Time clock and schedule

Staff clock in and out with their PIN on the iPad. In the back office, Team › Time clock is where managers fix and approve those entries, and Team › Schedule is where they plan the week and share it with staff. Pay and overtime are on The Labor report.

Clock in and out on the iPad

Staff record their attendance with their PIN: clock in, start and end a break, clock out. The time clock doesn't sign anyone in and doesn't open the day or the drawer. Each clock-in to clock-out is one time entry, with its breaks inside it; the back office time clock and Labor read these entries.

Anyone who is active and has a PIN can use it on a paired iPad, without signing in.

Clock in

1. On the iPad's PIN screen, tap Time clock (at the bottom, beside View Menu). The sheet says "Enter your PIN to clock in or out."
2. Type your 4-digit PIN. It's checked as soon as the fourth digit is in.
3. The sheet shows "Hi, …", your status, your hours this week and today's punches.
4. Tap Clock in. "Clocked in at …" confirms it.
5. Tap Done.

Take a break

1. Tap Time clock, type your PIN and tap Start break: "Break started at …"
2. When you're back, tap Time clock, type your PIN and tap End break: "Break ended."

Clock out

1. If you're signed in on the POS, sign out first: tap ··· More › Sign Out. The time clock is only on the PIN screen.
2. Tap Time clock, type your PIN and tap Clock out: "Clocked out. See you!" A break that's still running ends at the same moment.

How the time clock works

• The buttons follow your status. Clocked out: Clock in. Clocked in: Start break (large) and Clock out. On a break: End break (large) and Clock out. Clock out is always the second button and never the large one, so a hurried double tap after ending a break can't clock you out.
• The status line reads "You are clocked out.", "Clocked in since …" or "On break since …". It shows only a time, even when the clock-in was yesterday.
• Every button checks your PIN again and reads your real status at that moment, so a double tap never makes a second entry or a second break.
• Times are taken at the moment you tap.
• Breaks taken on the iPad are unpaid. An admin or manager can mark a break as paid in the back office.
• This week ("This week: 32 h 15 min") adds up every entry since the start of your venue's current service week — its first day, at the service-day start time. An entry still open counts up to now; unpaid breaks come off; the total is rounded down to whole minutes. Labor counts payable hours the same way.
• Today's punches are the entries since the current service day began, for example "In 5:02 PM · Break 8:10 PM–8:30 PM · Out —", in the iPad's language and the venue's time zone.
• Wrong PINs count toward the same lockout as signing in: five wrong PINs within five minutes on one iPad, with no correct PIN in between, lock PIN entry on that iPad until those tries are five minutes old.
• The sheet's footnote: "Doesn't sign in or open a shift — attendance only. Each action re-verifies the PIN."

Messages and limits

• "Incorrect PIN. Try again." and "Too many attempts. Wait 5 minutes."
• "This iPad isn't paired — pair it again."
• "You must be clocked in to start a break." — for example when someone clocked you out on another iPad in the meantime. The sheet then shows your real status.
• The time clock needs a connection: every punch is recorded at once, and nothing is saved for later while offline.
• Inactive staff and staff with no PIN can't use it; add their hours in the back office (see Fix, add or delete time entries).

Clock-in prompts at sign-in

When a manager, bartender, server or barback signs in on the iPad, the POS opens only once they're clocked in and off their break. The iPad asks right there, with one tap, because the PIN was just checked. Admins skip these prompts and go straight in.

The prompts come right after a correct PIN (after the Start the day prompt, when the day hasn't started; see Signing in on the iPad).

If you're not clocked in

1. Type your PIN. The card reads "Hi, …" and "You're not clocked in. Clock in to start your shift."
2. Tap Clock in: you're clocked in and the POS opens. Or tap Not now to go back to the PIN screen, not clocked in and not signed in.

The card's footnote says "Doesn't open a shift — the POS opens after you're clocked in." It closes on its own after 90 seconds, or when the iPad goes to the background, and goes back to the PIN screen without signing in.

If you're on a break

1. Type your PIN. The card reads "…, you're on your break" and "End your break to open the POS, or leave it running and come back later."
2. Tap End break and sign in, or Stay on break to go back to the PIN screen with the break still running.

If you're still on the clock from an earlier day

This prompt only appears when your venue has turned on Allow closing the day with staff still on the clock.

1. Type your PIN. The card reads "Still on the clock since …. Clock out that shift?"
2. Tap Clock out: the old entry ends now and a new one starts now — "Clocking out ends yesterday's entry and starts a new one now." Or tap Leave it open, for a real double shift, for example. Either answer signs you in.

Rules to know

• "An earlier day" means you clocked in before the start of the current service day.
• If the iPad can't read your clock status, it lets you in rather than lock the room out.
• Nothing on the iPad ever makes up a clock-out time. The only automatic clock-outs are the ones Close the day makes.
• Admins can work on the POS without being clocked in; their hours exist only if they also use the time clock.
• If the new clock-in after Clock out fails, you're signed in but not clocked in, and the next sign-in asks again.

The time clock in the back office

Team › Time clock lists every time entry for a range of service nights, grouped by night, with hours worked, breaks, net hours and approval. It's where a manager finds and fixes the entries payroll would get wrong.

Who can do this: admins and managers.

Look at a period

1. In the back office, go to Team › Time clock.
2. Pick a range: 7 days, 14 days, 30 days, This week, Last week or This month, or set From and To. The page opens on 14 days.
3. Narrow the list with Search staff and the status filter: All, Clocked in, Completed or Unapproved.

To export, click Export CSV. The file has one row per entry shown: Staff, In, Out (or "in progress"), Worked, Breaks, Unpaid break, Net and Approved.

What the page shows

• An entry belongs to the service night of its clock-in: a shift from 5:06 PM to 2:36 AM is one night's work. Your service-day start (Settings › Hours & scheduling › Service time) decides the nights, and your service week decides This week and Last week.
• The list holds the entries clocked in within the range, plus every entry still open, whatever its date.
• Nights are newest first; inside a night, entries are in clock-in order. Each night's header shows the date, how many people worked, the night's net hours, "still open" if anyone is still on the clock, and Approve night when there's something to approve.
• Columns: Staff, In, Out, Worked, Breaks, Net, Status and Actions. Times are in the venue's time zone and language.
• Worked = clock-out − clock-in, in whole minutes. Net = Worked minus unpaid breaks; paid breaks stay in. A break with no end counts 0 minutes. Open entries show no Worked or Net.
• The four tiles: Total net hours (of the entries listed), Currently clocked in (every open entry, any date), Needs fixing (see Forgotten clock-outs and long shifts) and Completed, not approved.
• Status is Clocked in for an open entry, and Approved or Not approved for a completed one.
• Some notes are written by Barform itself: "forced out at shift close" and "clocked out at shift close" when Close the day clocks someone out, and "import:touchbistro …" on imported history.
• Times here are in whole minutes; Labor works to the second, so the two can differ by a minute or so.

Fix, add or delete time entries

Fix the punches people forgot or got wrong: a missing clock-out, a wrong time, a forgotten break, a whole shift that was never punched, or an entry that shouldn't exist.

Who can do this: admins and managers.

Set a forgotten clock-out

1. Find the entry (filter Clocked in if you need to) and click its pencil. Edit time entry says the shift is still in progress.
2. Under Clock out, click Set clock-out and enter the date and time. Keep in progress undoes it.
3. If the person is still on a break (the break shows On break), give that break an End time first.
4. Optional: write a Note, such as "forgot to clock out".
5. Click Save. "Entry updated" appears.

Add a whole missed shift

1. Click Add entry. Add time entry opens.
2. Pick the Staff member. Only active people are listed.
3. Set Clock in (it starts at now) and Clock out. Leave Clock out empty only for a shift that's still in progress.
4. Add breaks if needed (below) and a note if you like, then click Add. "Entry added" appears.

Add or change a break

1. In the entry's dialog, click Add break. A row appears with Start set to the clock-in time, End empty and Paid off.
2. Set Start and End. Turn on Paid for a paid break.
3. To remove a break, click its X (Remove break). Click Save.

Delete an entry

Open the entry, click Delete, then Confirm at "Delete this entry?" — or Keep to leave it.

Deleting is permanent: the entry and its breaks are gone.

Rules to know

• Before saving, Barform checks that there's a clock-in, that the clock-out isn't before it, that every break starts at or after the clock-in and, on a completed shift, ends by the clock-out, that no break ends before it starts, that a completed shift has no break without an end, and that there's at most one open break and one open entry per person.
• Saving an edit keeps the entry's approval.
• The person's iPad time clock sees the corrected entry at once.
• An inactive person's entries can still be edited, but they can't be picked for a new entry.
• Nothing stops two completed entries of the same person from overlapping, and Labor pays both.
• Messages you may see: "A clock-in time is required.", "Clock-out can't be before clock-in.", "A break can't start before clock-in.", "A break can't start after clock-out.", "A break can't end after clock-out.", "A break's end can't be before its start.", "Add an end time to the break — the shift is completed.", "Only one break can be open (no end time) at a time.", "That staff member already has an open shift — set a clock-out time first.", "This shift already has an open break — give it an end time first.", "Pick a staff member."
• If someone deletes the entry while you're saving it: "Saved, but the entry changed while saving — refresh the page."

Approve time entries

Approving marks completed entries as checked, so whoever runs payroll can see which nights have been reviewed.

Who can do this: admins and managers.

• One entry: click Approve on a completed entry. "Approved" appears. To undo, click Unapprove: "Approval removed".
• A whole night: click Approve night (N) on the night's header. Every completed, not-yet-approved entry of that night that matches the current search and status filter is approved: "N entries approved".

How approval works:

• Only completed entries can be approved; open entries have no Approve button.
• Approval records who approved and when.
• Approval doesn't change any number: Labor counts approved and unapproved entries alike.
• If some approvals of a night fail, the first error shows (or "Some entries could not be approved.") and those rows go back to Not approved.
• An approved entry that's edited later stays approved.

Forgotten clock-outs and long shifts

Barform points at the entries that would be wrong on payroll unless someone fixes them: people who never clocked out, shifts over 12 hours, and entries left open across a closed day. You'll see them in three places:

• Team › Time clock: the Needs fixing tile, and an "open since a closed day" badge on the row.
• Today: "… never clocked out on …", naming people by first name, with the service night of the first entry it lists and a link to Time clock.
• Reports › Labor: the box Still on the clock from a closed day; see The Labor report.

To clear the Needs fixing count:

1. On the Time clock page, filter Clocked in to see the open entries.
2. For each forgotten one, set the clock-out (see Set a forgotten clock-out).
3. For a completed shift over 12 hours, check its times and correct them if they're wrong.

How the flags work:

• Never clocked out (on Today and the tile): an open entry clocked in more than 16 hours ago. Sixteen hours is longer than any bar shift and shorter than the gap to the next one, so tonight's open entries are never flagged.
• The tile adds those to the completed entries in the range whose worked time (before breaks) is over 12 hours. Its note reads "… never clocked out · … over 12 hours", or "No open or overlong entries."
• "open since a closed day" marks an open entry that clocked in before your venue's most recent day close. A day closed and started again this afternoon flags nobody.
• Open entries stay out of Labor until they're closed. Once closed, they land, whole, on the night they clocked in.
• Nothing is clocked out automatically except by Close the day. With Allow closing the day with staff still on the clock off, Close the day clocks everyone out, so entries rarely stay open; with it on, they can stay open for days.
• An open entry from the current service week keeps adding hours to that person's This week line on the iPad until it's fixed.

Build the weekly schedule

Team › Schedule is a seven-day calendar of planned shifts: who works which night, in which position, from when to when. Shifts can be left unassigned ("we need a barback Friday"). Staff see the plan only after you publish it, through their own link.

Who can do this: admins and managers.

Add a shift

1. In the back office, go to Team › Schedule and find the week with ← Previous and Next →.
2. Click Add at the bottom of a day. New shift opens.
3. Who: a person, or Open shift — "Leave open to fill it later."
4. Position: Bartender, Server, Barback or Manager.
5. Start and End: hour, minutes and AM/PM. The dialog starts at 5:00 PM – 2:00 AM. Its heading shows the times, the length and "ends next day" for an overnight shift.
6. Notes (optional), such as "covering the patio".
7. Click Save. "Shift added" appears. A new shift is a draft.

Change, move or delete a shift

• Click the pencil on the shift's card. Edit shift opens with the same fields. Change them and click Save, or click Delete and confirm "Delete this shift?".
• To move a shift to another day, drag it by its grip ("Drag to move to another day") and drop it on another day of the week. "Shift moved" appears.

Start an empty week fast

An empty week says "Plan this week: add a shift on a day below, copy last week, or apply a template." Click Copy last week to copy the previous week's shifts as drafts, or apply a template (see Schedule templates).

How the schedule works

• The seven days start on your service week's first day: Your service week begins on a in Settings › Hours & scheduling › Service time, Monday unless you change it.
• A shift belongs to a service night, with a start and an end time. An end at or before the start runs past midnight and is marked (+1); the same start and end make 24 hours.
• Hours = end − start, adding a day for overnight shifts. The page shows "Scheduled this week: …" and each day's total in its header.
• Who lists active staff only. Position is chosen apart from the person's role, so a bartender can be scheduled as a server. There's no Admin position.
• Each card shows the person (or Open shift, in amber), the position, the times, the notes and Draft until it's published. A person's floor color shows as a colored left edge.
• Editing or dragging a published shift keeps it published, and the change reaches staff at once. A new shift is always a draft.
• Copy last week copies every shift of the previous week, draft or published, and adds them as drafts; nothing is removed: "… shifts copied from last week, as drafts." With nothing to copy: "Last week has no shifts to copy."
• There's no button to clear a week: delete shifts one by one.
• A shift assigned to someone who's since been deactivated shows "—" as the name.

Schedule templates

A template saves a week as a named pattern, such as "Standard week", to lay over any later week.

Save the week as a template

1. Click Templates.
2. Under Save this week as a template, type a name and click Save. "Template saved" appears.

Apply a template

1. Go to the week you want to fill and click Templates.
2. Under Apply a template, pick the template and click Apply. "Template applied" appears.

Delete a template

Pick it, click the bin and confirm "Delete the template …?".

How templates work

• A template keeps each shift's person (or open), position, times and notes. It's saved by day of the service week, so it fits any week.
• Applying adds the template's shifts to the week as drafts and never removes what's there: "Applying adds to this week; it never clears what is already there." Applying the same template twice doubles the shifts.
• Template names are unique, up to 80 characters.
• A template still assigns people who've since been deactivated.
• Messages you may see: "Name the template first.", "There is nothing in this week to save.", "A template with that name already exists.", "That template has no shifts in it.", "Template not found."

Publish the week

Until you publish it, the week is a draft only the office sees.

1. Click Publish week: "Week published — staff can see it now". The badge turns to Published.
2. To take it back: once every shift of the week is published, the button becomes Retract. Click it: "Week retracted — staff can no longer see it". All the week's shifts go back to draft.

• The badge shows Published only when every shift of the week is published; otherwise it shows "Draft" with how many are published out of the total, such as "Draft · 3/5".
• Publish week publishes every shift of the seven days at once.
• Staff links show published shifts only. Labor's Planned vs worked counts drafts too.
• Adding a shift to a published week turns the badge back to "Draft · …", and the new shift stays hidden from staff until you click Publish week again. Shifts already published stay visible meanwhile.

Send staff their schedule link

Each person can have a private web link that shows their own upcoming published shifts on their phone, with no sign-in. It's the only way staff see the schedule.

Who can do this: admins and managers create, replace and revoke links. Anyone who has a link can open it.

Send someone their link

1. In the back office, go to Team › Staff and click Share schedule on their row. (It shows once your venue has at least one shift on its schedule.) The link is created and copied: "Link copied — send it to them".
2. Paste it into a message to them: WhatsApp, SMS or email.

Send it again, or after it leaked

1. Click Replace link and confirm "Create a new link for …? Any link already sent to them will stop working." The new link is copied: "New link created — the old one no longer works".
2. Send the new link.

Stop a link

Click Revoke link and confirm "Revoke …'s schedule link? They will lose access until you issue a new one." "Link revoked" appears.

What the person sees

• Their name, the venue's name and how many shifts and hours they have, then each shift with its day, start – end (with (+1) for overnight), its length, the position and the notes. The footnote: "Times are the venue's local times. A shift marked (+1) finishes the following morning."
• Published shifts from the venue's today through the next 28 days.
• The page is in Spanish or English, following the phone's browser language.
• Nothing else is reachable from the link: no other staff, no money, no drafts.
• A wrong, revoked or empty link, or the link of someone deactivated, all show the same page: "No upcoming shifts. If you were expecting some, ask a manager to re-send your link." Reactivating the person brings their link back.

Limits

• The link is shown once, when it's created or replaced. The back office never displays it again; to send it again, replace it.
• If copying fails ("Couldn't copy to clipboard"), the new link was still made and the old one already stopped working. Click Replace link again to get a copy.
• A shift still in progress after midnight drops off the link, because the link's window starts at the calendar date, not the service night.

Related

• Staff and roles
• Labor report
• Closing the day
• Signing in on the iPad
• Venue settings, hours and targets