For bar & pub owners
Bar staff attendance app
Late nights and quick turnover are exactly where timesheets get fuzzy. Verified device and network clock-ins keep them honest, even when nobody's watching the door.
Late-night solo closes
The last shift of the night is where a timesheet drifts. The check-out has to come from the phone that checked in, so the easy workaround stops working.
Casual & relief staff
Bring someone in for one busy weekend and they clock in like everyone else — nothing to set up.
Cash-heavy, trust-light
When margins are thin, paying for hours nobody worked hurts. Tighten the timesheets without watching your team.
Verified clock-ins, made for bars
Every clock-in is tied to one phone and your shop's network — the same three checks behind stopping buddy punching. No biometrics, no face scans. Add shifts, leave and notifications when you need them.
Closing at two in the morning
A bar's night does not respect the calendar. Set a shift that ends earlier than it starts, 18:00 to 02:00 say, and DailyBrew reads it as one night rather than two part-days, filing the whole thing under the date the shift opened. A clock-out at ten past two lands on that night's record, and the row carries a +1 beside the time so nobody misreads it as a morning arrival. Scan after midnight and the app offers a check-out rather than a fresh check-in; that routing holds for four hours past the shift's end, long enough for a slow close and short enough that the following evening is untouched.
Relief staff and one-weekend cover
Bar rotas absorb people a fortnight at a time. Somebody brought in for a festival weekend is added in a minute, uses the same check-in as everyone else, and is deactivated on Monday without losing a record — the hours stay, along with the last date they worked. Because your plan counts active employees only, a deactivated relief hand gives the seat straight back. Take on a barback with no phone on them and a shift lead can be granted the right to clock colleagues in and out (Espresso), with the network and location checks run against the lead and the punch stamped with who made it.
The close is the shift nobody sees
The last hour of the night, one person locking up, is where a timesheet drifts. Three checks stand in for the manager who has gone home. A punch has to come from the phone that person checked in on, from the bar's own network, and, if you switch it on, from inside a radius you draw round the building. All three are Espresso, and none of them is biometric — no fingerprint, no face. Should someone clock in from a phone you have not seen them use before, an alert goes out that night rather than turning up as a puzzle at the end of the month.
Sorting out last night, this afternoon
Some mornings the record is simply wrong. An owner, or a manager you have given attendance rights to, types in the true times with a reason attached; the original punches are kept beside the correction and the row is marked as edited, so nothing changes quietly. A night that was never scanned at all can be entered from scratch, and a row that should not exist is voided rather than removed, so its history survives. Two guards cut the mess down before it starts: a scan that would close a shift opened less than a minute ago is ignored, and NFC tags carry a cooldown you set, so one tap cannot register as two.
The limits, stated plainly
DailyBrew does not touch money. No wage rate, no overtime maths, no tips or tronc, no payslip, no filing — the product ends at verified hours, which you export on Espresso as XLSX, PDF or CSV or pull through the API. It does not build your rota either: each person holds one shift, so a schedule that changes week by week stays where it lives now. Split shifts are out as well: one start and one end per day, with one shift per person, means a bartender who works an afternoon function and returns for the late session cannot have both blocks recorded — take the whole span, gap included, or keep one of them outside the system. And nothing biometric is collected at any stage.
Frequently asked
Is it really free?+
Yes — free forever for up to 10 active staff, and we don't ask for a card. Paid plans add one phone per person (device verification), shop WiFi only (IP restriction), leave and more.
Do staff need to install an app?+
On the free plan, yes: staff scan the QR code in the free DailyBrew app. On Espresso, no: they point their phone camera at the code and check in from the page that opens, with nothing to download, and an NFC tag works the same way because it holds the same web link. The app keeps them signed in and remembers the phone, which is why we still suggest it.
How does it stop buddy punching?+
Each clock-in is tied to a verified device and your shop's network. A punch from somebody else's phone, or from off your network, won't count — and nothing biometric is collected.
What if someone forgets their phone?+
A manager clocks them in from Today. It's saved with the manager's name, the time and the reason, so the day still adds up and nothing changes quietly.
What if a bartender forgets to clock out before locking up?+
The row stays open and an owner, or a manager with attendance rights, enters the real finish time the next day with a reason. The record keeps whatever it held before the correction and is marked as edited, so a fixed timesheet is still auditable. On an overnight shift there is also a four-hour window after the shift ends in which their own next scan is treated as the check-out.
What counts as late on a bar shift?+
Whatever you set. Each shift carries its own grace minutes for arriving and for finishing, so a 19:00 start with fifteen minutes of grace flags at 19:16. Comparison happens in your own timezone, and on an overnight shift both punches are measured from the start of the night the shift belongs to, which is why a 02:00 finish reads correctly instead of looking like a fourteen-hour early departure.
Can I add casual staff without paying for them all year?+
Yes. Your plan counts employees who are active right now, not everyone who has ever worked for you. Deactivate a relief hand when the run ends and the seat is free again, with their hours and last working date still on the record. Free covers ten active people, Espresso twenty at $19.99 a month, and Double Espresso removes the cap.
Can I make the bar's WiFi the only way to clock in?+
You can, with IP restriction on Espresso. Check-in is limited to the public addresses you list, and there is a button that fills in the one you are on while you are standing at the bar. Anything from a phone on mobile data is refused with a message naming the reason.
Does DailyBrew handle tips or wages?+
No. It records hours and flags late arrivals and early finishes; it has no idea what anyone is paid. There is no tip pooling, no tronc split and no payslip. Take the hours out as a spreadsheet or a PDF on Espresso and settle the money wherever you settle it now.
Honest hours for bars
Free for up to 10 active staff. No hardware, no biometrics, no contract.
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