How to run your shop on DailyBrew

Setting up your shop

Each step builds on the one before. The whole thing takes about twenty minutes, and only the first four have to be done before your staff can start scanning.

1. 01

   Make your account

   Sign up with an email, or with Google or Apple. On the welcome screen, say you own the place, then give your shop a name. That name is where all your staff, your shifts and everyone's hours live.

   One account can own one shop and work at another. You're not stuck in a single role.

2. 02

   Check your timezone

   Open Shop settings. We guess your timezone when you sign up, and it starts on Phnom Penh. Everything hangs off it: what counts as today, whether 08:05 is late, which day a night shift belongs to. Set it before you add anyone.

3. 03

   Put your QR code up

   Your check-in code sits at the top of Shop settings. Download it, print it, and stick it somewhere your staff already walk past — by the pass, or the back door. It never changes, so you print it once.

   Treat it like a key. Anyone with an account linked to your shop can use it, so don't post it publicly or leave it in a photo of the place.

4. 04

   Add your staff

   Go to Staff, then Add, and fill in the name, phone and start date. For someone to actually scan, their account has to be joined up with the record you just made. There are two ways round, and either works.

   They send you theirs: your staff member installs the app, signs up as staff, and the screen shows their staff code. They send it over and you paste it into their record. Or you send them theirs: make the record first, then send them the staff code from their profile to type in.

   Staff codes are twelve characters and never contain i, l, o, zero or one — so a letter that looks like a digit is the other one. Copy and paste rather than reading it out.

5. 05

   Create shifts

   Under Shifts, give each shift a name, a start and end time, and a grace period — the minutes after the start before somebody counts as late. Then put each person on a shift. Someone with no shift can still check in; they just never come in late.

   Night shifts work fine. If the end time is earlier than the start — 18:00 to 02:00 — the shift runs past midnight. The whole night is filed under the day it started, so hours and absences still add up. A check-out that landed the next morning shows a small plus-one marker.

   Editing a shift reaches backwards as well as forwards. Change a shift today and past days are read against the new pattern.

6. 06

   Different hours each dayEspresso

   One shift can run different hours on different days: Monday to Wednesday from 08:00, Thursday and Friday from 10:00, nothing at the weekend. Once you set hours for particular days, the days you leave blank become days off for that shift, and nobody on it is marked absent then.

7. 07

   Mark your closed days

   Under Closed days, add the days you're shut: public holidays, Pchum Ben, a week of building work. Nobody's expected in on a closed day, so nobody's marked absent and nobody comes in late.

8. 08

   Promote a managerEspresso

   On somebody's profile, change their role to manager. Then you pick exactly what they can touch: staff, shifts, closed days, leave and hours, each one on or off. A new manager starts with leave and hours only.

   Shop settings, billing and QR codes stay with you. A manager can never change them, and can never promote another manager.

9. 09

   Handle leaveEspresso

   Requests land under Leave. Approve or turn down each one with a note. An approved full day takes the absence away and blocks check-in, so the day reads as leave rather than as somebody who never turned up.

10. 10

    Tighten up check-inEspresso

    Shop settings, then Check-in, has three switches. Turn on only what you need — each one is another way a genuine check-in can be turned away.

    Shop WiFi only lets people check in on your shop's own internet and nothing else, and a button fills in the one you're on right now. Near the shop only draws a circle around the place, from 50 m to 5 km, that staff have to be standing inside. One phone per person means everyone checks in and out on their own phone, and stops one phone clocking in two people.

    You can excuse one person from any of the three on their profile — an area manager who's never in the building, say.

11. 11

    Add an NFC tagEspresso

    A tag is the same check-in as the QR code, without the camera. Turn it on in Shop settings, under Check-in, where it starts off. The page gives you a check-in link to copy; write that link onto an NTAG213 sticker with any tag-writing app, and put it where the QR code already is. The NFC guide walks you through writing and locking a tag.

    The tag carries the same link your QR code carries, so a tap proves a phone touched the sticker and nothing more. Your WiFi, location and phone rules still decide whether the check-in counts, exactly as they do for a scan.

    Taps have their own wait — fifteen minutes by default — so a second tap can't clock somebody straight back out. If your shifts are short enough that somebody genuinely needs to clock out inside that window, lower it in Shop settings; zero turns it off.

12. 12

    Read the Today screen

    Today shows who's in, who came in late, who's on leave and who's absent. Absent means somebody expected in who hasn't scanned — so it only counts people you're tracking, whose shift runs today, who aren't on approved leave, on a day you're open.

    Got a cleaner or a family member who should never show as absent? Set their tracking to “Not tracked” on their profile. They can still scan; they just drop out of the absent count.

For staff

Three things to know. After the first one, checking in takes about five seconds a day.

1. 01

   Join yourself up to work

   Install DailyBrew, sign up, and say you're staff. The screen shows your own staff code and gives you a box for the code your manager sends. Send yours over, or type in the one they sent you, whichever they ask for. You only do this once per shop.

2. 02

   Check in and out

   Open the app and scan the QR code at work, or tap the NFC tag if your shop has one. Your first scan of the day clocks you in, the next one clocks you out. The screen tells you which just happened, and at what time.

   On Espresso, neither one actually needs the app. The QR opens a check-in page straight from your camera, and the tag holds that same web link — tap it without the app and your phone just opens it in a browser. On the free plan the code only works in the app. Either way the app is smoother: it keeps you signed in and remembers the phone your other check-ins came from.

   Scanned twice by accident? A second scan within a minute of checking in is ignored, so you won't be clocked straight back out. A tag ignores a repeat tap for longer — fifteen minutes by default.

3. 03

   Ask for time offEspresso

   Pick your dates, say whether it's paid or unpaid, and add a reason. Half days work too: give a start and end time instead of a whole day. Your manager approves it or turns it down, and you can pull a request back while it's still waiting.

Fixing someone's hours

People forget to scan. Owners and managers with the hours permission can put it right, and every fix records who made it and why — so a corrected day is never mistaken for a real scan.

1. 01

   Somebody forgot to check out

   Open the day from Hours and edit the check-out time. You have to give a reason. The original times are kept and shown underneath, and the day is marked as edited from then on.

2. 02

   The QR was broken all day

   Add the day by hand from Hours, then Add: pick the person, the date, the times and a reason. You can't add a day that hasn't happened yet. If that person already has something on that day, the app moves you over to editing it rather than making a second one.

3. 03

   A day shouldn't be there at all

   Take it out with a reason. It stops counting in every total and every export, but stays in the log, struck through, showing who removed it and why. If that person scans again on the same day, it simply comes back.

When something goes wrong

Find the message you saw on screen — these are the app's own words. The last few show nothing at all, which is its own kind of puzzling, so they're here too.

Plans

QR check-in, shifts, closed days, the Today screen and your whole history are on every plan, the free one included.

Going over your staff limit doesn't delete anybody. We ask you to upgrade the next time you add someone.