01 — Badges
A QR badge instead of another login.
Most hourly staff do not want another username and password. Ordello hands every employee a QR badge — a personal link they open once on their phone, set a four-digit PIN, and never see again. The PIN is what they tap into the clock-in terminal every shift. No app to install. No password to forget. No staff member ever locked out of their own hours.
- A personal badge link for every employee — no app install required.
- Four-digit PIN for clock-in: fast at peak, simple at rest.
- Revoke a leaver instantly without touching anyone else's access.
- The badge portal also handles leave and availability requests.
Every shift is one time entry. Granular events attach to it; approval turns it into payable hours; the payroll run rolls it up against the pay rules in force at the time.
Set once on the badge URL. No password to forget.
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1
Clock-in
PIN at the terminal. Start time stamped.
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2
Pause & resume
Break events attach to the same entry.
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3
Clock-out
End time stamped · entry awaits approval.
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4
Approval
Manager reviews and approves the period.
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5
Payroll run
Snapshot of rules; entry locked.
Break and adjustment minutes are separate fields — original clock times never change.
Compare scheduled hours to clocked hours on the same screen.
Employee requests; manager approves; rota respects it.
- Clock-in & payroll are the bookends — the rest of the workflow protects what happens in between.
- Adjustments are audited — the original clock times are immutable.
- Approval is the gate — only approved entries reach the payroll run.
02 — Terminals
A clock-in kiosk at every venue, locked to the right device.
A terminal is whatever the venue has — a tablet by the staff door, a fixed iPad behind the counter, a phone propped on a wall. Each one is locked to its venue, so the operation rolls out clock-in without sharing logins or worrying about devices used in the wrong location. Multiple terminals per venue work in step, even at peak handover.
- One or more clock-in terminals per venue, locked to their location.
- Concurrent-entry protection so two staff never collide on the same device.
- Switch a terminal between locations without re-onboarding employees.
- Offline terminals surface on the dashboard before they cause a payroll gap.
03 — Clock-in and time entries
Every shift recorded exactly as it happened.
The moment a staff member taps in, Ordello captures the time, the terminal and the employee. As the shift runs, every pause, resume and clock-out attaches to that entry — so two hours late, a forgotten break or a covered shift are all faithfully recorded. Open entries surface on the dashboard so they are never forgotten on payroll Friday.
- Every shift recorded as a single entry with clock-in, breaks and clock-out.
- Multiple sources supported — terminal, CSV import or manual manager edit.
- Open entries surface on the dashboard well before payroll day.
- The audit trail captures what actually happened, not just the total.
04 — Breaks and adjustments
Breaks recorded, adjustments audited.
A break captured by the terminal looks the same as a break entered by the manager — except the audit trail tells them apart. Adjustments for forgotten clock-outs, mid-shift coverage or unused break time live separately, so the original clock-in time is never overwritten. When payroll questions arise, the answer is visible, not reconstructed.
- Paid and unpaid breaks handled per pay rule.
- Adjustments stored separately so original times are preserved intact.
- Every adjustment carries a reason, logged against the entry.
- Locked entries become read-only; corrections raise a new adjustment.
05 — Manager approval
Approval turns raw time into payable hours.
A clocked time entry is just data. An approved one is payroll input. The manager reviews the period, fixes any anomalies and approves the lot in one motion. Once approved, the data is locked — so historical reports never silently change when a future rate update lands.
- Bulk-approve a full date range when the data is clean.
- Every approval stamps the manager and the time of approval.
- Locked entries cannot be retroactively edited — corrections raise new entries.
- The same approval flow feeds payroll, reporting and the audit log.
06 — Rota and shift scheduling
Rotas and time entries on the same screen.
Most operators run the rota in one tool and the timesheet in another — which makes variance invisible until payroll. Ordello keeps them on the same screen. Plan the week, publish the shifts, and watch reality fall into place against intent. Cover, no-shows and over-runs surface in real time.
- Plan, draft and publish a week of shifts in one place.
- Compare planned hours against actual hours per employee.
- Cover, no-show and over-run variance is visible against the same period.
- Published shifts inform leave decisions and availability constraints.
07 — Leave requests
Leave requests through the same badge portal.
An employee with a badge already has a leave portal — no app to install, no new login. The request lands in the manager's queue alongside the day's clock-in anomalies. Approve once, and the rota automatically blocks scheduling against those dates.
- Employees file leave from the badge link they already have.
- Manager approves or denies with a note attached to the decision.
- Approved leave is visible on the rota so shifts cannot double-book.
- Recurring unavailability handled without filing a full leave request.
08 — Payroll runs
Payroll that snapshots the rules, not just the totals.
A payroll run aggregates approved time against the pay rules in force at the time. Crucially, the rules themselves are snapshotted onto the run — so if a rate changes next month, last month's payroll still reads the rates it ran on. Historical payslips never silently rewrite themselves.
- Pay period — week, fortnight or month — runs against approved time entries.
- Pay rules are snapshotted onto every run so history is reproducible.
- Runs lock when finalised; corrections raise new runs.
- Export to CSV or supported payroll bureau formats.
SUMMARY
The shape of it.
The badge replaces another login. The terminal replaces the clipboard. Approval replaces the phone call to the boss. The payroll run replaces the panicked rebuild every fortnight. The point is not "an HR system" — it is one less system stitched on top of all the others.