Phone, fingerprint or QR attendance: which should you use?
Three ways to know who came to work and when. Here is how each one works, where it fails, and how to combine them so attendance flows straight into payroll.
The short answer
Phone clock-in with a location radius suits offices, field teams and companies with several sites, because it needs no hardware. Fingerprint devices suit factories and sites where phones are not allowed. QR codes suit shared entrances and shift sites where you want a fixed point to scan.
Many companies mix them: fingerprints at the factory gate, phones for sales and branch staff. What matters is that every punch ends up in one attendance record that payroll reads.
The three methods side by side
| Phone with location | Fingerprint device | QR code | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hardware | None: employees’ own phones | A device at each entrance | A printed or screen QR at each site |
| Proves the person | Optional selfie | Yes, the fingerprint | Only the phone that scans |
| Proves the place | Office radius on a map, or office network | The device’s location | Where the code is posted |
| Works for field staff | Yes | No | Only at sites with a code |
| Typical weak spot | GPS accuracy indoors | Exporting and fixing punches | Codes shared by photo |
Phone clock-in done right
- Draw a radius around each office (for example 100 to 300 metres) and allow clock-in only inside it
- Add a selfie or an office network check where buddy punching is a risk
- Let employees see their own punches and request a correction instead of messaging HR
Keeping fingerprint devices
You do not have to replace devices you already own. Export the punches as Excel or CSV, match the columns once, and import them into the attendance system each day or week. Duplicates and missing check-outs should be flagged, not silently counted.
From punches to payroll
- Apply grace minutes, lateness penalties and overtime rules automatically, the same way for everyone
- Show how each day was calculated, so a deduction can be explained
- Close the month and approve overtime before the payroll run
Every punch in one record
keyt HR takes phone clock-ins within each office’s radius, imports fingerprint device files, and turns the month’s attendance into payroll.
keyt HR: HR, attendance and payrollSee it working