The Best Time Tracking & Scheduling App for Police Stations

Time tracking and scheduling for police stations is not just a matter of meeting FLSA guidelines — it’s also crucial for public safety.

With that in mind, it simply doesn’t make sense to rely on slower, manual methods of timekeeping when you can use more efficient, accurate, and convenient ways to track officers that are on duty and schedule them for work. This is why many savvy law enforcement agencies are already working to implement digital software to monitor their patrol officers in real-time.

If what you’re looking for is an easy-to-use and effective time clock that works on multiple platforms, you can’t go wrong with Buddy Punch. We’ve helped over 10,000 businesses save time and monitor their workforces, and we’d love to help your police station better serve your community.

Tracking time in Buddy Punch

Using Buddy Punch’s timekeeping system, law enforcement officers can clock in and out from any device, including computers, mobile phones, and tablets. You can set it up as a time clock kiosk on a computer or tablet that all employees can use to clock in and out, and you can let them access the system using a PIN, QR code, or even facial recognition to prevent buddy punching (when one employees punches for another)

Buddy Punch’s time tracking app comes with lots of features that save you time and make it easier to pay your employees:

• Automatic timesheets: Buddy Punch compiles all clock-in and out data into timesheets that you can view anytime and download as reports. Hours and overtime are automatically calculated.
• Time card approvals: Approve employees’ timesheets before you run payroll — or have a supervisor approve them — to make sure there are no errors or mistakes.
• Running payroll: Use Buddy Punch as your payroll provider, or integrate our data with payroll providers like QuickBooks and Paychex. Running payroll will be faster and more accurate than ever.
• Early/late alerts: Get notifications for everything you need to know: when a team member clocks in/out early or late, when someone misses a shift, or when someone is getting close to overtime.
• Attendance tracking: The admin dashboard shows exactly who’s clocked in and who’s clocked out at any time, making it easy for you to keep track of attendance even when your team works offsite.
• Time card editing: If an officer forgets to clock in or out, you can easily go into their timecard and edit the hours to make sure they’re paid properly.

Keeping employees accountable with Buddy Punch

Buddy Punch also offers a number of tools that keep your law enforcement officers safe and accountable:

• GPS on punch: When officers clock in and out, log their location on their timesheets. You can then review this data to make sure everyone was at the right location they punched in and out.
• Geofencing: Prevent employees from clocking in before they arrive on site or clocking out after they leave with geofences — virtual, location-based radiuses you create around your locations.
• Real-time GPS: See where all officers are located at any time on a map, or track their routes and movements throughout the day. Real-time GPS can be enabled or disabled per employee.
• Photo clock-ins: Worried that employees are clocking in for one another? Set it up so they have to take a picture of themselves when clocking in/out. You can review those photos alongside punches anytime.
• IP address locks: For employees who work at the station itself, set up IP address locks to prevent them from clocking in and out when they’re not connected to your station’s Wi-Fi.

Creating schedules in Buddy Punch

In addition to tracking time, Buddy Punch can also be used to create work schedules. Your officers will be able to see their schedule in the Buddy Punch app anytime. Plus, the system comes with lots of features that make it easier than ever for you to create schedules:

• Drag-and-drop editor: Creating and editing schedules in Buddy Punch is as easy and dragging and dropping shifts onto different days.
• Employee availability: You employees can enter their availability into Buddy Punch, and you’ll be able to see exactly who is and isn’t available when you’re creating your schedules.
• Repeating shifts: If you have employees who work the same shifts every day/week, you can set shifts up to repeat so you don’t have to build your schedule from scratch every week.
• Shift trades and covers: If employees can’t make a shift they’re scheduled for, they can request to trade a shift with a coworker or release it for others to pick up. If someone wants to take the shift, you’ll be asked to approve it. Any requests you approve are automatically changed on the schedule.
• Locations and roles: Specify different locations or roles for officers on your schedule, and color-code your schedules to easily see who’s scheduled at which locations and in which positions.

Buddy Punch’s customer reviews

Our customers love us! Buddy Punch has an overall rating of 4.8 out of 5 stars on popular review site Capterra across more than 1,000 customer reviews. Here’s what customers have to say about it:

• “It’s user-friendly and makes the supervisors’/managers’ jobs easy when it comes to approving timecards! The payroll report is easy, and it works with SurePayroll, which is our payroll company.”
• “Buddy Punch is incredibly user friendly, easy to navigate, and has all the right tools and more for every day on-site or remote operations. Their customer support is second to NONE — always super responsive and knowledgeable while providing BEYOND-this-world stellar customer service. Regardless of industry, Buddy Punch is a great and reliable tool to improve efficiency and productivity.”
• “It has a very simple interface, and it’s easy to punch in and out and check timecards. I think both the desktop version and the smartphone version were well-designed. It doesn’t try to do too much and make things complicated. The main purpose is just to clock in and out, and it efficiently allows the user to do exactly that.”