & rules, set a grace period, then assign it — to the whole organisation as a default, to a team, or to one person. The most specific assignment wins: individual beats team, team beats the organisation default.

4 · Add your people

Add everyone on the People page. Give someone an email and an invitation to sign in is sent automatically. Leave the email blank and they become a kiosk-only worker — give them a PIN from their profile and they punch on the shared tablet instead. Nobody is ever blocked from being tracked just because they have not accepted an invite.

Put people onto teams as you add them. A team is what connects a person to their manager, and it is the only thing that decides what that manager can see.

Public holidays

Holidays are organisation-wide by design. There is one calendar, and every person inherits every day on it. There is no per-person holiday list, because keeping dozens of them in sync is exactly how a January bank holiday ends up recorded as forty absences.

  • Import, then adjust. Importing a country calendar adds the published days for that year. Run it again for next year whenever you like — days already on the calendar are left alone, so importing twice is harmless.
  • Recurring days repeat.Fixed-date holidays like New Year’s Day are marked to recur, so they come back every year on their own. Days that move — Easter, the Monday bank holidays, Thanksgiving — are dated for the specific year.
  • A holiday is not an absence. Someone scheduled on a holiday who does not work shows as Holiday, never Absent, and never lands in the queue.
  • A holiday is not a lock either. If someone genuinely works the day, they clock in as normal. The web app asks them to confirm; the kiosk records the punch and tells them it is being logged as holiday work. The day is then reported as Worked holiday and counted separately in reports, so you can pay it at whatever rate you use for holiday work.

Punching and breaks

There are two ways in, and they are deliberately equal. People with an account clock in from their phone or laptop. People without one use a shared kiosk and a personal PIN. Both run through the same rules — the kiosk is never a way around a schedule.

  • Breaks are started and ended explicitly, and unpaid breaks come off payable time automatically.
  • Clocking out always ends any break still running, so an open break can never outlive its shift.
  • A PIN locks out after repeated wrong attempts, and an admin can reset it.
  • Every punch records its source — web, kiosk, or a manual correction — and that source is visible in the entry’s history forever.
Aisha BelloEnter your PIN
123456789⌫0↵
Today is a public holiday — this time is recorded as holiday work.

Running a week

Day to day, one page matters: Home. It shows who is on shift right now, then everything waiting on a decision — punch fixes, time-off requests, attendance deviations and auto clock-outs to confirm.

  • Clear the queue as you go. Approve a correction, decide a leave request, or accept a deviation with a reason. Handling things while they are fresh is far cheaper than reconstructing them at period close.
  • Accepting is not erasing. An accepted deviation leaves the queue but stays on the record with your name and your reason on it, and it can be revoked if you change your mind.
  • The live board is for right now.Who is in, who is late, who has not arrived yet. It refreshes on its own and is the fastest way to answer “is the shift covered?”

Every status, and what it means

Every person gets exactly one status per day, derived by comparing what was expected against what actually happened. Four of them are exceptions and collect in the queue; the rest are just facts.

PresentWorked as expected, or currently working and on time. Nothing to do.
LateArrived after the scheduled start plus the grace period — or the start plus grace has passed with no punch yet. Appears in the queue.
Left earlyClocked out before the scheduled end. Appears in the queue.
AbsentA scheduled day has fully elapsed with no punch at all. Appears in the queue.
UnscheduledWorked a day that was not part of the pattern — a rest day. Not wrong, but worth knowing about, so it appears in the queue.
ExpectedScheduled later today. Not due yet, so not an exception yet. It becomes Late or Absent on its own as the day passes.
OffNothing expected and nothing worked. A rest day.
On leaveApproved leave covers the day. Never counted as absent.
HolidayA public holiday covers the day and the person did not work. Never counted as absent.
Worked holidayA public holiday the person actually worked. Not an exception — it is payable time, counted separately in the attendance and payroll reports so it can be paid at whatever rate you use for holidays.

Time off and balances

People request leave against a balance; a manager approves or rejects it with a reason. Approved leave covers the day, so nobody scheduled on it is ever reported absent, and paid leave flows into payroll as its own line rather than being mixed into worked hours.

  • Half days are supported — a half day still allows a punch for the working half.
  • Balances can be adjusted by a manager or admin, and every adjustment records who made it and why.
  • Cancelling an approved request returns the balance and is recorded like any other decision.

Approve, lock, export

At the end of the period, Approvals lists every week waiting on you. Everyone with a clean week can be approved in one action; anyone with an unresolved exception is deliberately left out of that bulk approval, because a bulk button that quietly swallows problems is worse than no bulk button.

  • Approve per person. One disputed week never blocks the other thirty.
  • Lock the period. If a deadline forces you to close with something unapproved, you can — it is permanently marked as unapproved rather than hidden.
  • Export.Payroll totals payable hours, paid leave, worked holidays and cost at each person’s dated rate, and hands you a CSV with the same figures you see on screen.
  • Reopen only if you must. Owner-only, reason required, everyone affected notified.
Priya Raman · week of 4 MaySubmitted
DayInOutWorkedNote
Mon08:5817:047:3630 min break
Tue09:1217:007:18Late — accepted
Wed08:5517:027:37
Thu——0:00Annual leave
Fri09:0016:317:01Corrected 16:31
Total29:32+ 7:36 paid leave
Approve weekAsk for a change

Roles and what they see

Four roles, drawn so that no single person can quietly rewrite what was paid.

CapabilityMemberManagerAdminOwner
Clock in and out, take breaks✓✓✓✓
Request a correction or time off✓✓✓✓
See the live board and exception queue—✓✓✓
Approve corrections, leave and timesheets—✓✓✓
Assign schedules, set kiosk PINs, adjust balances—✓✓✓
Add and edit people, teams and holidays——✓✓
See and set pay rates——✓✓
Lock a pay period——✓✓
Reopen a locked pay period———✓
A manager is scoped by teams, not by job title. If someone is not on a team that manager manages, that manager cannot see them at all — not on the board, not in the queue, not through a direct link. The boundary is enforced in the database, so a guessed URL returns “not found”, not a page with the buttons greyed out.

Every word explained

The product uses a small vocabulary and means the same thing by it everywhere. This is all of it.

PunchA single clock-in or clock-out. The raw fact everything else is derived from. Punches are never edited in place — a correction creates a new version and keeps the original.
EntryA clock-in paired with its clock-out. While someone is still on shift the entry is open.
ScheduleThe pattern a person is expected to work. Fixed (set hours per weekday), flexible (expected minutes per day) or weekly flexible (a weekly target, no fixed days).
Grace periodHow many minutes after the scheduled start still counts as on time. Configured on the schedule, shown to the person it applies to — never a hidden tolerance.
DeviationA day where reality did not match the schedule: late, left early, absent, or worked outside the pattern. Deviations collect in the queue on Home.
Accept with a reasonClosing a deviation by explaining it rather than changing the record. The acceptance is stored with your name and reason, appears in the accepted log, and can be revoked.
CorrectionA request from a person to add, edit or remove one of their entries. A manager approves it as asked, edits the times first, or rejects it with a reason the person can read.
Auto clock-outA runaway open shift closed automatically at the maximum shift length — never at the moment someone noticed. It is flagged, the person is told, and a manager confirms it.
Public holidayA day on the organisation calendar. One list, inherited by every person — there is no per-person holiday list. A holiday never blocks a punch.
Pay periodThe window payroll is run for — a week or a month, anchored to your workweek start. Timesheets are submitted, approved and locked per period.
SubmittedThe person says their week is right and hands it to their manager.
ApprovedA manager agrees the week is right. It is now frozen against the person editing it.
LockedThe period is closed for payroll. Frozen against everyone. Only the owner can reopen it, only with a reason, and everyone affected is notified.
Locked — unapprovedA period closed on deadline with a timesheet nobody approved. Permanently marked as such in the export and the audit trail, so it can never be mistaken for an approved one.
TeamA real group of people — kitchen, front desk, night shift. A team links people to the manager who runs them, and scopes what that manager can see.
KioskA shared tablet where people without an email clock in with a PIN. It obeys exactly the same rules as every other channel.
Payable minutesWhat payroll should pay for: worked time, minus unpaid breaks, plus paid leave. Computed, never typed in.
Audit trailThe append-only record of every decision that touched someone’s time: who, when, and the reason they gave. Rows are added, never changed or removed.

Rules that never bend

  • Worked time is never suppressed. If someone clocks in on a holiday or an approved leave day, the punch is still recorded — it surfaces as something to look at, not as nothing.
  • The past is never recalculated. Change a schedule, a rate or a policy and it takes effect forward. A week already worked keeps deriving under the rules that were in force then.
  • Nothing is edited in place.A correction creates a new version and the original stays retrievable in the entry’s history, with every hand that touched it.
  • Nothing is silently accepted. An automatic clock-out is flagged and waits for a human to confirm it. An accepted deviation carries a reason and the name of whoever accepted it.
  • The product reports, it never scores. No productivity ratings, no rankings, no league tables, no comparing one person against another.
Audit trailAppend-only
12 May 09:41Accepted “Late” for Priya RamanSarah Nkomo · “Train cancellation, agreed in advance”
12 May 09:44Requested correction: Fri out 16:31Priya Raman · “Forgot to clock out”
12 May 10:02Approved correctionSarah Nkomo · “Confirmed with shift lead”
13 May 08:15Locked pay period 4–10 MayDara Okonjo

Common questions

Someone forgot to clock out. What happens?

The shift is closed automatically at the maximum shift length — not at the moment anyone noticed, so a forgotten punch can never inflate payroll. It is flagged as auto-closed, the person is told, and it appears on Home for a manager to confirm or correct.

Can someone edit their own hours?

They request a correction and a manager decides. Approve as asked, adjust the times first, or reject with a reason the person can read. Either way the original is preserved.

Do we have to add holidays for every person?

No — that is the point. Holidays live on one organisation calendar and everyone inherits them automatically. Add a day once and it applies to every person, including people added months later.

Someone worked on a public holiday. Is that a problem?

Not at all. They clock in as normal and the day is recorded as Worked holiday — payable time, counted on its own line in the attendance and payroll reports so you can apply whatever holiday rate you use.

We closed the period and payroll found a mistake.

The owner reopens it with a reason. The reopen is audited and everyone affected is notified. Correct the entry, re-approve, re-lock — the whole sequence stays on the record.

Someone has no email or phone.

Give them a kiosk PIN. They punch on a shared tablet and appear in every report exactly like everyone else. If they later get an email, converting them keeps all of their history.

What happens to a manager’s access when someone moves teams?

Team changes take effect from the next workweek, so a week in progress never changes shape underneath the manager who is reviewing it. The previous manager keeps read access to the weeks they were responsible for.

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