A geofence is a virtual boundary drawn around a physical location. When an employee tries to clock in, the app checks their GPS coordinates against that boundary — if they’re inside, the punch goes through; if they’re outside, it’s blocked or flagged. Drawing one takes about 60 seconds. How to draw a geofence well, so it covers your parking lot but not the coffee shop across the street, takes a bit more thought. This guide walks through the whole process.
What is a geofence and how does it work?
A geofence is a GPS-based radius set by an admin around a specific coordinate. When an employee opens the clock-in button, the app reads their current GPS position and compares it to the geofence for their assigned location. If they’re within the radius, the clock-in is allowed. If not, it’s blocked or flagged depending on how you’ve configured it.
This closes the most common time-theft gap: the employee who clocks in from the parking lot, from home, or from a friend’s phone two blocks away. It also removes the management overhead of reviewing GPS logs manually — the app does the check automatically on every punch.
Geofences also apply to clock-out. Some teams configure enforcement only on clock-in (you can’t punch in from off-site), while others enforce both directions. Pick what fits your workflow.
How to draw a geofence: step-by-step
- 01
Open your location settings
In ClockOut, go to Admin → Locations and select the location you want to configure, or add a new one. Each location has its own geofence settings.
- 02
Find your address on the map
Enter the address of your business. The map centers on that coordinate. Zoom in until you can see the building footprint and the surrounding block — this is your working view.
- 03
Set the radius
Drag the radius slider to set the boundary. The map updates in real time, showing you the circle on the satellite view.
- Small retail or café: 30–50 meters. Covers the storefront and immediate sidewalk without catching the neighboring business.
- Standard office or clinic: 50–100 meters. Covers the building plus the parking lot.
- Warehouse or large site: 150–300 meters. Adjust until the circle covers the gate or entrance, not the street.
- Outdoor job site: 100–200 meters. Field crews often have a larger working area; set the radius to cover the site boundary.
- 04
Choose enforcement mode
Pick how out-of-bounds punches are handled:
- Block: Out-of-bounds clock-ins are rejected. The employee sees an error and must be on-site to punch in.
- Flag: The clock-in goes through but lands in the exception inbox for manager review. Use this during rollout, then switch to block once you’ve validated your radius.
- 05
Save and test with your own phone
Save the geofence, then walk the perimeter with your phone and try clocking in from a few spots. Confirm the boundary catches where you expect it to. Adjust the radius if the coffee shop or parking lot across the street is inside the circle.
- 06
Switch to block mode after one week in flag mode
Run in flag-only mode for 5–7 days. Review the exception inbox to see which punches were flagged and why. If the flagged locations look legitimate (e.g., staff in the parking lot a few seconds before entering), expand the radius slightly. If the flags are all genuinely off-site, switch to block.
Choosing the right radius
The most common mistake when drawing a geofence is making it too tight. GPS on a modern smartphone is accurate to 3–10 meters in open sky, but buildings, parking structures, and urban canyons can degrade that to 20–30 meters. If your radius is 20 meters and GPS drift is 15 meters, half your staff will get spurious blocks on days when satellite coverage is poor.
Rules of thumb by business type
- Café or boutique in a dense block: 40 meters. Tight enough to exclude the neighboring storefront.
- Free-standing restaurant or clinic: 75 meters. Covers the building plus the immediately adjacent parking.
- Office park or campus: 150 meters. The parking lot is part of the work site; include it.
- Construction job site: 200+ meters. The crew needs to clock in at the gate or the trailer, which may be at the edge of the site.
- Warehouse with poor GPS indoors: 100–150 meters, or switch to kiosk mode for indoor punches.
Setting up geofences per location
If you have multiple locations, each one gets its own geofence. This matters for two reasons: the radius that fits a downtown café won’t fit an outdoor job site, and you want each location’s manager to own their own boundary rather than one global setting that fits nobody well.
On ClockOut Starter+, each location has independent geofence settings, managers, schedules, and overtime rules. Staff assigned to multiple locations clock in at whichever site they’re working, and the punch tags to the nearest matching geofence. See GPS Time Clock Setup: A 10-Minute Walkthrough for the full location-configuration walkthrough.
What to tell your team about geofencing
The biggest rollout problem isn’t technical — it’s the perception that geofencing is surveillance. It isn’t: the app only checks GPS at the moment of a clock-in, not continuously. No background tracking, no location history outside of punch events.
A short team message covers it:
- “Starting Monday, the time clock will check that you’re on-site when you clock in. GPS is checked at the moment you tap the button — that’s it. We don’t track your location any other time.”
- “If you get a location error at the door, let me know right away. It might mean the radius needs adjusting, not that you did something wrong.”
- “If you’re clocking in from a company kiosk tablet, the geofence doesn’t apply to you — the tablet is already at the entrance.”
Troubleshooting common geofence problems
Staff getting blocked when they’re clearly on-site
- Check that location services are enabled for the ClockOut app on the device. Many phones default to “only while using the app” — that’s fine.
- Try enlarging the radius by 20–30 meters. Buildings and parking structures degrade GPS accuracy.
- Switch to flag-only mode temporarily, watch the exception inbox for a week, then adjust.
Staff clocking in from off-site and not getting blocked
- Confirm enforcement mode is set to “Block,” not “Flag.”
- Check that the employee is assigned to the correct location. Punches are checked against the employee’s assigned location geofence.
- GPS spoofing apps can bypass location checks. If you suspect deliberate spoofing, the exception inbox audit log will show device-ID anomalies.