Time tracking & monitoring

Clocking In & Location

How employees clock in and out, the project/task/description and location requirements, breaks, offline capture, rounding, manual entry, and editing time entries.

What this covers

Clocking in and out is the core of time tracking: it records when work starts, when it stops, how long breaks lasted, and — when enabled — where the clock event happened. This page explains what an employee sees and supplies when they clock in, which settings administrators control, and how worked time is calculated.

Where settings live. The behaviors below are controlled by your organization's Time Tracking settings, edited by an Administrator. Defaults listed here are the values a brand-new organization starts with — your admin may have changed them.

Clocking in and out

From the Time Tracking screen (web or mobile) an employee can:

Action	What it does
Clock In	Starts a new worked period
Clock Out	Ends the current period and finalizes the entry
Start Break	Begins an unpaid break within the current period
End Break	Ends the break and adds its minutes to your cumulative break time

Your worked duration for an entry is calculated as:

worked = clock-out time − clock-in time − total break time

So a 9:00–17:00 shift with a 30-minute break records 7h 30m of worked time, not 8 hours.

What you supply when clocking in

When you clock in, the app validates your request in this order. If a required item is missing you'll see a specific error and the clock-in is rejected.

Requirement	Default	Error if missing	Notes
Not already clocked in	always	—	You can't open a second entry while one is open
Project selection	On	`PROJECT_REQUIRED`	The project must belong to your organization
Task selection	On	`TASK_REQUIRED`	The task must belong to your organization
Description	On	`DESCRIPTION_REQUIRED`	What you're working on; capped at 500 characters
Location allowed	On	`LOCATION_REQUIRED`	You must permit location access (see below)

The description and the captured address are each capped at 500 characters. If location is required, your coordinates are also range-validated (a plausible latitude/longitude).

Why require a project, task, and description? It makes every minute traceable to real work, which is what powers accurate project costing, billing, and reports. Admins who don't need this granularity can turn any of these off.

Location capture

When location is required (or simply allowed), each clock-in and clock-out stores:

Latitude and longitude
A reverse-geocoded address
The GPS accuracy (in metres)
A location-confidence level derived from that accuracy
With geofencing enabled, which fence applied and whether you were inside it

Confidence is grouped by how precise the GPS reading was:

Confidence	GPS accuracy
High	≤ 20 m
Medium	20–100 m
Low	100–500 m
Unverified	> 500 m

Why store accuracy and confidence? A clock-in from a 5-metre-accurate reading is far more trustworthy than one from a 600-metre reading. Recording both lets approvers and geofencing judge a location fairly instead of treating every GPS fix as equal.

Breaks

Action	Rule
Start Break	Records the break start. Errors if you're already on a break.
End Break	Adds the elapsed minutes to your cumulative break total for the entry.

A "minimum break" setting exists (for example, at least a 30-minute break after 5 hours).

Break enforcement is configurable, not yet enforced. The "enforce breaks", minimum-break-after, and minimum-break-duration settings can be set today, but the app does not currently block or auto-insert breaks based on them. Treat them as a stated policy, not an automatic guardrail.

Offline capture (mobile)

The mobile app can record a clock event while offline and submit it when connectivity returns. The submitted timestamp is accepted within these tolerances:

Direction	Allowed drift
Future	up to ~15 minutes
Past	up to 24 hours

Anything outside that window is rejected with TIMESTAMP_OUT_OF_RANGE — for older corrections you must use a manual time entry instead (subject to the manual-entry permission below).

Rounding (optional)

Rounding is off by default. When an admin enables it, clock-in and clock-out times are rounded to an interval before the entry is finalized.

Option	Values
Interval	1–60 minutes (default 15)
Direction	Round up, round down, or round to nearest

The worked duration is calculated from the rounded times, so the hours shown on screen, in reports, and on invoices all agree.

Manual time entry

A manual entry lets someone record worked time without a live clock-in (for example, to log a forgotten shift).

Who	Allowed?
Administrator / Executive	Always
Department Head / Employee	Only if "allow manual time entry" is on (default off)

Manual entries also respect pay-period lockdown — an entry whose date falls in a locked window can't be created by employees.

Editing time entries

Who	Allowed?
Administrator / Executive	Always
Department Head / Employee	Only if "allow editing clock in/out" is on (default off)

Editing is also blocked when the entry falls inside a locked pay period — see Overtime & Pay-Period Lockdown.

Troubleshooting

Symptom	Cause	Fix
`PROJECT_REQUIRED` / `TASK_REQUIRED` / `DESCRIPTION_REQUIRED`	A required field was empty	Select a project/task and add a description before clocking in
`LOCATION_REQUIRED`	Location is required but not granted	Enable location services / grant the app permission, then retry
"Already clocked in"	An open entry exists	Clock out (or end the open entry) before clocking in again
`TIMESTAMP_OUT_OF_RANGE`	Offline timestamp is too far in the past/future	Use a manual time entry for older corrections
Can't add a manual entry	"Allow manual time entry" is off for your role	Ask an administrator to enable it or to add the entry for you
Can't edit your entry	"Allow editing clock in/out" is off, or the entry is in a locked pay period	Ask an administrator
Description rejected	Over 500 characters	Shorten the description (and address, if applicable)

Time Approvals

How time entries reach the approvals queue, who can approve them, the approve/reject action, and what notifications and integrations fire on approval.

Overtime & Pay-Period Lockdown

Overtime settings and how they're reported, the approval flow for time entries, pay-period lockdown for payroll compliance, and schedule/timesheet visibility settings.