Auto clock-out

When an employee forgets to clock out, their record stays open indefinitely — which throws off worked hours, payroll exports, and dashboards. Auto clock-out is a company-wide option that checks every 15 minutes and closes any record that's run too long.

To enable it: open Settings → Clocking & approvals, tick Auto clock-out employees at end of shift, and save. From the next check onwards, records are closed automatically when they meet the rules below.

How the deadline is calculated

For each open clock-in, Timed decides when to close it based on the employee's shift:

Situation	Deadline used
Employee has a shift schedule for today	Shift end time + grace period (in your company's timezone).
Employee has a shift but no schedule for today's day of the week	Falls back to max hours (default 11) since clock-in.
No shift attached at all	Max hours since clock-in (default 11).
Overnight shift (end time earlier than start time)	Shift end on the next calendar day + grace period.

The grace period is the Grace Period (minutes) setting under Settings → Clocking & approvals. Auto clock-out never happens before the shift ends.

The max hours limit defaults to 11 and can't be changed in Settings. If you need longer (for example, 24-hour security shifts), contact Timed support and we'll adjust it for your company.

What gets recorded

When Timed closes a record:

• The clock-out time is set to the time the record was closed.
• The record is flagged as Auto Clocked Out on the Attendance Report and included in the auto clock-out reports.
• Any variance is recalculated against the new worked time.

The notification email

If you've chosen recipients for the auto clock-out alert, Timed emails them a summary grouped by location each time records are closed:

• Employee name + payroll number
• Clock in (HH:MM)
• Clock out (HH:MM — the auto-close time)
• Hours worked (decimal)

The Forced clock-out report is a separate email sent just after midnight. It covers the previous day, including both automatic and manually forced clock-outs — useful as a morning audit. If you haven't picked separate recipients for it, it goes to the auto clock-out alert recipients.

Setting recipients

1. Open Settings → Notifications.
2. Under Auto clock-out alert, tick the users who should receive the alert.
3. Optionally, tick users under Forced clock-out report.
4. Save.

Troubleshooting

Symptom	Likely cause
Auto clock-out is on but nobody is being closed	No open record has passed its deadline yet (shift end + grace, or 11 hours since clock-in). It's working — there's just nothing to close.
Employee was auto-closed too early	Check that the employee's shift schedule is set up for the right day of the week, and that the grace period is what you expect.
Employee with a 24-hour shift keeps getting auto-closed at 11h	The max-hours fallback applied because the shift had no schedule for that day of the week, or no end time. Add a schedule with an explicit end time.
Recipients aren't getting the email	No users are selected under Auto clock-out alert in Settings → Notifications.

If something still looks wrong, contact Timed support and we'll check the auto clock-out history for your company.