Put Rosters, Attendance and Guard Records on One System
Guarding agencies run on registers, phone calls and spreadsheets, and each handover is a chance for a post to be mistaken. Our HR technology and automation service sets up your guard records, rosters, attendance, leave and approvals on the GullyHR platform or on a system you already own, with rules that reflect posts, shifts and clients. You decide what to automate; we configure it to match how you deploy and train people to use it.
Not sure what you need? Tell us about your business in six short steps and we will come to the first meeting prepared.
Share your requirementsThe starting point
Is Your Spreadsheet Carrying More Than It Should?
A system for a security agency has to accept that guards work at places head office does not control, with phones of varied quality and patchy signal. Tools built for offices do not fit. The result is double entry, files that disagree and a payroll team doing at month end what a system could do each day.
We help you choose and configure what fits your sites, and move data across carefully.
You may be experiencing:
- Guard records in several spreadsheets, with a different version at each branch.
- Rosters made in a file, sent as an image and changed by phone, with no single current version.
- Attendance typed in at head office from site registers, days after the shift.
- Approvals for leave, transfers and double duty given by phone and not recorded.
- Reminders for verification, renewal and probation held in people's memory.
- Tools bought earlier that supervisors at sites find too complicated to use.
- Fear of moving to a system because the data is untidy and nobody knows where to begin.
What we can help with
Our HR Technology and Automation Services for Security Agencies
Needs and Process Mapping
Map the processes you want on a system: joining, roster, attendance, leave, transfer, payroll input and exit. We write them as the steps and approvals that the system must reflect.
Guard Database Set-Up
Design the fields for each guard, including client, post, supervisor, licences and certificates, and set who can view or change each one.
Roster and Shift Configuration
Set up shift patterns, weekly offs, posts and relievers on the roster, with a rule for changes and a record of who covered which post.
Attendance Capture Options
Choose how attendance enters the system from each site type: supervisor entry, mobile check-in where there is a signal or a daily sheet keyed by the branch. Each has a cut-off and an owner.
Approval and Self-Service Workflows
Configure approvals for leave, transfers, double duty and advances, and let supervisors and guards use the parts that suit them on a phone.
Payroll Input Workflow
Prepare the monthly attendance, overtime and deduction input in the shape your payroll team or provider expects, with checks before it is released.
Reminders and Alerts
Set automatic reminders for pending verification, certificate expiry, probation review dates and unclosed attendance.
Data Migration and Rollout
Clean and load existing records, mark gaps, train users in stages and run old and new methods side by side for a short period.
The deliverables
What You Receive
Depending on the agreed scope, your engagement can include:
- A process map of what is to be automated.
- A guard database design with access rules.
- A roster and shift configuration.
- An attendance capture plan by site type.
- Approval and self-service workflows.
- A payroll input workflow with checks.
- A set of reminders and alerts.
- A migration plan with user training.
Step by step
How We Work
Map Your Processes
We walk through how rosters, attendance and records work today, at head office and at sites, and write them down.
Decide What the System Will Do
We agree with you which steps will be automated, which stay manual, and what is out of scope.
Configure and Test
We set up the workflows on the GullyHR platform or your own system and test them with a few supervisors and the payroll team.
Migrate and Train
We load cleaned data, train users at the head office and the branches and support supervisors in the first cycles.
Review Use
Before go-live we record how many records are incomplete and how long attendance takes to reach payroll, and we report on both after the first months.
The difference
Replace Double Entry With One Record Everyone Uses
A configured system helps you to:
We do not promise outcomes. We record a baseline before work starts, covering records without gaps, time for attendance to reach payroll and approvals taken by phone, and report against it, so you can see what changed and what did not.
- Hold one current record for each guard.
- See the live roster and who covered a post.
- Capture attendance closer to the shift.
- Keep a record of every approval.
- Get reminders before a date is missed.
- Give payroll cleaner input each month.
Find your fit
Who This Service Is For
Agencies Moving Off Spreadsheets
Take a staged step to a system.
Companies With Branches Using Different Methods
Bring them onto one.
Operations Teams Running Rosters Manually
Put them on a shared record.
Payroll Teams Rekeying Attendance
Cut the retyping.
Owners Who Already Own an HR Tool
Make it work for guarding.
How it usually shows up in security services
Technology in security agencies is often a payroll tool at the office, sheets at the branch and messaging apps at the post. Attendance moves as photographs of registers or phone calls, and someone keys the numbers in. Rosters live in spreadsheets, and changes during the month are not updated. Verification and training records sit in folders or cabinets. Some agencies try a mobile attendance or patrol app, and adoption stalls when guards have basic phones, patchy connectivity, a language difference or limited time. Supervisors, who are the link, are loaded with data entry. The office ends up with parallel systems that are never reconciled, and a new tool adds another source of conflicting numbers. Tools bought before the process is agreed digitise confusion, and the first audit shows it.
Common challenges
Where it goes wrong in security services
Photographs of registers
Attendance travels as images and is re-keyed by hand, so errors multiply.
Rosters sit in a sheet
Mid-month changes are not recorded, and billing disagrees with payroll.
Apps stall at the post
Basic phones, weak signal and language barriers defeat tools made for office users.
Systems do not reconcile
Each new tool adds another version of strength and attendance.
A better process
What a working version looks like
- 01
Agree the process first
Fix attendance, roster and verification rules on paper before choosing a tool. See HR process automation.
- 02
Start with the office records
Move employee, verification and training records into one system, with an owner for each field.
- 03
Digitise the roster and attendance
Use a shift and attendance tool that suits the supervisor's phone and works with poor connectivity.
- 04
Feed payroll from the same data
Let approved attendance and overtime flow into the payroll input rather than being re-typed.
- 05
Migrate carefully and train supervisors
Clean the data before moving it, pilot at a few sites and teach the supervisors the few steps they must perform.
What to check this week
- Trace how many times one day's attendance is typed before it reaches payroll.
- Ask supervisors what phone and language they can use.
- Check whether roster, payroll and billing draw on one source of attendance.
- Find out where verification and training records are stored today.
- List the systems in use and who maintains each.
What this looks like in security services
The parts of hr technology and automation that are specific to this sector, rather than general.
Deployment, Verification and the Record
Systems built around the post and the client.
What this coversHide
Deployment, Verification and the Record
Systems built around the post and the client.
What this coversHideSecurity services HR technology has to hold verification, deployment and coverage in one place, because clients ask about all three and usually about a specific date in the past.
- Verification and background records held per guard, with status
- Deployment record - guard to site to post to shift
- Live coverage and vacant post visibility
- Relief and leave planning against deployment
- Client credential and access card issue tracked
- Attendance capture at post, offline-capable
- Deployment-based billing reconciliation
- Records retained to answer client queries after exit
The ability to answer who was deployed at a client site on a given date, months later, is the capability clients actually test. Most operators reconstruct it manually.
Questions on this, in security services
Many will only need a phone for check-in or to view a payslip, and others will not use one at all. We design for both, with supervisors entering data where guards cannot, so that no site is left out.
We plan for it: attendance can be captured by the supervisor and entered later, or by a daily sheet keyed in by the branch. A method that works only with a perfect signal is not suitable for guarding.
Yes. We configure workflows on the GullyHR platform or on a system you already own, and we say plainly if your system cannot do what you need. The design of the process stays the same in both cases.
It depends on the number of guards, branches and the state of your data. We stage it by process and by branch, so that a few sites are proven before the rest follow. We give a timeline after reviewing your data.
It records, routes, reminds and reports. It does not decide wages, discipline or who is posted where, and it cannot make up for missing data. Those remain your decisions and your people's discipline.
We recommend access rules by role, so that a supervisor sees only the guards under them. We configure these in the system, and discuss with you how the data is stored and backed up, according to your own policies.
Attendance and roster capture and the guard record, since they feed payroll, billing and audits. Other items can follow.
Some will, if it is simple, in their language and works on their phone. Often the supervisor is the user and the guard is not.
Agree the process first, pilot at a few sites, keep the steps few and have operations own the rollout.
Clean and standardise it first, load it once, and run the old and new together for a cycle before switching over.
Choose and Configure a System That Fits Your Posts
If rosters, attendance and records live in several files, start with a clear map of the steps and decide what a system should take over.
Prefer to talk first? Call +91 80958 58589 or write to hello@gullyhr.com.
Book an HR Technology Consultation
Tell us what you use today and what you would like to change.
The general method — what hr technology and automation covers, the questions it answers and what an engagement produces — is the same whatever the sector, and is set out on the hr process automation page. What is above is the part that differs for security services.
To run this in a system rather than on paper, see gullyhr software.
Other HR topics for security services
Where to start
Most engagements begin with a review of how this runs in your business today, then a written process and the sequence to implement it.
See all HR topics for security services, or another industry.