Time and attendance refers to the tracking of whether rostered staff actually showed up for their shift and how many hours they worked, compared against what was scheduled.

How it works

At its simplest, time and attendance tracking captures a few facts per shift, per person:

• Attendance — did the person show up, and were they marked present, absent, or late.
• Hours worked — actual start and finish, versus the shift's expected start and finish.
• Exceptions — no-shows, early departures, or unplanned cover, each usually logged with a reason.

This can be captured on paper, in a spreadsheet, or through a live digital roster where a supervisor checks people in and records hours directly against the shift, often from a phone or tablet on the night.

Why it matters

Time and attendance data is the foundation for two things a business cares about directly: payroll (hours actually worked drive what people are paid) and reliability (attendance history is what a reliability score is computed from). Without accurate attendance records, both become guesswork — pay disputes are harder to resolve and a worker's track record can't be fairly assessed.

It also matters operationally on the night itself: knowing in real time who's actually on site versus who was merely rostered is what lets a manager spot a gap and start dropout recovery immediately, rather than discovering the gap later.

In Chronomancer

Chronomancer's Live view is built around this exact loop: a tablet or phone checklist for marking attendance and entering hours per person, per shift, feeding hours_expected from the night's scheduled start/finish and rolling up into the reliability formula when the period completes.