Getting started guide

Everything you need, in one place.

From install to payroll. Skim the sidebar for the section you want, or read top to bottom — it’s about a 15-minute walkthrough.

Install on Your Phone

ClockOut works like a regular app on your phone — no app store needed. Pick your browser below and follow the steps.

Admin Setup Admin

After you register your company, you'll see an onboarding wizard that walks you through the basics. Here's the full setup guide.

1. Set Your Timezone

Go to Settings and pick your timezone. This affects when "today" starts and how clock-in times are recorded. Get this right first — all dates and times throughout the app use this timezone.

2. Set Pay Rules

In Settings, configure:

• Pay Period — weekly or bi-weekly
• Overtime — hours per week before overtime kicks in (usually 40) and the multiplier (usually 1.5x)
• Rounding — round clock times to nearest 5, 15, or 30 minutes
• Auto Clock-Out — if someone forgets to clock out, the system closes it after this many hours
• Break Compliance — require employees to take a break after a set number of hours

3. Set Up Geofence Starter

Two options for location enforcement:

Option A: Single location — In Settings → Geofence, toggle it on and click "Use my current location" while at the workplace. Set the radius (200 meters works well).

Option B: Multiple locations — Go to Locations and add each workplace with its own name, coordinates, and radius. Employees can clock in from any active location.

4. Add Your Employees

Two ways to add people:

Option A: Add them yourself

Option B: Send an invite link

5. Set Up Schedules

You can also post open shifts Starter — these show up for all employees and anyone can claim them.

6. Set Up Recurring Schedules Starter

Go to Templates to set up weekly recurring shifts. Pick an employee, choose the days of the week, and set the times. The system automatically generates next week's shifts every day.

7. Add Holidays

Go to Holidays to add company holidays. These show up on everyone's schedule view with a special icon.

For Employees Employee

Clocking In & Out

Open the app and tap the big green Clock In button. That's it. When you're done, tap the red Clock Out button.

• Your location is recorded when you clock in — it's shown as a readable address (e.g., "Oak Avenue, Downtown") in the app
• You'll see a live timer showing how long you've been working
• If you clock in late, you may be asked to provide a reason

Taking a Break

While clocked in, tap Start Break. The timer pauses. Tap End Break when you're back. Break time is tracked separately and doesn't count toward your hours.

Viewing Your Schedule

Go to Schedule to see your shifts for the week. Holidays are shown in yellow. Use the arrows to look at other weeks.

Viewing Your Hours & Pay

Go to Timesheet to see:

• Your hours worked each day (with a visual bar chart)
• Your estimated pay — regular and overtime
• A detailed log of every clock-in/out

Requesting Time Off

Fixing a Mistake

Forgot to clock in? Clocked out at the wrong time?

Open Shifts Starter

Check Open Shifts to see if your manager posted any available shifts. Tap Claim to add one to your schedule.

Monthly Attendance Pro

Go to Attendance to see a monthly summary: days worked, days absent, late arrivals, and total hours.

PTO Balances Starter

Go to PTO Balances to see how much paid time off you have available. You'll see:

• Available hours for each PTO policy (vacation, sick, personal)
• How much you've accrued and used
• Any company blackout dates when PTO can't be taken

When your time-off request is approved, your balance is automatically deducted. If you cancel, it's restored.

Availability Starter

Go to Availability to set your preferred working hours. For each day of the week, you can:

• Mark yourself as available or unavailable
• Set your preferred start and end times
• Set a max weekly hours preference

Your manager sees this when creating the schedule and will be warned about conflicts.

Submitting Your Timesheet Starter

If your company requires timesheet approval, you'll submit your hours each week for manager review. Go to Timesheet and tap Submit for Approval. You'll be notified when it's approved or if it needs corrections.

Notifications Starter

ClockOut sends notifications three ways: in-app (bell icon), email, and phone push notifications.

You'll be notified when:

• Your time-off request is approved or denied
• Your correction request is reviewed
• You're approaching overtime for the week
• You have an upcoming shift (1 hour before)
• Your next-day schedule is posted
• You missed your scheduled clock-in (15 min after)
• You may have forgotten to clock out
• You were auto clocked out by the system
• Your timesheet is approved or rejected

Push Notifications (Phone Alerts)

To get real-time alerts on your phone — even when the app isn't open:

Managing Your Team Admin

Live View

See who's clocked in right now, who's on break, who's late, and who's off today. This updates in real-time.

• Late badge — shows when someone clocked in more than 5 minutes after their scheduled start
• Break needed badge — shows when someone has worked past the break requirement
• Location — shows the address where they clocked in from (e.g., "Main Street, Springfield")
• Off Today section — approved time-off for the day
• Late reason — if the employee provided one, it's visible here

Approvals

Go to Approvals to review pending time-off requests, corrections, and shift swaps. Tap the green check to approve or red X to deny. The employee gets a notification with the result.

Timesheet Approvals Starter

Go to Timesheets to review employee-submitted weekly timesheets. You can:

• Approve — confirms the hours are correct and ready for payroll
• Reject — sends it back with a reason; the employee can fix and resubmit

Exception Inbox Starter

Go to Exceptions to see attendance problems detected automatically:

• No-show — scheduled but didn't clock in (30+ min late)
• Late arrival — clocked in after scheduled start
• Early leave — clocked out 30+ min before schedule end
• Break violation — worked past the required break threshold
• Auto clock-out — forgot to clock out, system closed it

For each exception, you can acknowledge, resolve, or dismiss it. Use the checkboxes for bulk actions.

Availability View Starter

When creating schedules, you can check each employee's availability preferences. The system warns you about conflicts — time off, holidays, availability blocks, and weekly hour limits — before you publish.

Notifications Starter

As an admin, you'll be notified when:

• An employee submits a time-off or correction request
• An employee clocks in late without a reason
• An employee is approaching overtime for the week
• An employee submits their weekly timesheet
• A compliance rule is violated (daily overtime, max hours, etc.)

Payroll Admin

Viewing the Report

Go to Reports to see the weekly payroll summary. It shows every employee with their:

• Total hours worked
• Overtime hours
• Hourly rate
• Estimated pay (regular + overtime)

All employees show up — even those with zero hours that week.

Exporting

Two export options at the top of the Reports page:

• CSV — downloads a spreadsheet for Excel, Google Sheets, or your payroll provider
• PDF Pro — downloads a formatted PDF report

Payroll Runs Pro

For formal payroll processing, go to Payroll instead of Reports. Payroll runs give you a durable record:

Export formats available: Standard CSV, ADP, Gusto, QuickBooks. You can reopen a locked run if you need to make corrections.

Understanding Overtime

Overtime is calculated automatically based on your settings. The default is anything over 40 hours per week at 1.5x the hourly rate. You can change both numbers in Settings.

Understanding Rounding

If you set rounding to 15 minutes, a clock-in at 9:07 AM counts as 9:00 AM, and 9:08 AM counts as 9:15 AM. This is applied to pay calculations, not to the displayed times.

PTO Management Starter Admin

Set up paid time off policies so balances are tracked automatically.

Creating Policies

Go to Settings or manage PTO from the admin area. Create policies like:

• Standard Vacation — accrues 10 hours/month, max 120 hours, 40 hours carryover
• Sick Leave — accrues 4 hours/month, no carryover
• Personal Days — yearly grant, use-it-or-lose-it

Each policy has an accrual rate (monthly, biweekly, or yearly), a max balance cap, and carryover rules.

Assigning Policies & Adjusting Balances

Assign policies to employees and optionally set an initial balance (e.g., for mid-year hires). You can also manually adjust balances with a reason logged in the audit trail.

Blackout Dates

Add blackout date ranges when PTO requests won't be accepted (e.g., holiday season, inventory week).

How It Works With Time Off

When you approve a time-off request, the matching PTO balance is automatically deducted (business days x 8 hours). If the employee cancels, it's restored. If the balance is insufficient, the approval is blocked.

Exception Inbox Starter Admin

The exception inbox automatically detects attendance problems so you don't have to hunt for them. The system checks every 30 minutes and flags:

• No-shows (high severity) — scheduled but no clock-in after 30 minutes
• Late arrivals (low/medium/high based on how late)
• Early leaves (medium/high based on how early)
• Break violations — worked past required break threshold
• Auto clock-outs — system closed a stale entry

Filter by status (open, acknowledged, resolved, dismissed) and use bulk actions to clear your queue.

Kiosk Mode Starter Admin

Set up a shared tablet at your workplace entrance for employees to clock in/out with a PIN — no personal device or login needed.

Setup

The kiosk shows a number pad. Employees enter their PIN and are automatically clocked in or out. A confirmation screen shows their name and the action taken.

Compliance Rules Pro Admin

Configure labor law compliance rules that are automatically enforced. Go to Compliance in the admin menu.

Available Rule Types

• Meal Break — require a meal break of X minutes after Y hours (e.g., CA law: 30 min after 5 hours)
• Rest Break — require a rest break after a set number of hours
• Daily Overtime — flag when an employee exceeds X hours in a single day
• Max Hours/Day — hard cap on daily hours with a notification
• Max Hours/Week — weekly hour cap
• Consecutive Days — alert when an employee works more than X days in a row

Violations are flagged as exceptions and appear in the Exception Inbox. Admins also receive notifications for critical violations.

Attestation & Signatures

For auditable records, employees can digitally sign off on time edits, weekly timesheets, and payroll runs. Signatures are stored with a timestamp and statement.

Tasks & Document Sharing Starter

Assign to-dos to specific employees (or leave them unassigned for anyone to grab) with a due date, priority, and an optional document link.

Creating a task Admin

The assignee gets an in-app + push notification. Admins see all tasks grouped by status: Open, In Progress, Done, Cancelled. Overdue tasks show a red due-date pill.

Working a task Employee

Open the Tasks page from the sidebar. Tap the status to flip it from Open → In Progress → Done. Marking a task done stamps a completedAt timestamp.

Workplace Announcements Starter

Post company-wide notices that show up on every employee's dashboard — without another Slack channel.

Posting an announcement Admin

When you post, every active employee gets an in-app notification and a push notification. The latest unread pinned announcement also shows as a banner on their main dashboard.

Reading announcements Employee

The Announcements feed shows pinned items first, then most recent. Click any item to mark it read, or use Mark all read.

Tips Tracking Starter

For tipped roles. Employees log daily tips by source; admins see totals by employee and date range and can export to CSV.

Logging tips Employee

Open Tips. Pick a date (defaults to today), enter the dollar amount, choose a source (Cash, Card, Pool, Other), and optionally add a note. Edit or delete past entries any time.

Two summary cards show this week and this month totals.

Reporting Admin

Open Tips Report. Pick a date range (defaults to current week). You'll see:

• Grand total tips for the period
• A breakdown by employee (total + entry count)
• A daily totals bar chart
• A Export CSV button

Skills & Certifications Pro

Track licenses, food-handler cards, OSHA, CPR, or any company-defined skill — with expiry alerts so nothing lapses unnoticed.

Building the catalog Admin

Go to Skills. Create entries with a name, type (Skill or Certification), and optional description. Archive ones you no longer use.

Assigning to employees Admin

From the same page, the Assignments table lists every employee with their current skills/certifications. Click a row to add or edit, including:

• Attained date — when they earned it
• Expiry date — when it lapses (optional)
• Document URL — link to the certificate file
• Notes — anything extra

Expiry alerts

A daily cron scans for any user-skill expiring within the next 30 days. The employee and all admins/managers receive a cert_expiring notification. Each item is alerted at most once per week so you don't get spammed.

Employee view Employee

Open Skills. Each card shows the name, kind, attained date, and an expiry pill: muted (>30 days), amber (8–30 days), red (≤7 days), red+strikethrough (expired). Use the Request to add form to nudge admins about a missing skill — it sends them a notification.

Labor Budget & Forecasting Pro Admin

Set a weekly target — hours, dollars, or both — and watch projected vs actual cost as you build the schedule.

Setting a budget

Reading the comparison

Two progress bars show:

• Hours — total scheduled hours for the week vs your target
• Cost — projected cost (sum of hours × hourly rate) vs your target dollar budget

Bars are green up to 90%, amber 90–100%, red over 100%. A breakdown table shows every employee's scheduled hours and projected cost so you can spot the over-spenders.

Shift Confirmation Starter

Make sure scheduled employees actually saw and accepted their shift — and get a heads-up if they didn't.

Confirming or declining Employee

On My Schedule, every shift you haven't responded to yet shows small Confirm and Decline buttons. Decline asks for a quick reason. Confirmed shifts show a green check; declined ones go muted with an X.

Reminders

An hourly cron looks at shifts starting in the next 24 hours that have neither a confirm nor a decline. Anyone with an unconfirmed shift gets a single reminder (in-app + push).

Admin visibility Admin

On the admin Schedule grid, every shift block carries a status indicator: ✓ confirmed (green tint), pending dot (default), or ✗ declined (red tint, with the decline reason in the tooltip).

Plans & Billing

ClockOut has three plans. Features locked behind a plan show a purple badge in the sidebar.

Feature	Free	Starter $3/emp/mo	Pro $5/emp/mo
Employees	2 max	Unlimited	Unlimited
Clock in/out + GPS	✓	✓	✓
Scheduling + CSV	✓	✓	✓
Pay estimates	✓	✓	✓
Dark mode	✓	✓	✓
Geofence	✗	✓	✓
Multi-location	✗	✓	✓
Recurring schedules	✗	✓	✓
Overtime alerts	✗	✓	✓
Break compliance	✗	✓	✓
Open shifts + swaps	✗	✓	✓
Shift confirmation alerts	✗	✓	✓
In-app, email & push notifications	✗	✓	✓
PTO balances & accrual	✗	✓	✓
Exception inbox	✗	✓	✓
Employee availability	✗	✓	✓
Timesheet approvals	✗	✓	✓
Kiosk mode	✗	✓	✓
Tasks & documents	✗	✓	✓
Workplace announcements	✗	✓	✓
Tips tracking	✗	✓	✓
Paid break setting	✓	✓	✓
Payroll runs (lock & export)	✗	✗	✓
ADP / Gusto / QuickBooks export	✗	✗	✓
Compliance rules engine	✗	✗	✓
Skills & certifications + expiry alerts	✗	✗	✓
Labor budget & forecasting	✗	✗	✓
Scoped roles & departments	✗	✗	✓
PDF export	✗	✗	✓
Monthly attendance	✗	✗	✓

Upgrading

Go to Settings → Billing and click the plan you want. You'll be taken to Stripe to enter payment. Billing is per-employee — if you have 10 employees on Starter, that's $30/month. When you add or remove employees, the billing adjusts automatically.

Monthly vs annual

On the pricing page there's a Monthly / Annual toggle. Annual billing is roughly 17% off — for a 10-employee Starter team, paying monthly works out to $360/year, while annual is closer to $300. Existing monthly subscribers can switch via Manage Billing in the Stripe portal.

Paid breaks

In Settings → Break compliance, set Paid break minutes per shift (0–60). The first N minutes of break time per shift are paid (treated as worked time on payroll); anything beyond that is unpaid. Set to 0 to make all break time unpaid.

Managing Your Subscription

Click Manage Billing in Settings to access the Stripe portal where you can update your card, view invoices, or cancel.

Profile & Dark Mode

Go to Profile to:

• Update your name and phone number
• Toggle dark mode on or off (available on all plans)
• Change your password (must include uppercase, lowercase, number, and special character)