Help Center

Week Navigation

Use the left and right arrow buttons to move between weeks. The current week is labeled as "Current Week", while past and future weeks show how many weeks ago or from now they are.

Day Selection

Click on any day (Mon-Sun) in the week header to view timesheet data for that specific day. The selected day will be highlighted in green.

Three Main Tables

The Timesheets page is organized into three main tables. The Clock Records for Shifts table shows employees with scheduled shifts and their clock in/out times. The No Shift Clock Records table shows clock records that don't match any scheduled shift. The Manual Time Records table allows you to manually add time entries for employees.

Roster Group Sections

If you run multiple roster groups, the shifts table is split into one section per roster group, each headed "Clock Records for Shifts — [group name]" with its own Approve button, so each group's day can be reviewed and approved independently. A dropdown at the top lets you view All Rosters or focus on a single group (this only filters what's shown — the data for every group is always loaded). No-shift and manual records get a "Roster" column so you can assign them to the right group before approval. If you only have one roster group, none of this appears and the page works as a single simple view.

Search Bar

Type an employee's name in the search bar to quickly find their records across all three tables.

Sort Dropdown

Choose how to sort employee records using the dropdown. Roster Order shows employees in the same order as your roster template. First Name (A-Z), First Name (Z-A), Last Name (A-Z), and Last Name (Z-A) provide alphabetical sorting. Your sort preference is automatically saved for future sessions.

Filter by Position

Use the position filter dropdown to show only employees in specific positions, such as only nurses or only reception staff.

Employee Sidebar

The sidebar on the left lists every employee with their approved hours for the week. Click an employee to show only their rows in every table on the page; click more employees to add them to the view, and click again to remove one. The selection sticks while you move between days and date periods, so you can step through a fortnight for one or two people without reselecting them. Click "Show everyone" at the top of the sidebar to clear the selection. The palette button at the top of the sidebar (the same control as on the Rosters page) switches employee colours on and off, both on the sidebar cards and on each employee's name cell in the tables, which makes it easier to spot the same person across the shift, no-shift and manual tables; your choice is remembered.

Clock In/Out Times

The timesheet shows both scheduled shift times and actual clock in/out times. Shift Start and End display the scheduled times from your roster, while Clock In and Out show the actual times employees clocked in and out.

Time Status Indicators

Pending indicates the shift hasn't ended yet or clock records aren't available. N/A means no clock record was found for this shift. When an actual time is recorded, it displays the specific clock in/out time such as "09:03 am".

Clock Reason Icons

Blue information icons next to clock times indicate the employee provided a reason when clocking in or out, such as "Traffic delay". Hover over the icon to see the reason.

Face Match Confidence

Colored face icons show the facial recognition confidence score. Green indicates a high confidence match between 80-100%. Yellow or orange indicates medium confidence between 50-79%. Red indicates low confidence below 50%. Click on the face icon to view the photo taken during clock in/out.

Approve Whenever You're Ready

Pay options, hour adjustments, notes, and day approval are available at any time — you don't have to wait for a shift to finish. You can select Shift Hours for the day's shifts and approve the day as early as you like, which is handy for end-of-day payroll runs. The only things that wait are entering clock times manually and paying unverified "actual hours" (see "Editing Clock Times" below).

Understanding Pay Options

Each shift has up to two pay options you can choose from.

SHIFT HRS

This option pays the employee for their scheduled shift hours, regardless of when they actually clocked in/out. This is useful when the employee forgot to clock in/out but worked their full shift, when the clock system had technical issues, or when you want to honor the scheduled hours despite minor timing differences.

EXTENDED / REDUCED / NO SHOW / NO IN / NO OUT

This option pays based on actual clock in/out times. EXTENDED means the employee worked longer than scheduled. REDUCED means the employee worked less than scheduled. NO SHOW indicates no clock records were found. NO IN means no clock in was found, and NO OUT means no clock out was found. When real clock records exist, this option appears as soon as the records are matched; when there are no clock records at all, it only becomes available 2 hours after the shift ends, so a no-show can't be "confirmed" while the person might still turn up.

SAME HOURS

When shift hours and actual hours are identical, only one option appears labeled "SAME HOURS" in green.

Meetings

Meeting attendance rows have their own pay options: MEETING HRS (the scheduled meeting length) and ACTUAL HRS from clock records, or NO SHOW when there are none.

Selecting a Pay Option

Click on the pay option you want to approve and it will turn green. You can change your selection by clicking a different option. Click the same option again to deselect it. Only rows with a selected pay option will be included in payroll.

Breaks

Breaks are recorded on each shift rather than worked out from the hours. Every timesheet row shows the breaks taken as small chips in the Hours column — for a rostered shift these are the breaks set on that shift in the roster (which start from the defaults in Settings → General → Breaks); rows with no rostered shift, such as clock-only or manual records, start from the location defaults. Click the chips to add or remove a break or change it between paid and unpaid — for example when someone worked through their meal break. Unpaid breaks are taken off the paid hours (SHIFT HRS and clock-based hours alike, rounded to the nearest 15 minutes); paid breaks are recorded but not deducted. There is no automatic "one break after four hours" rule any more — what is on the row is what is deducted. Meeting attendance rows have no break deduction.

When Manual Time Entry Unlocks

To protect against clock times being fabricated before a shift is genuinely over, the clock in/out cells on a shift row only become manually editable (shown in red) 2 hours after the shift's scheduled end. Before that, they show as "Pending" and can't be typed into. Everything else on the row — pay selection, adjustments, notes, approval — works at any time.

How to Edit Times

Once editable, click on the red clock in or clock out time and a time picker modal will appear. Select the correct time and click "Set Time" to save. The page will automatically recalculate elapsed time and pay.

What Happens After Editing

When you edit a clock time, the system automatically recalculates the total elapsed time, updates the paid hours accounting for breaks, and adjusts pay options if the hours changed. Remember to save your changes using the save button in the bottom right corner.

When to Use Adjustments

Hour adjustments allow you to add or subtract time from the selected pay option. Common uses include adding time for work done outside of scheduled shifts, compensating for missed breaks, deducting time for extended personal breaks, and making corrections for clock system errors.

How to Adjust Hours

First select a pay option, then click the minus button to reduce hours by 0.25 (15 minutes), or the plus button to add 0.25. Continue clicking to adjust in 15-minute increments. The adjustment value shows in the middle, such as "+0.50h" or "-0.25h". Adjustments are added to the selected pay option; if you switch pay options, the adjustment remains and applies to the new selection.

Purpose of Notes

Notes help document special circumstances, adjustments, or important information about a shift. They appear in payroll reports and approved hours records.

Adding or Editing a Note

Click the note button (pencil icon) in the Actions column at the end of the row. A modal will appear with a text area where you can type your note. The button is plain when no note has been added and turns green once a note exists for this shift, the same way the allowance button lights up when the row has allowances.

Common Note Examples

Notes might include information such as "Covered emergency shift for John - approved overtime", "Adjusted for 30 min unpaid personal break", or "Clock system error - verified with security footage". Notes are especially helpful when making manual adjustments or approving unusual pay scenarios.

What Allowances Are

Allowances are extra payments on top of hours — a clothing allowance per day worked, a split-shift allowance, a night-shift or weekend rate per hour, an on-call payment, mileage, and so on. They are recorded on the Timesheets page against an employee's day and exported to payroll (Crystal Payroll) together with the approved hours. Allowances are defined once on the Manage page (open an employee, Assignments tab, Standing Allowances → New Allowance; requires the "Can View Employee Pay Rates" permission), where you set the name, whether it is paid per hour, per day, per shift, as a fixed amount or per km, the default rate, its tax treatment, and optionally which positions it applies to (for example an RN-only night rate).

Adding an Allowance to a Shift

Every row has an allowance button (the hand-and-dollar icon) in the Actions column at the end of the row. It turns green when the row has allowances, with a count badge if there is more than one, and hovering shows what they are. Click it to open the row's allowances: existing ones are listed at the top (click one to edit it, or its × to remove it), and below that you pick a new allowance from the grid and check the units. Units are pre-filled for you: per-hour allowances start with the row's selected pay hours, per-day and per-shift allowances start at 1, and fixed amounts need no units. The rate defaults to the allowance's standard rate but can be changed for a one-off, and you can add a note. Click Add Allowance and it saves immediately — it does not wait for the page Save button. Only allowances that apply to the row's position are shown by default; use "Show allowances for other positions" to see the rest.

Adding One Allowance to Many Employees

For allowances everyone gets on the same day — a weekend rate on a Saturday, a clothing allowance for everyone who worked — click the allowance button in the top toolbar (the hand-and-dollar icon). Pick the allowance, then tick the employees from the list of everyone on the day. Units are pre-filled per row the same way, and you can adjust them individually before adding. Employees whose position the allowance doesn't apply to are unticked by default. You can also add an employee who has no row that day, for example an on-call allowance on a day off.

Standing Allowances

Allowances an employee gets automatically — a clothing allowance per day, a night or weekend rate for the hours inside their window, a split-shift payment — don't need adding here at all. They are assigned once on the employee's record (Manage → employee → Assignments tab → Standing Allowances), where each allowance's criteria (days, time window, minimum shifts, which allowance wins when two overlap) are set, and appear on the timesheet as soon as the day is opened — worked out from the rostered shift (times, position, hours after unpaid breaks) so you can review and change them before approving; approval recalculates them from the approved hours. They show as dashed chips in the row's allowance list. Click one to change its units, rate or note for that day — it becomes a manual line for the day and the standing rule leaves it alone from then on. Click its × to skip it for that day; the row's allowances then show it as skipped with a Restore button, and it stays off even if the day is approved again. To change how it is worked out everywhere, edit the allowance in Manage.

Allowances and Approval

Approving a day locks its allowances along with the hours; unapproving unlocks them again. Unapproving never deletes allowances you entered by hand; the automatically generated standing lines go back to their roster-based preview and are rebuilt on re-approval. Only allowances on approved days are sent to payroll — a standing allowance counts only once that employee's hours for the day are approved.

Tax Treatment

In New Zealand a taxable allowance (paid regardless of cost — shift, night, weekend, clothing per day, split shift, on-call) has PAYE deducted, is KiwiSaver-liable, and counts as gross earnings for holiday and leave pay. A reimbursing allowance refunds an actual cost (mileage at the IRD rate, receipted meals) and is none of those. In Australia hourly loadings such as night and weekend rates are penalty rates reported inside gross pay under STP Phase 2, while flat allowances carry an ATO allowance type (laundry, tools, travel, task, qualification and so on). RosterMate stores these settings for reporting; your payroll system's own allowance setup remains the source of truth for how it is taxed.

Exporting to Crystal Payroll

When you export to Crystal Payroll from the Summary page, each approved allowance is sent as its own timesheet line with the allowance name, units, rate and amount. The name sent is the "Payroll name (Crystal)" on the allowance, which must match an allowance set up in Crystal → Company Settings → Allowances; if it doesn't, Crystal rejects that line and the export result tells you which one. The export summary also shows how many allowance lines were held back because their day is not approved yet.

When to Use Manual Records

Manual time records are useful for employees who forgot to clock in/out entirely, for work done outside of scheduled shifts, for recording time for employees without access to the clock system, and for adding shifts that weren't originally rostered.

Creating a Manual Record

Scroll to the "Manual Time Records" table and click the + button below the table. A new blank row will appear. Fill in the employee (searchable dropdown), the position they worked, the clock in time, and the clock out time. The system automatically calculates elapsed time and pay. Select the pay option (labeled "MANUAL"), pick the roster group the record belongs to if you run several, add adjustments or notes if needed, and click Save.

Deleting a Manual Record

Right-click anywhere on the row you want to delete and select "Delete Row" from the context menu. Click Save to confirm the deletion.

What are Unpaired Records?

The "No Shift Clock Records" table shows clock in/out records that couldn't be automatically matched to a scheduled shift. This happens when an employee worked outside their scheduled hours, clocked in for a shift that wasn't on the roster, clocked too far from the scheduled time (more than 2 hours difference), or covered someone else's shift.

Types of Unpaired Records

Paired Clock In/Out records show both a clock in and clock out time — the system calculates elapsed time and pay options for these, labeled "NO MATCHING SHIFT". Unpaired single records are either a clock in with no matching out ("NO OUT") or a clock out with no matching in ("NO IN").

Processing Unpaired Records

Select the position they worked, review the times, select the pay option, choose the roster group the hours belong to if you run several, add adjustments and notes as needed, then save.

Special Timing Rules

Unpaired records have their own editability rules to prevent premature approval: paired records become editable 1 hour after clock out, and clock-in-only records become editable 16 hours and 15 minutes after clock in. This prevents approving incomplete shifts before all information is available.

When to Save

Save after selecting or changing pay options, adding or modifying adjustments or notes, editing clock times, creating or deleting manual records, and assigning positions to unpaired records.

How to Save

Click the green save icon in the bottom right corner, or press Ctrl+S (Cmd+S on Mac).

Unsaved Changes Warning

If you try to leave the page or switch days with unsaved changes, you'll see a warning with three options: "Save & Continue", "Continue Without Save", or the X button to stay on the page.

What Gets Saved

Saving preserves all your decisions but does NOT approve the day for payroll. To approve, see the "Approving Days" section.

What is Day Approval?

Approving finalizes the timesheet decisions for that date and locks them for editing. Approved hours are then available for payroll processing and reporting. When you run multiple roster groups, each group's section has its own Approve button, so groups can be approved independently.

How to Approve

Complete your timesheet edits and click the Approve button (the green checkmark). An approval note modal appears where you can optionally record a note for the day, then confirm. The system saves, processes the approval, and shows the day as approved.

Approving a Day with Zero Hours

You can approve a day with nothing selected at all — useful when nothing ran that day (for example, no flights flew, or the site was closed) and you want the day formally signed off at zero hours. The approval modal shows a clear warning that approving will lock the day at zero hours and prompts you for a reason (for example "no flying today — weather"), and the button changes to "Approve at 0h". The approval marker records who approved, when, and the note.

What Happens When You Approve

The system processes all shifts with selected pay options and calculates total paid hours including adjustments and minus breaks. It handles overnight shifts by splitting hours across dates correctly. Hours are grouped by employee and position, and the system records who approved and when. The section is locked from further editing, and hours become available in Summary and payroll reports.

Overnight Shift Handling

For shifts that span midnight (such as 11:00 PM to 7:00 AM), the system splits hours between the two calendar dates by the hours actually worked on each. The row's unpaid break comes off the day that contains the middle of the shift, so payroll hours match the calendar dates worked.

What Doesn't Get Approved

Shifts without a selected pay option are skipped during approval. This lets you partially approve a day if needed.

When to Unapprove

You might need to unapprove to correct a mistake in pay calculations, add a shift that was missed, change an adjustment or note, or update clock times after reviewing with the employee.

How to Unapprove

Navigate to the approved day and click the red X icon. A confirmation shows who approved and when. Confirm, and the day is unlocked and editable again.

What Happens When You Unapprove

All approved hours for that day (in that section) are deleted from payroll records. The day becomes editable again. Your original pay selections, adjustments, and notes remain, so you can make changes and re-approve when ready. If payroll has already been processed using this day's data, coordinate with your payroll team before unapproving.

What Are Locked Days?

When a day (or a roster group's section) is approved, it locks to prevent accidental changes. You cannot change pay options, adjustments, clock times, or manual records, and the save button is disabled for that section. You can still view all data, see who approved and when, search and filter, and switch between days. In the Actions column only the note button stays active on an approved day, and it opens the note read-only; the leave and allowance buttons are locked. To make changes, unapprove first.

Public Holiday Detection

When you select a day that's a public holiday, a red banner appears at the top showing the holiday name. The system identifies holidays based on your location's region.

Otherwise Working Day (OWD) Table

For public holidays, a special "Public Holiday Table" section tracks which employees would have normally worked that day, making them eligible for holiday pay.

When the Table Becomes Available

The holiday table is locked until both the holiday date and the day before the holiday have been approved. This ensures accurate automatic calculations based on approved work patterns.

Using Auto-Fill

Approve both days, then click the "Auto-Fill" button in the Public Holiday Table section. The system analyzes each employee's work pattern and whether they actually worked the holiday. Employees are added with "Worked" checked if they clocked in on the holiday, or with average hours calculated from their pattern if they didn't work.

Manual Entries

You can also manually add employees. Click the + button below the table, select an employee, check "Worked" if they worked the holiday, or enter their typical hours for that day if they didn't. Click "Save Holiday Table" when done. Right-click a row to delete it, or use "Clear All" to start over.

Why This Matters

This data is used for calculating statutory holiday pay entitlements, determining time-and-a-half versus alternative day compensation, and payroll reporting and compliance. It feeds the holiday pay columns in the Summary page and payroll exports.

What Are Face Templates?

Face templates are reference photos used by the clock-in system to verify employee identity. Each employee can have up to 3 templates for improved recognition accuracy.

Viewing Clock-In Photos

Click the colored face icon next to a clock time to open the photo modal, view the photo taken during clock in/out, and check the confidence score.

Saving a Photo as Template

When viewing a clock-in photo, click "Save as Face Template" if the photo is clear, well-lit, and facing the camera. The system saves to the first empty slot, or replaces the oldest template if all 3 slots are full. A success message shows how many slots are used, such as "2/3 slots used".

When to Update Templates

Update templates when you see low confidence scores (yellow or red icons), when an employee's appearance has changed, when existing templates are old, or when setting up new employees. Aim for 3 quality templates per employee for optimal recognition accuracy.

What the AI Timesheet Bot Does

The Timesheets page includes an AI Timesheet Bot that can review each day's timesheets for you and decide how to pay shifts where the clock records don't perfectly match the scheduled shift. It looks at common situations — an employee not clocking in or out, working fewer hours than scheduled, or working longer than scheduled — and applies the pay decisions and notes you have configured, so you don't have to resolve every exception by hand. Access to the bot's configuration is controlled by the "Configure Timesheet Bot" permission.

Opening the Bot

Click the bot button near the top of the Timesheets page to open the AI Timesheet Bot panel. The panel has two tabs: Settings, where you configure and run the bot, and Activity Log, where you can review what the bot did on previous runs.

Turning On the Daily Auto-Run

In the Settings tab, switch on "Enable daily auto-run" to have the bot process timesheets automatically every day. When enabled, it runs at 12:30 pm in your location's own timezone each day and processes the previous day's timesheets.

Running the Bot for a Specific Date

You don't have to wait for the daily run. Under "Run for a Specific Date", pick a date and click "Run Now" to have the bot process that day immediately. This is useful for catching up on a past day, or for testing your rules before you rely on the daily auto-run.

Setting Thresholds

The Thresholds settings control how big a difference has to be before the bot treats a shift as an exception. "Reduced by more than" sets how many minutes short of the scheduled shift counts as Reduced Hours, and "Extended by more than" sets how many minutes over counts as Extended Hours. Both default to 15 minutes.

Writing Scenario Rules

The bot is guided by Scenario Rules that you write in plain English. There is a General Rule checked for every shift, plus a rule for each specific situation: No Show, No Clock-In, No Clock-Out, Reduced Hours, and Extended Hours. For each one, describe what you want the bot to do — for example "Pay 0 hours and add a note: No show, no pay" for No Show, or "Pay actual hours and add an overtime note" for Extended Hours. Leave a rule blank to let the AI use its best judgement. Click "Save Settings" when you are done.

Reviewing What the Bot Did

Open the Activity Log tab to see a feed of the bot's runs and the decisions it made. Review this regularly, especially when you first set the bot up. The bot's decisions still appear in your timesheets as normal selections and notes, so you can always review and change them before approving the day.