Glossary

Time and attendance

Name: TempClock
Price: 150.00 GBP
Author: TempClock

Time and attendance is the practice of recording when staff start, take breaks and finish work, so that hours can be approved and paid accurately. It is often shortened to T&A.

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Definition

Time and attendance — often shortened to T&A — is the practice of recording when staff start, break and finish work, so hours can be approved and paid accurately. It is the backbone of payroll: get it wrong and everything downstream is wrong with it.

At a glance

Also called T&A, time tracking

Records Start, breaks, finish

Feeds Timesheets & payroll

Goal Pay every hour right

Why it matters

Why time and attendance matters

Pay is calculated from recorded hours, so the quality of your time-and-attendance data sets a ceiling on how accurate payroll can be. Rounding, missed breaks, forgotten clock-outs and guessed hours all turn into either underpaid staff or overpaid wages — and, on an agency desk, into invoices a client can challenge.

It is also where compliance starts. Working Time records, break tracking and an auditable trail of who worked when all rest on the same data. If you cannot show when someone started and stopped, you cannot prove you met your obligations.

Modern T&A is less about a clock on the wall and more about a connected record. The strongest setups tie each clock event to a verified person — see buddy punching — and a confirmed location — see geofencing — so the hours arrive at payroll already carrying their proof.

In practice

Payroll accuracy is capped by the accuracy of the underlying T&A data.

Breaks and the 48-hour weekly limit are tracked from the same record.

Guessed or rounded hours quietly leak money in both directions.

The best records arrive at payroll with identity and location already attached.

How TempClock relates

TempClock is, at its core, a time-and-attendance system built for temp desks and multi-site employers. A clock-in is not just a timestamp: it is a connected record that carries the verified face, the location, the hours and the pay and charge rates, all the way to a payroll export.

Clock-ins capture time, verified identity and location in one step.
Breaks are confirmed at clock-out and hours resolve into a payroll-ready timesheet.
Approved timesheets export to Sage 50 and Xero, with margins totalled as you go.

See how it works →