Time clock

Clocking in and out, planning shifts, and the connection between the time clock and your ratios.

For directors and assistant directors

Clocking in and out

Staff use Clock In and Clock Out from their own device. Clocking activity is recorded per person and feeds both payroll reporting and ratio monitoring.

Why it affects ratios

A staff member counts toward a room's ratio when they are assigned to that room and clocked in. Someone in the building but not clocked in doesn't count.

This surprises people, and it shouldn't: it's how a licensor would read it too. If your ratio screen looks worse than the room does, the usual explanation is a teacher who forgot to clock in — which is worth fixing as a habit, because on the day it matters the record is what you have.

Shifts

Create shifts to plan coverage ahead of time. Planned shifts show you the gaps before they happen, particularly around opening, the lunch rotation and close — the three points where centers most often slip out of ratio.

A shift is a plan; a clock-in is a fact. Ratios use the fact.

Geofencing

Clock-ins can be geofenced so they only register at the center. If your center uses this, tell staff — a teacher who can't clock in from the parking lot and doesn't know why will conclude the app is broken.

Fixing a missed clock-out

Missed clock-outs happen, usually at the end of a long day. A director can correct the record; the correction is kept rather than replacing the original.

Fix them promptly. A run of open shifts makes both your payroll figures and your ratio history harder to defend, and the person who remembers what actually happened stops remembering after about a week.