Attendance Tracking Best Practices for Modern Workplaces

Punch cards, handwritten schedules, spreadsheet timesheets — they all share the same problem: you have to set aside extra time just to enter data. UR Work's attendance module approaches this differently — the employee has already shown up, the system just records it.

How It Works

When an employee arrives, they check in through the mobile app. The system reads their GPS location and calculates the distance to their assigned branch. If the distance exceeds the maximum set for that branch, the check-in is rejected.

There are two operating modes:

Shift mode: The employee selects which shift they're checking into. How many minutes before a shift starts a check-in is allowed is configured per branch.

Branch mode: For branches without defined shifts. The employee simply verifies they're at the branch location, and daily working hours come from the branch configuration.

If an employee forgets to check out, the system records an automatic checkout — this is flagged as "auto checkout" and visible to managers.

Missing Check-In/Out Requests

In practice, employees sometimes forget to check in or out. UR Work has a correction request flow for these cases:

• Missing check-in: Can be requested for days with only a checkout record
• Missing check-out: Can be requested for days with only a check-in record
• Full record: Both check-in and check-out can be requested for days with no records at all
• Correction: A request can be created to fix an incorrectly recorded time

Every request goes through an approval flow — records don't change until a manager approves. If rejected, the manager writes a reason that the employee can see.

Manager and Employee Views

Employees can view their own records (if the company has enabled this visibility), submit correction requests, and track their pending requests.

Managers can filter all records across their branch or company by date range, branch, employee, and auto-checkout status. The record detail shows check-in/out coordinates, distance to the branch, and associated shift information.

Monthly Timesheet Reports

At the end of each month, attendance data becomes a summary report designed to feed into payroll:

• Total days and hours worked
• Expected vs. actual hours comparison
• Late arrivals and early departures
• Overtime hours
• Breakdown by leave type: annual, sick, marriage, bereavement, maternity (paid/unpaid)
• SGK 30-day model calculations — SGK workplace code is defined per branch

Reports can be exported as Excel or PDF.

Branch-Level Configuration

Attendance settings are configured at the branch level. Each branch can have its own:

• Maximum distance (meters)
• Early check-in buffer (how many minutes before a shift check-in is allowed)
• Auto-checkout buffer (how many minutes after shift end before auto-checkout triggers)
• Break duration and automatic break deduction
• SGK workplace code

This structure allows branches with different working patterns to operate under the same system with separate rules.

Visibility Control

Whether employees can view their own attendance history is set at the company level. If this option is off, employees have no access to their records; if on, a "Attendance Records" item appears in the navigation menu.

Pre-Payroll Checkpoint

At monthly close, timesheet reports flag configuration issues — missing SGK codes or undefined working days appear as warnings on the report. This ensures payroll calculations aren't built on a faulty foundation.