For small business

Employee scheduling software for small business: from the week’s shifts to payroll

The manager builds the schedule in a browser and every employee gets it in the InShift app on iPhone or Android. Swaps, time off and open shifts arrive as requests, hours turn into pay from the same shifts, and one account runs every location you have. Priced per active person, with unlimited locations on the Basic plan.

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Two screens, one set of data

The admin panel lives at admin.inshift.app and opens in any browser. Its menu reads “Dashboard”, “Planner”, “Requests”, “Chat”, “Employees”, “Payroll”, “Property”, “Locations”, “Integrations” and “Settings”. The InShift app comes from the App Store and Google Play: each person sees their own shifts, asks for a day off, offers a shift to a coworker and reads what they have earned. A manager gets the team’s day and the requests in the same app.

Nothing is copied between the two. The manager presses “Publish” and the shifts are on the phones with a push. An employee submits a request and it is already in the manager’s list. An hourly rate set once turns every published shift into money in “Payroll”. Every frame on this page is the live demo organization, a company with three locations and 22 people.

Planner

The week is built from shift types, and the cost shows as you build it

A location keeps its shift types: a name, a start and an end, the days of the week it runs, a color. The manager clicks an empty cell, picks a type, and the shift is placed. Under each name the week’s hours and pay add up while you work, so an expensive week is caught before it is published, and “Publish (39)” tells you how many shifts the team is about to see.

  • “Week”, “Month”, “Year” and “List” views of the same schedule; “All locations” puts every site on one screen
  • A time conflict is flagged the moment a second shift lands on the same person: “Time conflict: already working 08:00–16:00 (Morning)”
  • “Copy last week” brings the week over as drafts; only the differences get edited
  • Drafts are visible only to the manager until “Publish”; the team never sees a half-built week
  • “Print” gives a PDF for the wall or “Download Excel” for whoever wants the file
The planner in detail

Requests

Time off, swaps and open shifts come in as requests, with a note

An employee picks “Holiday”, “Sick leave”, “Personal” or “Unpaid” in the app, sets the dates and writes why. The request lands in “Requests” with the days counted and the person’s role next to it, and the manager approves or rejects in one click. Approved days show as “Off” in the team’s day view, and the vacation balance is tracked per person from “Vacation days per year”.

  • Three tabs: “Time off”, “Swaps” and “Open shifts”, each with a counter of what is waiting
  • Filters by status and location, a search by name, so a chain with three sites is still one list
  • “Request rules” decide who approves what: a swap between coworkers can be “Coworker only”, “Manager only” or “Coworker + manager”
  • Open shifts run as “Requests, manager picks”: people volunteer in the app, the manager chooses
  • Every decision is kept, and the person gets a push the moment it is made
Swaps and requests in detail

The team’s app

Every employee carries the schedule, and the changes reach them first

The home screen opens on today: the shift with its hours, position and location, then the tiles “Check in”, “Day off” and “Open shifts”. The “Rota” tab is the month with a dot on every working day and “Who else is working” for any date. A push arrives for a new shift, a moved shift, a swap request and an approved day off, and a reminder comes before the shift starts.

  • “Today you have one shift”: 08:00 to 16:00, “Morning · Customer Support · Head Office”, “In progress, until 16:00”
  • “Cover”: offer a shift to a specific coworker or to everyone available that day
  • “Available shift swap” and “N open shifts” on the home screen the moment there is something to take
  • Their own hours and pay for the month under “Stats”, with the total explained line by line
  • The team chat, the location channel and announcements with a read count for the manager
The app, screen by screen

Payroll

Hours and pay come out of the same shifts, with premiums explained

Each person has a pay term: “Per hour”, “Per shift”, “Monthly salary” or “Shift price”, set for the whole company, for a job position or for one person. “Payroll” then shows every published shift as hours and money for the period, and the “Premiums” tab holds the rules: “Night hours” inside a window at a premium, “Holiday work” at a multiplier, “Over the daily norm” at a multiplier or as “Flat overtime pay”.

  • “Accruals” for the period: shifts, scheduled hours, rate, premiums, accrued, paid and owed per person, totals at the bottom
  • “Payments” records advances and settlements; the app shows each person what they have earned to date
  • “Close period” fixes the month; a rate changed later never rewrites it
  • “Export to Excel” and “Print” with a short sheet for payment or the full sheet
  • The same numbers for the manager’s phone under “Payroll” in the app and for an assistant with an API key
Pay from shifts in detail

Employees

The team is added in a minute, and everyone joins by code

“Add Employee” takes a name, a job position, a location and a role; “Add multiple” takes the names pasted from your spreadsheet. Every card gets a six-digit invite code, and “Invite team” prints a QR code for everyone who has not joined yet. The list shows who is “Connected” to the app and who is not, so nobody is left reading the schedule off a photo.

  • Filters by location, job position, department, role and status
  • “Available for substitution” opens a person up to cover shifts at other locations
  • “Start date” and “Vacation days per year” on the card; the company default fills the rest
  • “Access rights” are roles you shape yourself: “View rota”, “Edit rota”, “Approve time-off”, “Manage payroll” and more, each limited to “Own”, “My locations” or “Entire network”
  • “Employee’s view” shows the app exactly as one person sees it, before you send the code
Adding the team and sending codes

Dashboard

The day at a glance: who is in, what is uncovered, what is waiting

The “Dashboard” opens on the moment: “5 people working now” with “all shifts covered”, or the shift that has nobody on it. “Week ahead” shows shifts and hours per day with “gaps: 1” where a shift is still unassigned. “September in numbers” carries the payroll fund, what is owed to the team and the hours. Below it, the activity feed and everything “Awaiting decision”.

  • “Open shifts awaiting claims: 6” with a jump to the requests
  • “Not connected to the app: 1 of 22”, with an “Invite” right there
  • Birthdays today and the ones coming up, so the team hears from you first
  • The same dashboard in the manager’s app, sized for a phone
What the dashboard reads from

More screens

Six more screens from the same demo

Every one of them is the panel as it is, with the demo company’s data.

  • The “Month” view: a letter per shift, 174 shifts for the month, the count per person on the right.
  • The “List” view: who covers each shift type, day by day, with an empty slot where someone is still needed.
  • “Print”: this location or all of them as a PDF, or “Download Excel” with a sheet of shifts and a sheet of coverage.
  • “Locations”: three sites with their people and shift types; a new one is added in a minute.
  • “Chat”: announcements with “Read by”, a general chat, a channel per location and groups of any make-up.
  • “Request rules”: who approves a swap, how open shifts are handed out, who signs off time off.

Built for the questions a small business asks

Two or ten locations

Locations are unlimited on the Basic plan. A person belongs to a home location and can be scheduled or cover at others; “All locations” shows the chain on one screen, and a role can be limited to “My locations”.

Overtime and night premiums

Rules in “Premiums”: hours over a daily norm at a multiplier or a flat amount, a night window at a percentage, holiday work at a multiplier, a bonus per shift. Each applies from a date you pick.

Time off balances

“Vacation days per year” on the card, a company default for everyone else, and the app shows each person what is used and what is left before they ask.

Roles you define

A shift lead who edits the schedule of one site, an accountant who sees payroll and nothing else, an owner who sees everything. Rights are ticked per role and scoped per location.

Equipment on record

Uniforms, keys, devices with serial numbers: what was issued to whom and when it is due back. The person confirms receipt in the app.

Claude and ChatGPT

An assistant with an API key reads the schedule and answers in words: who is on tomorrow, whether the week has an overlap, what was accrued this month.

The group text and a spreadsheet, or InShift

Most small teams start with a shared spreadsheet and a group text. Here is where the two part ways.

Publishing the week

Spreadsheet and group text
A screenshot in the chat; the version that counts is whichever was sent last
InShift
“Publish”: the current schedule on every phone, a push for every change after it

A shift swap

Spreadsheet and group text
Two people agree in the chat, the manager finds out on the day
InShift
A request in the app, the manager approves in one tap, the schedule updates itself

Time off

Spreadsheet and group text
A text to the manager, a note in a calendar, a balance nobody is sure of
InShift
A request with the dates and a note, approved days marked “Off”, the balance in the app

Hours for payroll

Spreadsheet and group text
Counted by hand at the end of the period, night shifts guessed
InShift
Hours and pay from the published shifts, night, holiday and overtime rules applied

A second location

Spreadsheet and group text
A second spreadsheet and a second chat
InShift
One more location in the same account; “All locations” on one screen

Who is working right now

Spreadsheet and group text
Scroll, count, call
InShift
“5 people working now” on the dashboard, gaps for the week ahead

Live before the next shift starts

  1. 1

    Sign up

    Email and a password, or “Continue with Google”, at admin.inshift.app. The company is created with every section in place.

  2. 2

    A location and its shift types

    The site’s name and the shifts it runs: “Morning 08:00–16:00”, “Evening 13:00–21:00” or your own, with the days of the week and a color. More sites are added the same way.

  3. 3

    The team, by code

    “Add Employee”, or “Add multiple” with the names pasted from your sheet: name, job position, location. Each card gets a six-digit code the person types into the app from the App Store or Google Play.

  4. 4

    The first week and “Publish”

    Shifts go in from the cell menu, and the hours sit next to each name. After publishing, the team sees the schedule on their phones and gets a push.

Frequently asked questions

How much does the employee scheduling software cost?▾

One subscription priced per active person a month, with locations unlimited and a lower rate when paid yearly. Free for one location and up to 10 people. The pricing page has the numbers and how a person is counted.

Is there a charge per location?▾

No. On the Basic plan locations are unlimited: you pay for the people in the “Employees” list, wherever they work, and the second, third or tenth site costs nothing extra. The Free plan is one location and up to 10 people.

Can I run several locations from one account?▾

Yes. Each location has its own shift types, people and managers, and “All locations” shows the whole chain on one screen. A manager’s role can be limited to “My locations”, an owner sees the “Entire network”, and a person can be scheduled or cover at more than one site.

How do employees see their schedule?▾

In the InShift app on iPhone or Android. The manager adds the person, the card gets a six-digit code, the person installs the app and types it in. From then on they see their shifts, get a push for every change, ask for time off and offer swaps from the phone.

Does it handle overtime and night pay?▾

Yes, through rules in the “Premiums” tab of “Payroll”: hours over a daily norm at a multiplier or as a flat amount, a night window paid at a percentage on top, holiday work at a multiplier, a bonus per shift. Each rule applies from a date you pick and never rewrites a month that is already closed.

Do employees clock in?▾

Yes, with “Time tracking”, which comes with Basic at no extra charge: a tablet by the door shows a code, the person scans it with the app or types a staff number and a PIN, and the “Time tracking” board shows who is on site. Pay still comes from the published shifts, with the clocked hours in their own column next to them.

Can I export to Excel or send hours to my payroll provider?▾

“Export to Excel” in “Payroll” gives a sheet with each person, their shifts, hours, rate, premiums and total for any period, and the planner exports the schedule the same way. For a system of your own there is a public API with keys scoped to what they may read, and webhooks for events; there is no ready-made connector to QuickBooks or Gusto.

Can the schedule show 1 pm instead of 13:00?▾

Yes. “Time format” (12-hour or 24-hour) and “Week starts on” are settings of the organization. At sign-up they are suggested by the country of your time zone, so a US team starts with 1 pm and a week from Sunday, and the owner can change both later. The demo frames on this page come from an organization set to 24-hour time and a Monday week. Pay does not depend on either setting.

Schedule your team this week

Set up the team, drop in the shifts, publish. Everyone sees it on their phone the same minute.

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