Employee scheduling software built for teams of 10 to 50, with the time clock inside.

Most small teams run the schedule in one tool and the time clock in another, then reconcile the two before payroll. ClockOut is employee scheduling software and a GPS time clock in the same app, so the shift you assign is the shift the punch is checked against. It is built for businesses with 10 to 50 hourly staff: restaurants, clinics, cleaning companies, contractors, home care agencies, and security firms.

How employee scheduling works in ClockOut

The schedule is a weekly board: one row per employee, one column per day. Managers build it on a laptop, employees read it on their phones. Here is the whole loop, from a blank week to a payroll-ready timesheet.

1. 01

   Add the team and set availability

   Add employees one at a time, share an invite link, or upload a spreadsheet of up to 200 people at once. On Starter and Pro, each employee marks the days they cannot work, the hours they are free on the days they can, and a maximum number of hours per week.

2. 02

   Build the week

   Click a cell to add a shift, or drag an existing shift to another day or person. Give one person the same shift on several days in a single dialog, or two shifts on the same day as long as they don’t overlap. If a shift lands on a day the employee marked unavailable, outside their hours, or past their weekly limit, ClockOut refuses it and shows why, with a “Schedule anyway” override for the times you know better. A shift on approved time off is always refused.

3. 03

   Let the schedule repeat itself

   For the shifts that never change, save a recurring template: this person, this weekday, these hours. A nightly job creates the coming week’s shifts from the templates and skips any that would overlap a shift already on the board, so you only touch the exceptions.

4. 04

   Employees see it, confirm it, and trade it

   Each shift is visible to the employee the moment it exists. On Starter and Pro they can confirm or decline it with a reason, request a swap with a coworker, or claim an open shift you posted. Declines and claims notify the manager who created the shift.

5. 05

   The time clock checks the schedule

   Employees clock in from the app with GPS on the punch, or from a shared tablet kiosk. Because scheduling and time tracking share one system, a late arrival, an early leave, or a no-show shows up in the exception inbox for review, and approved hours export as CSV for payroll.

What the scheduling side includes

Drag-and-drop schedule board

The admin board is a week grid with employees down the side and days across the top. Drag a shift to move it, click a cell to add one, and jump between weeks with the date picker. Filter the board by employee group (a crew, a department, a shift team) or, on Pro, by work location, so you only see the people you are scheduling right now. Approved time off is marked on the days it covers, and company holidays show on the employee’s view.

A shift can be a training shift that shadows a coworker. It doesn’t count toward the staffing plan or the rotation tally, and the trainee doesn’t need to be set up for the position yet. Training shifts are on every plan.

Recurring schedules

A recurring template is a standing shift: one employee, one weekday, a start and end time, an optional note, and an optional fixed position (the receptionist who always works Front Desk). Every night ClockOut looks seven days ahead and creates the shifts those templates call for, unless one would overlap a shift already on the board. Delete a template when the standing shift ends. Recurring schedules are on Starter and Pro.

Open shifts

Post a shift with no one assigned and every eligible employee can see it and claim it from their phone. A claim goes through only if the person has no shift that overlaps it and no approved time off on it, so the first tap wins and nobody gets double-booked. When the shift has a position, only people who may work that position can claim it. The manager who posted the shift is notified when it is claimed, and unclaimed open shifts close on their own once the date passes.

Shift swaps

An employee picks one of their upcoming shifts, sees which coworker shifts in the next four weeks it could be traded for, and sends a request. The coworker accepts or declines. If they accept, the swap goes to a manager for approval, and only then do the two shifts change hands. Before approving, ClockOut re-checks that neither person has time off or an overlapping shift on the new date, and that the shifts have not already passed. Swaps only go to people who may work the shift’s position.

Availability and a weekly hours cap

On Starter and Pro each employee keeps their own availability: which days are off limits, what hours they can work on the other days, and the most hours they want in a week. The schedule builder enforces all three when a shift is added, whether by hand, by drag, or in bulk. Managers can override a single conflict on purpose; they cannot do it by accident. Approved time off from the PTO tracker is enforced on every plan and cannot be overridden.

Shift confirmation

Assigned shifts carry a confirm and a decline button. A decline asks for a reason and notifies the manager who created the shift. If a shift starting within the next 24 hours has not been confirmed or declined, the employee gets one reminder. When a manager changes the times on a confirmed shift, the confirmation is cleared and the employee is asked again. This is on Starter and Pro.

Positions and fair rotation

Create positions (register, line, front desk, night patrol) and attach one to any shift so it shows on the board and on the employee’s phone. Employees can file a rotation request to be put on or kept off a position for a date range, managers approve or deny it with a note, and a tally shows who has worked each position recently so the unpopular one gets shared around. The tally counts hours as well as shifts. A position can be limited to people you pick. Positions are on Starter and Pro; on Pro a position can also require a verified skill or certification.

Staffing plan and coverage by position

A staffing plan says how many people each position needs, and when: day templates with ranges (“1-2 in Treatment”) and part-day needs (“Treatment 13:00-18:00”). Each weekday follows a template, and any single date can use another template, a custom list, or be marked closed, or keep its usual plan with a note (“Nicole’s last day”) that staff see on their schedule. A closed-day template covers the weekdays you are always closed. Company holidays label the schedule but don’t close it; close one with a closed date change. On the week board, switch from People to Positions to see each need, who fills it, and what is missing. Click a gap to see who can take it, best first (fewest recent hours at that position, free, not on time off, under their weekly limit), then assign them in one click or post it as an open shift. It is the quickest way to cover a sick call. Staffing plans are on Starter and Pro.

Month view by position

The board also has a Month view that reads like the paper schedule on the break room wall: each day lists its positions and who works them by short name (“Front: LC, MH”), with trainees next to the person they shadow (“EA + ER”), the plan’s label, holidays, notes, closed days, and gaps. Click a day to open it by position. Print month puts the month on one landscape page, without the gap warnings. Turn on “Staff can see the team schedule” in Settings and everyone gets a read-only team month on their web schedule, names and positions only, no pay. The month view is on Starter and Pro.

Notifications that follow the schedule

With notifications on (Starter and Pro), employees get an evening message with tomorrow’s shift, a reminder about an hour before it starts, and a nudge if they have not clocked in 15 minutes after it began. Managers hear about declines, claims, and swaps waiting for approval. Push notifications reach the iPhone and Android apps and the installed web app.

Labor budget on the board (Pro)

Set a weekly labor budget, company-wide or per location, and a bar at the top of the schedule shows scheduled hours and projected cost against it while you build the week, so the overage is visible before the shifts are worked rather than on the payroll report.

Auto-fill from the staffing plan (Pro)

On Pro, auto-fill fills the staffing plan’s open spots for 1, 2, or 4 weeks. It gives each position to whoever has done the least of it lately, sized to how much each person works so part-timers are treated fairly, shares weekends fairly, respects availability, time off, weekly hour limits, and rotation requests, and avoids overtime unless nothing else works. It keeps the shifts already on the board and can split an existing shift by position. You review every drafted shift before saving, and spots it cannot fill are listed with the reason.

Without a plan, ClockOut can draft a full week from last week’s pattern plus this week’s availability and time off. Nothing is written until a manager reviews the draft, edits it, and applies it. The draft is also checked in plain code for two things: nobody is placed on a position they lack a required skill for, and no position is spread unfairly across the people qualified to work it.

What’s included on each plan

Every plan includes the schedule board, the GPS-stamped time clock, time off requests and approvals, the schedule change log, and CSV export. Starter adds the workflows that let employees run their own swaps and availability. Pro adds multiple locations, budgeting, and payroll.

What it costs for a team of 15 or 25

Paid plans are a base fee that covers the first 5 people, then a flat amount per extra person. There is no per-location fee and no minimum seat count.

A 15-person cleaning company on Starter pays $49 a month for scheduling, swaps, availability, the GPS time clock, kiosk mode, and PTO tracking together. Full detail and checkout are on the pricing page, and every plan limit is restated in the product facts.

Scheduling and the time clock in one system

This is the part that separates ClockOut from scheduling-only tools. When the schedule and the punches live in the same database, the software can answer questions a standalone scheduler cannot.

• Did they show up on time? The exception inbox (Starter and Pro) compares each clock-in and clock-out to the shift it belongs to and files a late arrival, an early leave, or a no-show for review, with the minutes off.
• Can they clock in before the shift? Punch limiting (Starter and Pro) opens clock-in 15 minutes before the scheduled start by default, and can block clock-in on a day with no shift at all. Clock-out is never blocked.
• Did they clock in at all? Fifteen minutes after a shift starts with no punch, the employee gets a nudge. Past the scheduled end with the clock still running, they get another.
• Is this week over budget? On Pro, the labor budget bar reads scheduled hours straight off the board, and overtime-approaching alerts (Starter and Pro) fire from hours actually worked.
• What goes to payroll? Approved hours export as CSV on every plan. Pro adds payroll runs and files formatted for ADP, Gusto, and QuickBooks. These are files you download and import, not a live API connection.

Every punch carries a GPS stamp on every plan, and Starter can enforce a geofence around the work area. Location is captured only at clock-in and clock-out, never between; the exact behavior is on the location privacy page. Teams that share a device can run a tablet kiosk with a PIN or a scanned QR badge instead of personal phones.

How ClockOut compares on price for 15 people

Most employee scheduling software for small business is priced per location, which is fine for a 40-person restaurant and expensive for a 12-person one. ClockOut prices per person. Here is the monthly cost for a single location with 15 staff, using each vendor’s public list price as of September 2026. Prices change; check before you buy.

Competitor prices above are entry-level list prices for the vendor’s cheapest paid tier as of September 2026. Feature cells say “see their site” where the answer depends on the tier you pick. For a feature-by-feature read, see ClockOut vs Homebase, ClockOut vs 7shifts, ClockOut vs When I Work, ClockOut vs Deputy, and ClockOut vs Connecteam.

Where the per-location tools win: multi-unit restaurant groups with 40 or more people per site get a lower per-head price from a location fee. Where ClockOut wins: any team of 5 to 30 at one site, and any business that wants the time clock in the same app instead of a second subscription.

Employee scheduling by industry

The board, swaps, and time clock are the same everywhere; what changes is which features carry the weight. Each page below walks through the setup for that kind of team.

• Restaurants: recurring shifts, open shifts for a dropped dinner service, tablet kiosk at the host stand.
• Clinics and healthcare: positions with required certifications, shift confirmation, availability caps.
• Cleaning companies: GPS punches at each site, geofences, job codes on the clock-in.
• Home care agencies: visit schedules with GPS proof, mileage between visits on Pro.
• Security firms: overnight shifts, punch limiting tied to the post, no-show alerts.
• Hotels: department groups on the board, housekeeping rotation, kiosk mode.
• Event staff: open shifts that fill themselves, per-event availability.
• Construction crews: crew groups, site geofences, job costing.
• Landscaping: crew schedules, GPS at each property, weather-day swaps.
• Nonprofits: mixed staff and volunteer schedules on a small budget.

Free tools if you are not ready for software

If you just need next week on paper, the free work schedule maker builds a printable weekly schedule in the browser with no signup. When the paper version stops working, usually around 8 to 10 people, the same shifts move into ClockOut in an afternoon. For the hours side, the time card calculator totals a week of punches for free.

Employee scheduling software FAQ

Related pages

• Pricing: current plans, annual billing, and checkout.
• Product facts: every plan limit and feature on this page, restated with its numbers.
• GPS time clock: how punches, geofences, and offline clock-ins work.
• PTO tracker: accrual policies, balances, and the leave that blocks a shift.
• Time clock for small business: the time-tracking side of the same app.
• Free work schedule maker: a printable week with no signup.
• Alternatives: how ClockOut compares with the other scheduling and time clock tools.