NIGHT: 1 of 2 required – 1 shortN1
Attendance · 22 Sep, night
Under-guarded
Fewer officers on the shift than the site requires. The roster shows it while there is still time to move someone; attendance shows it the morning after a no-show.
The product
From the roster to the payslip,
on one screen.
AutoRoster plans the shifts, measures every day against what the site requires, reconciles what was actually worked and costs it as it goes. This page walks through each part on the screens your schedulers and payroll team will use.
AI rostering
Automated scheduling that optimises labour cost, compliance and coverage at once.
Complex shift rostering is a moving matrix of variables, not a static calendar. Coverage, grade and certification compliance, mandated rest periods, overtime thresholds, leave and client-specific service levels all have to hold at the same time — inside a margin limit. Adjusting a single shift by hand sends a ripple through the whole plan.
AutoRoster replaces days of manual planning with immediate, rule-driven scheduling — and recalculates the entire roster the moment operational reality changes.
See it on your own sites0 / 8
constraints satisfied
- Full operational coverageContinuous 24/7 staffing across fixed, mobile and relief shifts
- Qualifications & skill alignmentGrades, certifications and PSIRA registration matched to the post
- Mandated rest recoveryStatutory daily and weekly rest windows between shifts
- Overtime threshold controlDaily and weekly hour caps before premium pay triggers
- Absence & schedule integrityNo conflicts with approved leave, training or standby
- Premium rate calculationWeekend, night and public-holiday loadings costed correctly
- Custom operational rulesSite-specific constraints, gender ratios and exclusions
- Budget & margin protectionProjected labour cost held inside contract and budget
Coverage at a glance
See every under-guarded post before the client does.
This is the roster and attendance screen as it looks in AutoRoster — one fortnight at one site, planned and then worked. Above every day, the coverage row measures who is on against what the site requires, and flags a shift that is short, over, below grade or missing the female officer it needs.
Daily Attendance
Captured actuals for a site over the pay cycle — pay derives from these.
Kya Sands Distribution Centre14 – 27 September 2026
WorkedOffLeaveCustom (actual ≠ roster)Locked+1Overtime hours−1Short hoursUnder-staffedOver-staffedFully coveredGrade mismatch♀Female shortSundayPublic holiday
| Employee | 14M | 15T | 16W | 17T | 18F | 19S | 20S | 21M | 22T | 23W | 24TPH | 25F | 26S | 27S |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
CoverageRequired | D2N2 | D2N2 | D2♀N2 | D2N2 | D2N2 | D2N2 | D2N2 | D2N2 | D2N2 | D2N2 | D2♀N2 | D2♀N2 | D2♀N2 | D2♀N2 |
| KSD101MOKOENA, SIPHO | D12 | D12 | N12 | N12 | o0 | o0 | D12 | L0 | N12 | N12 | ||||
| KSD102NAIDOO, PRIYA | D12 | N12 | N12 | o0 | o0 | D12 | D12 | N12 | NPS0 | o0 | ||||
| KSD103VAN WYK, THEO | N12 | NAB0 | oD12 | o0 | D12 | DAB0 | N12 | N12 | o0 | o0 | ||||
| KSD104DLAMINI, LINDIWE | N12 | o0 | o0 | D12 | D12 | N12 | N12 | o0 | o0 | D13+1 | ||||
| KSD105BOTHA, MARIUS | o0 | o0 | D12 | D14+2 | N12 | N12 | o0 | oD12 | D12 | D12 | ||||
| KSD106SITHOLE, NOMSA | o0 | D12 | DAB0 | N12 | N9−3 | oD12 | o0 | D12 | D12 | N12 |
What the flags mean
Close-ups of days from the grid above, with the tooltip the app gives them.
DAY: 3 of 2 required – 1 overD3
Roster · 25 Sep, day
Over-guarded
More officers posted than the contract pays for. Every extra shift is wage cost with no invoice behind it — flagged in red so it is not quietly absorbed.
DAY: 2 of 2 required – 1 grade underD2
Attendance · 19 Sep, day
Grade mismatch
The headcount is right, but not the grades. A post that needs a grade B officer is being filled below the grade the client is billed for.
DAY: 2 of 2 required – 1 female shortD2♀
Attendance · 16 Sep, day
Female officer short
Sites that search female staff or visitors need a woman on the shift. Two officers turned up — neither of them the one the post requires.
DAY: 1 of 2 required – 1 short, 1 grade underD2RequiredD1RosteredD−1Difference
Roster · 21 Sep, day
Read the gap your way
Each coverage cell prints the figure you choose — what the site needs, who is on, or the difference — beside the flag. Here, leave booked on the roster left the day a man and a grade short.
NPS0
Sick, not nightoD12
Cover on an off dayAttendance · 21 & 22 Sep
Worked ≠ rostered
Where the day captured differs from the plan, the planned shift stays on the cell, struck through, and a dot marks it — so a sick day or a swap is never mistaken for the roster.
D14+2
2 hours overtimeN9−3
3 hours shortAttendance · 17 & 18 Sep
Overtime and short hours
Hours beyond the shift carry a green badge, hours short an orange one, both with the amount — the figures pay is computed from, visible on the day they happened.
D12
SundayD
Heritage DayN12
Locked20, 24 & 14 Sep
Sundays, holidays and locked days
Days that pay at a different rate are tinted before anybody works them, and a period that has been paid is hatched and locked so it cannot change under the payslip.
AI attendance ingestion
Multi-channel attendance ingestion. Fragmented field data, unified automatically.
Data capture varies by location. One site uses a biometric terminal, another relies on paper timesheets, and a third on supervisor reports. AutoRoster ingests every format, cross-references the variations, and outputs a single standardised, audit-ready dataset.
Photographed registersHandwritten timesheets and sign-in logs, read automatically
Biometric exportsFingerprint and facial-recognition terminals
Mobile geofenced check-insGPS-verified, with offline capability
Supervisor communicationsMessaging apps, SMS or email
AI
ingestion
ingestion
Reads, reconciles and audits anomalies instantly
Automated roster reconciliationScheduled vs actual shifts, instantly
Exceptions & anomaly flagsMissed shifts, unapproved overtime, late arrivals
Payroll-ready datasetsAudited hours, synced to margin costing
Automated ingestion, zero data entry
Image-based registers and physical logs are parsed into structured shift data linked to the correct site and date. Eliminating manual data entry eliminates transcription errors with it.
Continuous roster reconciliation
Every captured clocking is cross-referenced with the planned roster. Perfect matches process silently in the background, so your team only reviews the variances that need a human decision.
Actionable exceptions, not operational noise
Absenteeism, delayed clock-ins, unauthorised overtime and duplicate scans are surfaced as a prioritised task list — not a spreadsheet to audit.
Scan it in
ID cards and paper registers, read by AI.
The two slowest jobs in a guarding office are typing in new officers and typing up registers. AutoRoster takes a photograph of either — OCR reads the page, AI works out what each line means, and it lands in the same screens you roster and pay from.
Photograph an ID card. Get an employee.
Snap the smart ID card or green ID book on a phone. AutoRoster reads the name and ID number, validates the number, and fills date of birth, gender and citizenship from it — a new officer on file before the induction is over.
IDENTITY CARDSAMPLE
- Surname
- SITHOLE
- Names
- NOMSA
- Sex
- F
- Date of birth
- 18 JUL 1992
Identity No.920718 0341 085
New employee Read from ID
Employee no.KSD106from next free
SurnameSITHOLEfrom card
ForenamesNOMSAfrom card
ID number9207180341085Check digit valid
Date of birth1992-07-18from ID number
GenderFemalefrom ID number
CitizenshipSouth Africanfrom ID number
Photograph the register. Get the day's attendance.
The supervisor photographs the signed sheet. OCR and AI read the handwriting, match each line to the officer and the rostered shift, and capture it — only the lines that disagree with the roster wait for a person.
Kya Sands DC · Daily register · 22/09
NameShiftInOutSignBotha MD05:5818:04Sithole ND06:0118:00Mokoena SN17:5506:02Naidoo PNsicknote
Captured · 22 Sep From register
KSD105 BOTHA05:58–18:04
D12
KSD106 SITHOLE06:01–18:00
D12
KSD101 MOKOENA17:55–06:02
N12
KSD102 NAIDOOsick note
NPS0
3 match the roster 1 to review: sick, rostered night
On post now
Midrand Office Park · Day 06:00–18:00
Gate 2 is unmanned · 24 min after start
3 on post1 late1 missing
- Bongani Nkosi Gate 2Not clocked in
- Ruan Adams Loading bayIn 06:12 · 12 min late
- Thabo Khumalo Main gateIn 05:52 · 40 m from site
- Jessica Pillay ReceptionIn 05:58 · 25 m from site
- Sizwe Mahlangu PatrolIn 05:49 · 60 m from siteClocked in by supervisor
Review & approve day
Mobile time & attendance
Know every post is manned, from your phone.
Guards clock in at the post with GPS and a selfie. Supervisors see who is on post, who is late and who is missing — while there is still time to send someone.
For guards
- Shift reminders — a push before every shift, and a nudge if they have not clocked in
- Clock in at the post — GPS checks the guard is at the site before the clock-in counts
- A selfie every clock-in — so you can see the right person is on post
- Works on poor signal — clock-ins are saved on the phone and sent when it reconnects
- No email needed — sign up with an SMS code, then ID or employee number and a PIN. Google or email also work
- One app, more than one company — a guard who works for two companies picks which one
For supervisors
- On post now — who is clocked in, who is late, who is missing — and a tap to call them
- Unmanned-post alerts — a push when a post is still empty after the shift starts
- Clock guards in yourself — from your own phone, with GPS and photos, for sites where guards have no phone
- Approve the day — review the actuals and approve them — they feed straight into pay
Location at clock-in only
The phone reads its location when the guard clocks in or out, and at no other time. There is no background tracking.
Private photos, deleted on schedule
Clock-in selfies are never public, only people with permission can see them, and they are deleted on a schedule once pay is settled. Built with POPIA in mind.
Evidence for every dispute
Each clock-in keeps its GPS position, time and photo. When a client or a guard disputes a shift, you have the record.
On the roadmap
NFC tags at posts and patrol checkpoints — a guard taps a tag to prove they reached each point on the route.
Sandton Precinct · October
Projected from actuals to day 18
Projected costR0k
Gross margin0.0%
Overtime share11.2%
Profit & loss projections
Proactive margin visibility. Control profitability mid-month, not post-payroll.
Most operations only learn that a site or contract has overrun its budget after the payroll cycle closes and the money is already spent. At that stage, corrections can only be made in the following month.
AutoRoster models the financials as the roster is built and updates projections continuously as live attendance flows in. By forecasting month-end cost in real time, it flags margin erosion early enough for management to adjust labour allocation and defend profitability.
- Live cost tracking — base wages, overtime premiums and allowances per site
- Contractual cap monitoring — contracted revenue against projected labour cost
- Multi-tier consolidation — roll-ups by client, branch or cost centre
- Variance auditing — the budgeted plan against actualised labour expense
Guardrails
Risk mitigation and operational guardrails, built in.
The administrative details that are easiest to overlook are exactly the ones that trigger labour disputes, failed compliance audits and unbillable leakage. AutoRoster builds the legal and financial guardrails directly into the daily workflow.
Statutory & sectoral compliance
Weekly and monthly overtime thresholds, weekend premium loadings, night-shift allowances and split-shift rates — BCEA and Sectoral Determination rules included — calculated from real attendance data rather than a spreadsheet.
Credential-aware deployment
Training levels, industry certifications and mandatory registrations such as PSIRA are checked before a shift is assigned, with alerts weeks before an expiry so an audit never finds a lapsed certificate first.
Proactive overtime mitigation
See projected overtime accumulating mid-week while the roster is still flexible, and adjust allocations before premium liabilities are locked in.
Payroll integrations
Audited hours and earnings export to Sage, VIP, PaySpace, Pastel or your bureau in the format they expect. No manual re-keying and no month-end cross-reconciliation.
Resilient field data capture
GPS-verified clock-ins from basic mobile handsets, with automatic offline queuing for remote sites that syncs securely the moment connectivity returns.
Intelligent absence cover
When a no-show is logged, AutoRoster immediately suggests qualified, rested and available replacements who meet the compliance rules — at the most cost-effective tier.
Isolated multi-entity architecture
Model branches, clients, sites and cost centres independently, with strict data isolation between companies. One login, no bleed between tenants.
Billing from actual delivery
Generate client invoices from verified hours actually worked rather than the original plan, aligning billing with delivery and reducing disputes.
Privacy by design
Built to meet POPIA: role-based access, a full audit trail of who changed which shift, data minimisation, and hosting in South Africa.
See it on your own sites
Bring one site. We will roster the month with you.
A working session on your own shift patterns and pay rules — the coverage flags, the reconciliation and the margin, on your numbers rather than ours.