For restaurants

Restaurant scheduling software for front and back of house

InShift is restaurant scheduling software for the manager who builds next week on a Tuesday night. Servers, hosts, bartenders, line cooks, prep and dish share one schedule, grouped by department. A double is simply two shifts on the same day, and each person’s hours and pay add up under their name as you build. Hit “Publish” and the week shows up in the InShift app on everyone’s phone; swaps come back to you as requests.

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Restaurant employee scheduling: two teams, one schedule

A restaurant schedule is really two. Back of house starts first: prep cooks before the doors open, line cooks for lunch and dinner, a dishwasher who stays until the last pan is clean. Front of house follows the covers: a host on the door, enough servers for the reservations, a bartender who sets up before service and closes after it. Most of the week’s mistakes happen where the two meet: the kitchen staffed for a slow Tuesday, the floor for a Friday.

In InShift, front and back of house are two departments under one location, each with its own positions, so the whole restaurant’s week fits on one screen. Each position has its own shift types: Lunch and Dinner for servers, AM line and PM line for line cooks. Someone working a double simply has two shifts that day. Sign up in the US and times read 1 pm, with the week starting on Sunday, by default.

Positions

Set up servers, line cooks, bartenders and hosts as positions

“Job positions” is where you set up who does what. Use “Add department” for front and back of house, then “Add position” for servers, hosts, bartenders, line cooks, prep cooks and dishwashers. Each location lists the positions that work there, each with its own shift types. The screenshot shows a demo company’s departments.

  • Shift types belong to a position, so a server’s cell offers server shifts and a cook’s offers line shifts
  • “Add positions for cover” on an employee’s card: a server who can host, a line cook who can cover prep
  • The planner groups people by department, so you catch a short-staffed Saturday line on Tuesday
  • Unlimited departments and positions
How to set up a location, positions and shift types

A Friday in a 120-seat restaurant

Lunch from 11:30 AM, dinner from 5:00 PM, fully booked after 7. Each row is one position’s shift type, and the double is one server on two shifts.

7:00 AM – 3:00 PM · Prep cook

Deliveries and prep for both services, then the lunch line

10:30 AM – 3:00 PM and 4:30 PM – 10:30 PM · Server on a double

Same section at lunch and dinner, two shifts in one day

10:30 AM – 3:30 PM · Servers × 3

Lunch, cut when the last table pays

2:00 PM – 11:00 PM · Line cooks × 3

Dinner line, then closing down the kitchen

4:00 PM – 10:00 PM · Host

The door, the waitlist and seating

4:00 PM – 12:30 AM · Bartender

Sets up the bar before service and closes it out

4:30 PM – 11:00 PM · Servers × 5

Dinner, one section each on a full night

5:00 PM – 12:00 AM · Dishwasher

Through the dinner rush to the last pan

A shift that ends after midnight, like the bartender’s 4:00 PM to 12:30 AM, stays one shift on the day it starts, and all of its hours count.

The planner

Doubles, clopening and labor cost on one screen

Each employee gets a row, each day a column. A double is two shifts in one cell, and if the second overlaps the first, it’s flagged right away: “Time conflict: already working”. A clopening, closing Friday night and opening Saturday morning, sits side by side on the same row, so you catch it before your staff does. Under each name, the week’s hours and pay add up as you place shifts, so you see labor cost while the schedule is still a draft.

  • “Copy week” copies a good week over as drafts, so you only fix what changed
  • Drafts stay with the manager until “Publish”: the team never sees a half-built Friday
  • “Open shift” holds a slot nobody has taken yet, in its own row
  • “Week”, “Month”, “Year” and “List” views of the same schedule
How to build the week

Shift swaps

A server swaps Saturday in the app, and you approve it

No more midnight texts to the manager. The server opens “Substitute” in the InShift app and offers the shift under “Find a replacement”; a coworker sees it under “Available swaps” and taps “Take shift”. The schedule updates itself, and everyone involved gets a push notification.

  • “Request rules” decide who signs off: “Coworker only”, “Manager only” or “Coworker + manager”
  • Time-off requests come in the same way, with dates and a note, before you build the week
  • “Who else is working” on any day, so a line cook knows who is on the pass tonight
  • The schedule on iPhone and Android, with a push for every change and a reminder before each shift
The restaurant scheduling app, screen by screen

The big party

Two more servers for Saturday without a phone tree

A party of 40 on Saturday means two more servers and another line cook. In “Open shift for the team”, pick the position, the shift type, the days and “How many people needed”. Check “Offer to the team”, and everyone in that position sees the shift in the app and can tap “I want it”. You pick from the volunteers.

  • One open shift can fill several spots, as many as you’re short
  • A 6 AM call-out works the same way: post an open shift and let the team respond
  • Volunteers show up in “Requests” on the “Open shifts” tab

Hours and pay

Hours and pay for every server and cook, from the same shifts

Each employee is paid “Per hour” or “Per shift”, and “Payroll” turns every published shift into hours and pay for the period. With “Time tracking” on, staff clock in at a tablet by the kitchen door, and the “Checked in” column sits next to “Scheduled” for everyone.

  • Rules on the “Premiums” tab: night hours, holiday work, and hours past a set number per day at a multiplier
  • “Export to Excel” for whoever runs payroll
  • Employees see their own hours and pay under “Stats” in the app, and nobody else’s
The time clock app at the kitchen door

Restaurant schedule template and group text vs. InShift

Plenty of restaurants run on a spreadsheet taped to the office wall. Here’s where it falls short.

Next week

Template and group text
Copy the tab, then fix dates and names by hand
InShift
“Copy week”: drafts with the right dates, then you change what’s different

Getting it to the team

Template and group text
A photo of the schedule in the group chat
InShift
“Publish”: the week in the app, a push to every phone

A swap

Template and group text
Two servers agree by text; the manager finds out at 5 PM
InShift
A request in the app, approved under your rules

Doubles and clopening

Template and group text
Easy to miss in a wall of times
InShift
Side by side on the employee’s row, overlaps flagged

Labor cost

Template and group text
A formula that breaks when someone adds a row
InShift
Hours and pay under each name while you build

Hours for payroll

Template and group text
Totaled from the template at the end of the period
InShift
From published shifts, with clock-ins alongside

Set up your restaurant in one evening

  1. 1

    Sign up and add your location

    Sign up at admin.inshift.app with email or “Continue with Google”. Your restaurant is a location; a second restaurant is a second location in the same account.

  2. 2

    Front and back of house, with positions

    A department each for front and back of house, positions inside them, and shift types for each position: “Lunch”, “Dinner”, “AM line”, “PM line”, “Bar close”.

  3. 3

    Add your team

    “Add multiple” takes a list of names pasted from your spreadsheet. Each employee joins the app with a 6-digit code.

  4. 4

    Build the first week and “Publish”

    Click a cell to add a shift, add doubles where needed, check the hours under each name, then hit “Publish”. Next week starts with “Copy week”.

Frequently asked questions

Can a server work a double?▾

Yes. A double is two shifts on the same day, for example “Lunch” and “Dinner”, and both sit in the employee’s cell. If the second shift overlaps the first, the planner flags a “Time conflict”. Hours from both shifts add up on the employee’s row and in “Payroll”.

How do I schedule front and back of house together?▾

Make them two departments of the same location and put the positions inside: servers, hosts and bartenders in one; line cooks, prep and dish in the other. The planner groups people by department, so the whole restaurant is one week on one screen with one “Publish”.

Can I see labor cost while I build the schedule?▾

Yes. Set each person’s rate once, and the week’s hours and pay add up under every name as you place shifts, before anything is published. “Payroll” then shows the same numbers for the pay period, with premiums and totals.

Does it flag clopening shifts?▾

It shows them. A closing shift and the next morning’s opener sit side by side on the employee’s row in the week view, so you see the quick turnaround before you hit “Publish”. How much rest to leave between them is up to you.

Can employees swap shifts without calling the manager?▾

Yes. In the app, an employee offers a shift under “Substitute”, a coworker takes it, and the swap is approved according to your “Request rules”: “Coworker only”, “Manager only” or “Coworker + manager”.

Is there a restaurant schedule template?▾

Yes, and there’s no sign-up. On the work schedule templates page, the daily schedule with hourly coverage comes filled in with a sample restaurant Saturday, and the weekly employee schedule covers the whole team.

Does it work for more than one restaurant?▾

Yes. Each restaurant is a location with its own positions, shifts and managers, and “All locations” shows every restaurant’s week on one screen. On the Basic plan, locations are unlimited.

What does it cost for a restaurant?▾

Free for one location and up to 10 people. Beyond that, it’s a monthly subscription per active person, with locations, payroll and the team app included. Prices are on the pricing page.

Schedule front and back of house this week

Setting up departments, positions and the first week takes one evening, and every server and cook has the schedule on their phone the same day.

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