An Unbiased Buddy Punch Review by Its Customers

Search for Buddy Punch reviews, and you’ll get a long list of “honest” reviews written by our competitors. But we have a sneaking suspicion that it’s hard to be honest and unbiased when writing about a competitor. We also suspect that in most cases — given the inaccurate information included in these posts — that they didn’t actually try our product when reviewing it.

At the same time, it’s also hard to be unbiased when writing about your own product. So don’t worry — we won’t insult your intelligence by writing our own “honest” review of our own product.

Instead, we’ve selected some reviews our customers have written about us on third-party websites to show you why Buddy Punch is the best employee time clock software on the market according to the people who actually use it.

What types of businesses is Buddy Punch best for?

Buddy Punch is best for small to mid-sized businesses that primarily employ hourly staff.

It’s useful for businesses across a wide range of industries; a look at our Capterra reviews shows we have customers in industries as diverse as hospitality, field services, healthcare, education, transportation, automotive, utilities, and information technology.

Features like GPS tracking and geofencing make Buddy Punch a popular choice for industries with employees who work in the field, such as construction, contracting, home healthcare, landscaping, real estate, environmental services, and engineering.

And the ability to schedule employees to work at specific locations also make it appealing to multi-location businesses or franchises in the restaurant, retail, entertainment, and event planning industries.

Buddy Punch’s duration entry and job costing features also make it a good fit for businesses with a blend of hourly and salaried workers, such as legal services, accounting, government, and professional services. Salaried workers can enter their time manually, and hourly workers can use our time clock app. And everyone can attach their hours to specific tasks and projects.

When Buddy Punch is not the right fit

Buddy Punch is not the right fit for your business if you’re looking for software that lets you monitor what knowledge workers are doing on their computers while they work. It does not offer computer activity tracking features like idle detection, URL tracking, or screenshots.

Free trial and pricing

Buddy Punch offers a 14-day free trial. The trial is completely risk-free; you don’t have to enter a credit card to take the product for a test-drive. Our support team will help you set your trial up and answer any questions you have along the way, as evidenced by these customer reviews:

• “The chat staff has been super helpful every single time I have messaged them. They helped me get the software ready for a trial run, which was very helpful!” (Read the full review)
• “They have the best customer service ever. They answer questions in minutes. Also, we needed more time during the trial period, and they took action immediately.” (Read the full review)
• “The team is responsive and eager to assist. Any questions we’ve had, whether using the free trial or after we signed up as a customer, have been answered quickly.” (Read the full review)

Buddy Punch’s plans start at $4.49 per user per month plus a $19/month base fee that covers the cost of all of your admin users. Add as many admins as you need; you’ll never pay more than $19/month for them. It’s one of the most affordable time clocks on the market, and customers say the return on investment is incredible:

• “User friendly — even for people with no computer skills — and the price is right.” (Read the full review)
• “Absolutely worth the money. My employees love it, especially compared to our last system.” (Read the full review)
• “Not only does it save me time, it also saves our company money — all while giving our employees an easy-to-use platform so we can keep accurate time records.” (Read the full review)

When Buddy Punch is not the right fit

Buddy Punch is not the right fit if you’re looking for a free time clock app for individual use. We do not offer a free plan, and our product is designed for employee time tracking — not personal time tracking.

Customer support

Some of our competitors only offer customer support if you’re subscribed to their higher-priced plans, or they restrict access to support to admin users only. On all of Buddy Punch’s plans, everyone on your team can get help when they need it through our live chat support.

Our support is delivered by human support reps who know our product inside and out and can help with even the most unique requirements and questions. We top the ratings on Capterra for customer support with a 4.8 out of 5-star rating, and customers rave about our support often:

• “Their customer support is second to NONE — always super responsive and knowledgeable while providing BEYOND this world stellar customer service.” (Read the full review)
• “Cannot say enough about their support. Even if the product was not as amazing as it is, I would highly recommend Buddy Punch due to the unbelievable support!” (Read the full review)
• “The customer support team is super responsive, thorough, and effective. Their team is knowledgeable about my organization and the way that we use the platform. I have received many helpful suggestions on how we can best leverage the platform in our sometimes-complicated organizational structure.” (Read the full review)
• “Working with the Buddy Punch support team has been such a wonderful experience. The team is responsive and eager to assist.” (Read the full review)
• “The area I am most impressed is with their support. They respond quickly and accurately and offer real solutions.” (Read the full review)

Ease of setup and use

Buddy Punch is also a top-rated app on Capterra for ease of use with a 4.9 out of 5-star rating for both ease of setup and ease of use. Customers say little training is required for admins, setting the system up is quick and easy, and using the app is simple even for their least tech-savvy employees:

• “Buddy Punch makes employee time tracking very easy. Employees don’t have to jump through endless steps for something that should be straightforward.” (Read the full review)
• “The simple platform is very easy to manage and to explain to staff, even when they have technology issues or language barriers.” (Read the full review)
• “I love many things about this software! It is self-explanatory. Even the most technically-challenged employee can figure out how to use it.” (Read the full review)
• “It is very easy to use. I added multiple administrators, and little, if any, training was needed. Most users were able to start using it very quickly.” (Read the full review)
• “Onboarding and integration was so easy. It’s really easy to customize it to exactly what you need. The system is user-friendly, and all my staff say it’s so easy to use. They love it! Which is a huge improvement from our last solution.” (Read the full review)
• “Buddy Punch is super easy to use and has all the features one would need to have an efficient time tracking system. The customer service is top tier, and the reps are incredibly knowledgeable. It is affordable, even for a small business. I’ve recommended Buddy Punch to others, and they love it. Glad I found them.” (Read the full review)

Buddy Punch’s features

Buddy Punch can be as simple as you want it to be or as complex as you need it to be. While it has tons of features, its straightforward packaging and optional add-ons mean you’ll only ever pay for the features you need. Plus, you can turn features on and off as you need them so you and your employees don’t get bogged down by features you don’t want to use.

Time tracking

Hourly employees can use Buddy Punch to clock in and out on any internet-connected device: computers, tablets, or mobile phones. This gives your team flexibility. No matter where they’re working — in the office or the field — they’ll be able to track their time down to the second.

For teams that all work in the same location, you can set up a time clock kiosk all employees can use to clock in and out. Employees can sign in to the system using a username and password, custom QR code or PIN, or facial recognition. Or you can have a supervisor clock all employees in and out at the same time using group punch.

Finally, if you also have salaried employees in addition to hourly employees, they can use duration entry to enter their hours manually instead of clocking in and out. And customers on the Enterprise plan can use single sign-on to let employees login to Buddy Punch using Google, Okta, or OneLogin.

Here’s what a few customers have to say about Buddy Punch’s time tracking features:

• “Buddy Punch has helped us reduce a lot of costs when it comes to human resources management, payroll, and time tracking. We implemented it as our employees exceeded 8 as we were finding it difficult to keep track of time, work, payroll, etc. It has really helped us in this regard, and we also saved a lot of time.” (Read the full review)
• “Best solution to time tracking for our hourly employees, and it keeps me updated when someone forgets to clock out. Also, it allows my employees to make changes if needed, which I can review and approve. The phone app with the clock in/out feature makes time tracking the easiest for our company.” (Read the full review)
• “The time tracking part of the app is easy to use and was integrated fairly rapidly for staff. I especially like the report systems which include detailed reports breaking down time to the minute for full transparency. Time card approval is clear and easy to do. This system has made payroll so much easier overall.” (Read the full review)

Job costing

If your employees work on specific projects that you need to track labor hours against, you can use our job costing feature. Create codes for all of the projects you want to track and assign them to the employees who will be working on them. Then, employees can select the correct job code when clocking in — and switch projects over the course of the day when necessary. 

Here’s what customers have to say about Buddy Punch’s job costing features:

• “Buddy Punch lets employees select the job they are working on so we can have accurate billing. As an administrator, I use the reports feature to filter out the hours based on the job. I like that I can see all the hours worked on a job for the week, and it is totaled up for me.” (Read the full review)
• “We are a custom fab shop, so we use a lot of job codes. The software is easy to use for that purpose. I am able to access all of the information even when I am on the road, so I am always in the loop on attendance and who is working on what projects.” (Read the full review)
• “This is an easy product to use for management and employees. All aspects of payroll are at your fingertips. We handle many different projects, and Buddy Punch makes it easy to track the hours we’re spending on them.” (Read the full review)

When Buddy Punch is not the right fit

If you need time clock software that integrates directly with your project management software, Buddy Punch may not be the right fit for your team. While we have a Zapier integration that can be used to connect Buddy Punch to thousands of tools, we don’t offer any direct integrations with project management systems.

Break tracking

If you live in a state with employee meal and rest break laws, Buddy Punch helps you enforce employee breaks and keep track of them for your records. You can set up break rules to remind employees when it’s time to take a break and ensure they stay on break for the required amount of time. Then, download reports showing when and for how long employees were on break.

Here’s how our customers say Buddy Punch helps with break time tracking:

• “Buddy Punch makes it easy to be compliant with federal and state laws for tracking hourly employee time and breaks.” (Read the full review)
• “Incredibly easy tracking of hourly employees time cards, including break times, lunches, and PTO taken.” (Read the full review)
• “What I love most about Buddy Punch is how simple it is for employees to clock in and out, add their lunch breaks, and write notes about their shifts.” (Read the full review)

Timesheets and payroll options

Buddy Punch compiles all of your employees clock in and out data into timesheets for you with regular hours, overtime hours, and pay all automatically calculated. Set up overtime policies so the system will automatically detect overtime hours and reflect that on employees’ time cards.

If employees make a mistake on their timecards — forget to clock in or out or select the wrong job code — they can request edits to their timecards directly in Buddy Punch. Those requests go to a supervisor or admin for approval before the edits are made.

When it’s time to run payroll, you have three options:

• Download a report that’s formatted perfectly for your existing payroll system.
• Use one of our payroll integrations to send your time data to payroll instantly.
• Use Buddy Punch as your payroll provider to pay employees through Buddy Punch.

With Buddy Punch payroll, you can pay employees via check or direct deposit. We take care of paystubs, tax filings, and payments for you.

Here’s how customers say Buddy Punch’s payroll features save them time:

• “As a trucking company and having resources starting their shifts at different times and in different locations, it was a lot of effort tying this all together to ensure everyone was being paid for correct times. Doing payroll was a chore. Week one of deployment, all of those issues disappeared!” (Read the full review)
• “This software is user friendly and easy to learn how to use. It provides accurate data concerning payroll dollar amounts. Overall, it is a great asset to our organization. Buddy Punch compliments our payroll software and helps ensure payroll accuracy.” (Read the full review)
• “Buddy Punch has been a super efficient business solution for our office. It is very user friendly. The integration with QuickBooks has streamlined our payroll, which has been a huge plus.” (Read the full review)

Employee scheduling

Buddy Punch’s employee scheduling feature makes it easier than ever to build work schedules. For shift workers, you can assign multiple employees to a single shift. For employees with consistent schedules, you can create repeating shifts. You can also assign employees to work in specific positions or at specific locations and color-code your schedules to easily see who’s working where.

Add employee availability (or have employees add it themselves) to avoid scheduling conflicts — you’ll always see who’s available and not when building your schedules. And you can even allow employees to submit shift trade and cover requests that you can review and approve/deny. If you approve the request, the schedule updates automatically.

When a schedule is published, employees get a notification, and they can view their schedules at any time in the Buddy Punch app. Plus, when you’re using time tracking and scheduling together, you can get alerts and see reports showing late arrivals, missed shifts, and early clock-outs, helping you keep track of attendance even when you’re not on site.

Here’s what a few customers have to say about our employee scheduling software:

• “The ease of this software helps me post schedules quickly. I have three businesses and staff that float between all. The color coding system helps me see what employee or department needs attention.” (Read the full review)
• “Having the availability option on the calendar makes keeping up with personal time very simple. The features that allow changes to time and scheduling are quick and easy to perform.” (Read the full review)
• “I really like how you can make your schedule very detailed with color coordination. Additionally, I like how easy it is to clock in/clock out and to manage employees.” (Read the full review)

PTO tracking

If paid time off is one of the benefits you offer to employees, you can manage that benefit much easier with Buddy Punch. Set up accrual rules, and Buddy Punch will automatically calculate how much time off each of your employees has earned. Employees can make PTO requests that you review and approve, and taken time off is automatically deducted from PTO balances.

All approved time off shows up on a PTO calendar that makes it easy to see who is scheduled to be off when. And when employees take time off, those hours are automatically added to their timesheets so you don’t need to reference two different systems when it’s time to run payroll.

Here’s what customers love about Buddy Punch’s PTO tracking feature:

• “We spent three months trying to get a time clock launched with a system from a really big company. The customer service was terrible, responses took days, and in the end, they could not handle our somewhat complex PTO requirements. We switched to Buddy Punch and were up and running almost immediately.” (Read the full review)
• “The software has all the features that I was using in my spreadsheet — but better as it took human error out of the equation! I gained the reports that tallied PTO, which I used to have to pull manually from a spreadsheet. Employees are able to enter their own PTO requests — again a time saver.” (Read the full review)
• “Buddy Punch has all the features we need (manual punching, job coding, PTO requests, etc.) plus a simple and user-friendly experience. All the other applications we looked at were either way too robust for our small non-profit or didn’t offer one of the key features we needed.” (Read the full review)

Location tracking

Keep track of employees who work in the field with Buddy Punch’s location-tracking features. You can use GPS on punch to capture location details when employees clock in and out to make sure they were on site, track their locations throughout the workday with real-time GPS tracking, or prevent off-site punching altogether with geofences.

Here’s what customers have to say about Buddy Punch’s GPS tracking features:

• “Employees can punch in wherever they are assigned. We can use a geofence if employees are not punching in at the yard. We can see where they are when they punch in. It has prevented stealing time.” (Read the full review)
• “We’ve been impressed with the ability to select different locations that employees can punch in/out of. We have multiple locations, and it is helpful to know where people are physically. Great program!” (Read the full review)
• “We use Buddy Punch for the GPS feature to track where our employees clock in and out since they do so at a remote site. The feature is accurate and is easy to use on our employees’ phones.” (Read the full review)
• “Very easy for employees and administrators alike to track time and edit if necessary. Provides accountability for our employees with the location settings such as GPS/geofence. Provides our employees with mobility — we can send them to any job site, and they have the ability to punch in/out.” (Read the full review)

Labor cost reduction

Buddy Punch has a number of features you can use to reduce your labor costs: 

• Overtime alerts let you know when an employee is getting close to earning overtime so you can adjust their schedules accordingly. 
• Automatic breaks remove unpaid break durations from employees’ timesheets automatically so they don’t have to clock out and back in (and increase the chances of them forgetting to clock out) for their lunch breaks.
• Punch limiting prevents employees from clocking in before they’re scheduled to work. 
• Automatic clock outs prevent employees from accruing extra hours because they forgot to clock out at the end of their shifts.
• Time card approvals require an admin or manager to approve timesheets before you run payroll, increasing the likelihood that timesheets mistakes will be caught.
• Photos on punch requires employees to take a picture of themselves when clocking in and out, and facial recognition validates employees’ identities before they’re allowed to punch. Both of these features prevent buddy punching.
• Features like GPS tracking, geofencing, and IP address locks prevent other forms of time theft by making sure employees can’t log time when they’re not at work.

Here’s how customers say these features have helped their businesses save money:

• “The software allows us to monitor employee hours in real-time and has reduced the amount of unnecessary overtime logged by staff who have difficulty managing their own hours.” (Read the full review)
• “I like the ability to track where employees are because prior to this app we had an employee who was being dishonest about where they were, and it cost us money when it came to billing customers.” (Read the full review)
• “We eliminated paper tallies, which saved us on payroll by eliminating employee rounding time on timesheets.” (Read the full review)

The people have spoken

As the customer reviews we’ve shared demonstrate, Buddy Punch has earned a great reputation by delivering a solution that solves real-world problems for businesses across dozens of industries. These testimonials highlight a product that is not just functional, but also genuinely appreciated by its users.

The feedback consistently points to several key strengths: exceptional ease of use that requires minimal training, top-rated customer support that is both responsive and knowledgeable, and a comprehensive suite of features tailored to the needs of small and mid-sized businesses. 

From GPS tracking and geofencing for mobile workforces to seamless payroll integration and detailed job costing, customers repeatedly confirm that Buddy Punch is a powerful, all-in-one tool. By eliminating common frustrations like buddy punching, streamlining payroll, and simplifying scheduling, Buddy Punch empowers businesses to operate more efficiently. 

For those seeking an unbiased perspective, the verdict from countless satisfied customers is in: Buddy Punch is a reliable, effective, and indispensable tool for employee time management.