Hours that are right before anyone pays them.
Hotel time and attendance software is the part of workforce software that records when staff start and finish work, applies break and overtime rules, compares worked hours with the roster and hands approved hours to payroll. HotelCadence records clock-ins next to the roster, so every shift shows who was scheduled, who clocked in, and where they differ. It calculates breaks, rounding and overtime while the shift runs. Managers approve exceptions, and approved hours go to payroll in one step. Included in every package from US$6 per scheduled employee per month.
HotelCadence is workforce software for hotels. It reads the bookings already in your property system, forecasts how busy each department will be hour by hour, builds the roster to match, records worked hours and prepares payroll. Department heads approve every roster. From US$6 per scheduled employee per month.
A timesheet that lives apart from the roster is a second roster, written by hand.
Picture the Monday after a full weekend at a 250-room hotel. The front office manager opens three things: the roster from Tuesday, a clock terminal export, and a spreadsheet where someone copied one into the other.
A housekeeper forgot to clock out on Saturday and shows twelve hours. Two F&B casuals clocked in at a different outlet than the one they were rostered to. Someone works out overtime for the Sunday wave by hand against the local rule. The department head spends two hours reconciling before a single hour reaches payroll, and the number that finance sees is still an estimate.
That reconciliation is where the low-hanging fruit hides. Optimizing the staff you already have starts with knowing, per hour and per department, what was planned and what was worked. Only then does the demand forecast have something to be measured against, and only then do labour standards and shift design mean anything on the floor. Read the five-step method on the how it works page.
Clock in, compare, approve, hand over
- 1
Clock in
Staff clock in by terminal at the staff entrance, in the employee app on their own phone, or by manual entry where a department prefers it. Each property picks the mix.
- 2
Rules run during the shift
Paid and unpaid breaks, rounding, night and public-holiday premiums and overtime thresholds are set once per market and applied as the clock runs.
- 3
Planned meets worked
Every clock-in sits against the rostered shift. The department head approves matching shifts in bulk and sees late starts, missing breaks and unworked shifts flagged.
- 4
Hand over to payroll
Approved hours and allowances flow to your payroll system without re-keying, booked to the department or cost centre they were worked in.
Built for hotel shifts
Three clock-in methods
Terminal, app or manual entry per department. A housekeeping team with no phones at work and a front desk that lives in the app run on the same system.
Shifts that cross midnight
Night audit and overnight F&B shifts are recorded as one shift, so overtime and premiums land on the right date.
Breaks by rule
Break length set per department by shift length or time of day, paid or unpaid, so the rest rule applies the same way on every floor.
Cost-centre tracking
A server who works breakfast in the all-day restaurant and dinner at the pool bar is booked to each outlet, so labour cost per outlet is visible without a spreadsheet.
Casual and agency pools
Daily-wage casuals and agency staff clock in against the same roster with their own contract rules, so their cost is in the same report as your own team.
Employee self-service
Staff see their own hours, breaks, overtime and balance in the app, which ends the end-of-month queue at the HR door.
One Saturday, one housekeeping team, before and after
A 300-room business hotel rosters 22 attendants for a Saturday with 180 departures. Here is what the department head sees on Monday with a separate clock export, and what she sees when attendance sits on the roster.
| Task on Monday | Clock export plus spreadsheet | Attendance on the roster |
|---|---|---|
| Match 22 clock-ins to rostered shifts | By hand, about 40 minutes | Automatic; 19 match and are approved in one click |
| Forgotten clock-out, attendant 7 | Shows 12.5 hours; corrected by asking her on Tuesday | Flagged as a conflict with the rostered 8-hour shift; corrected in one tap |
| Two attendants moved to the conference floor | Hours booked to rooms; conference cost understated | Booked to the banquet cost centre they clocked into |
| Sunday overtime premium | Calculated per person against the local rule | Applied as the shift ran; shown per attendant |
| Hand over to payroll | Re-keyed into the payroll portal | Exported with allowances in one step |
| Time spent | About two hours | About ten minutes |
Worked example, figures indicative. The same roster data also feeds the monthly measurement of roster build time and overtime against your baseline.
Worked hours are the evidence
HotelCadence measures every deployment against a baseline agreed before go-live: labour cost per occupied room, overtime hours, roster build time and service coverage. Three of those four come straight from attendance. If you reconstruct worked hours from a spreadsheet, the saving is an argument. If you record them against the roster, the saving is a report both sides read. See how results are measured on the how it works page.
Attendance is also what tells the forecast whether it was right. A department that was rostered for the forecast and still ran overtime is a signal the labour standard needs adjusting. A department that sent people home early is a signal the forecast over-called. Neither shows up without clock data on the same screen as the plan.
Questions hotel HR and finance teams ask
What is hotel time and attendance software?
Hotel time and attendance software is software that records when hotel staff start and finish work, applies break, rounding and overtime rules, compares worked hours with the roster, and hands approved hours to payroll. In HotelCadence it is part of the same system that forecasts demand and builds the roster, so planned and worked hours are always side by side.
How do staff clock in?
By terminal at the staff entrance, in the HotelCadence employee app on their own phone, or by manual entry where a department prefers it. Each property and department chooses the mix. A forgotten clock-out shows as a conflict against the rostered shift, with no guessed figure.
Does it calculate breaks, surcharges and overtime on its own?
Yes. Break rules are set per department by shift length or time of day. Night, public-holiday and overtime premiums are set per market during onboarding and applied as the shift runs. Your HR team configures the property's own rules; the system applies them the same way every day.
Does HotelCadence run payroll?
No. It prepares the hours. Approved hours and allowances flow to your payroll system through the payroll integration included in the Connect and steer package and above, booked to the department or cost centre they were worked in. Your payroll provider runs the pay.
Can we see labour cost per outlet?
Yes. Cost-centre time tracking books clock-ins by department and role, so the labour cost of the pool bar, the all-day restaurant and banquets is shown per outlet, without a spreadsheet.
Which package includes time tracking?
All of them. Time tracking and attendance is in Run the day, the first package at US$6 per scheduled employee per month. Payroll integration and cost-centre tracking start at Connect and steer.
30 minutes · your own property-system data if you share access · no obligation.