Help & support

Sign up, choose your industry (e.g. Security Services), and your workspace is pre-loaded with the roles, shift patterns and compliance rules that fit. You start on a 30-day free trial — no card required.

Go to Settings → Company and add your company name, address, contact details, logo, company registration and ACS number. These appear automatically on the documents and invoices you generate.

Add people under Employees, then send each an account invite (for managers/officers) or an application invite (for new candidates to complete vetting). Everyone signs in to their own portal.

The left-hand menu is your main navigation. Managers see Dashboard, Rota, Employees, Holidays, Availability, Timesheets, Reports, Invoices, Clients, Patrols, Notifications, Quality, ACS pack and Settings. This Help section is always available.

The dashboard opens on a row of live tiles. Each is a real-time count pulled from your data, colour-dotted so problems stand out instantly.

1. Today’s shifts — how many shifts are scheduled for today
2. Clocked in now — officers currently on the clock (green)
3. Open shifts — unassigned upcoming shifts that still need cover (red)
4. Hours this week, Pending leave, and Active staff

The welcome card has two shortcuts — Open rota and Add employees — so the two most common first tasks are one click away.

Every tile and card links into the relevant area, so you can go from a headline number straight to the underlying records.

The rota is a grid: staff (and an Open shifts row) down the side, days across the top. Add shifts by role and time, or drag a shift template card onto any cell.

1. Open Rota from the menu
2. Choose the site from the “All sites” dropdown and the week with the date arrows (or Today)
3. Click “+ Add shift”, or drag a Shift Templates card (e.g. 07:00–19:00 Day guard) onto a person’s day cell
4. Repeat across the week — use “Copy last week” to start from the previous rota

Templates are your recurring patterns (day guard, night guard, etc.) shown as draggable cards above the grid. Build them once and reuse them every week.

1. Click “Add shift template”
2. Set the start/end time, break and role label
3. It then appears as a card you can drag onto any cell

The week summary (top-left of the grid) updates live as you place shifts, showing total hours and the wage bill — and margin against your client charge — so you never publish a rota that loses money.

Leave a shift on the “Open shifts” row to offer it for eligible staff to claim — handy when you’re short or covering last-minute. Assign it to a person later by dragging it onto their row.

When the week is ready, click Publish. Officers are notified and the shifts appear in their portal. Draft shifts stay hidden until published, and every change is tracked for audit.

The Employees page has a quick-add form at the top and your team listed below. Pay rates entered here feed labour-cost on the rota and billing on invoices.

1. Open Employees from the menu
2. Fill First name, Last name, Job title, Email and Pay rate (/hr)
3. Click “Add employee” — they appear in the table below
4. Click their name to open the full profile, or “Edit” to change basics

For a new candidate, send an application invite. They complete the full application form (QBC.03), upload ID, photo and SIA details, and sign electronically in their own portal.

Each employee profile shows a progress bar of the gating steps still to complete before they can be deployed — application, vetting, references, contract and more.

Use Archive to hide a leaver everywhere while retaining their records for compliance — they can be restored later. Permanent deletion is reserved for platform admins.

Open an employee’s profile and work through the five-year screening checklist — employment history, gaps, references and identity. A progress bar at the top shows what’s still outstanding before they can be deployed.

1. Employees → click the person’s name
2. Work down the onboarding/vetting checklist on their profile
3. Each completed item ticks green; the progress bar fills
4. When everything required is done, set their deploy status (see below)

Record each officer’s SIA licence and sector with its expiry date. Expiries are tracked centrally so no one works on a lapsed licence.

Send reference requests by email; referees complete them via a secure link. Responses attach to the employee record automatically.

Upload and label identity, right-to-work and other documents. You can change a document’s type inline if it was filed under the wrong category.

Once screening, licensing and the contract are complete, set the employee’s deploy status so they can be scheduled to sites.

Clients are the companies you serve; sites sit underneath each one. The Companies House lookup pulls registered details so you don’t type them.

1. Open Clients from the menu
2. Click “Add client” and enter the name or company number
3. Use the Companies House lookup to auto-fill registered details
4. Record the contact, credit status and any notes, then save

Each client row expands to show its sites. A site carries its address and its clock-in rules.

1. Expand a client row and click “Add site”
2. Enter the site name and address
3. Set a GPS geofence radius (e.g. 150m) and/or approved network (IP) addresses
4. Officers can then only clock in there when on-site and on their rota

Attach assignment instructions (QBC.29) to a site. Officers rostered there acknowledge them in their portal before working.

Invite your client contact to a read-only portal where they can see patrol reports, logs and the service delivered — transparency that helps win renewals.

Officers clock in and out from the Clock in/out tab of their portal. Clock-in is restricted to the site on their rota right now — they can book on from an hour before the shift starts.

1. The officer opens their portal and taps “Clock in”
2. The app checks they’re within the site geofence / on an approved network
3. On success they’re recorded on duty; “Clock out” ends the shift
4. Their hours flow into Timesheets automatically

If a site has a geofence, the officer must be within range; if it has approved IP addresses, they must be on an approved network. Both are checked at clock-in.

Where breaks are unpaid, officers record break start/end so time is deducted correctly. If breaks are paid in your settings, they are not tracked separately.

If an officer has not clocked in shortly after their shift starts, they get a reminder; if they still do not, managers are alerted (see Notifications).

From the Patrol tab of their portal, an officer runs a tour and logs evidence as they go — every event is timestamped and geotagged.

1. Officer taps “Start patrol” in the Patrol tab
2. Scan a QR or NFC checkpoint at each point
3. Take a date/time/GPS-stamped photo, or log an observation
4. Raise an incident with photos and a severity, then “End patrol”

Open Patrols to see a per-site patrol report with photos and a flagged-incidents view. High-severity incidents also trigger an email alert to managers.

While on duty, officers are periodically asked to solve a distorted puzzle that bots cannot read. Configure how often in Settings → Payroll → “Check-call (proof of presence)”.

If an officer does not solve a check call in time, it is escalated to managers on the Notifications page and by email. They are never counted as on duty until they actually respond.

The bell in the top bar shows an unread count. Open Notifications for the full manager feed — currently missed check-ins and failed check calls.

A guard who misses their clock-in gets an on-portal reminder; if still absent after the grace period they are escalated here and emailed to managers. Items resolve automatically when the guard checks in.

Set the reminder and escalation windows in Settings → Payroll → “Missed check-in alerts”.

Choose your pay frequency (weekly, fortnightly, four-weekly or monthly) and anchor date in Settings → Payroll. Timesheets are grouped into these periods, selectable from the dropdown at the top of the page.

Each person is paid from their published rota, reduced for any time they were not on site — late starts and early finishes are deducted using their clock-in/out. The table shows Scheduled vs Paid hours with red flags for lateness and an amber badge where there’s no matching clock-in.

Set overtime thresholds, multipliers, unpaid breaks and pay codes once in Settings → Payroll; every pay run applies them. Rates can be overridden per role or per employee.

Review the period, then lock it for payroll.

1. Open Timesheets and pick the pay period
2. Check each person’s paid hours and flags
3. Click “Finalise pay run” to freeze a snapshot
4. Use “Export CSV” for your payroll software — or “Reopen” to recalculate

In Invoices, set bill rates per role and site, plus extras like key holding. On-costs (NI, pension, holiday, sick) come from your Payroll settings so you only enter them once.

Invoices bill on the same published scheduled hours used for the rota and pay, so they always reconcile.

1. Open Invoices and choose the site and period
2. Preview the invoice — hours, VAT and margin are worked out for you
3. Click Create to generate a numbered invoice
4. Download the branded PDF or email it to the client

The internal view shows cost (attendance-adjusted pay + on-costs) against charge, so you see true profit per site. Lateness reduces your cost, not the client’s bill.

Download a branded PDF or email it to the client directly from RotaPulse using your configured email address.

Set up leave types and per-person allowances and accrual rules. Industry defaults are applied at sign-up.

Staff request leave in a tap from their portal. You approve from one calendar that shows balances and clashes against the live rota up front.

Officers mark when they are available or unavailable, including repeating weekly patterns, from their portal.

Availability and leave are checked as you build the rota, so you assign people who can actually work the shift.

The Reports area turns hours, cost, attendance and compliance into a clear picture you can act on.

Preview and send training/expiry reminders so qualifications and licences stay current.

Record and track quality entries — audits, complaints, corrective actions and more — in the Quality area.

Maintain your company policies, mark them reviewed and capture an electronic sign-off. Staff can read current policies in their portal.

Because vetting, attendance, patrols and policies are captured as you operate, the ACS pack pulls the evidence together on demand — turning audit prep from a project into a click.

Settings holds your rota and pay rules: breaks, overtime, pay codes, on-costs, pay periods, plus the missed-check-in and check-call timings.

Under Settings → API & webhooks → Email, configure your own sending address and SMTP server so invites, vetting requests and other emails go out from your company.

Generate API keys and add webhooks to integrate RotaPulse with your other systems.

Manage your personal details, notification preferences and password under your account settings.

When an officer signs in, their Rota is shown first so they always know their upcoming shifts.

They clock in and out (subject to GPS/IP rules), and run patrols — scanning checkpoints, taking stamped photos and logging incidents.

New starters complete their application and onboarding forms, upload documents and sign electronically.

Officers set availability, request holiday, acknowledge site assignment instructions and view site logs.

While on duty they may be prompted to solve a quick proof-of-presence puzzle — solving it confirms they are on post.

Owners and admins have full access; managers and supervisors run day-to-day operations; officers use the self-service portal. Permissions decide what each person can see and do.

Create and adjust roles to match how your business is structured, and assign people to them as your team grows.

Free, friendly UK support is included on every plan. Reach us at hello@rotapulse.com and we’ll help you get set up or unblocked.

We can help shape your account around how your business actually runs — just ask.