Clockify Kiosk Mode for UK Shift and Site Workers: A Practical Guide
This article contains affiliate links. If you sign up via a link on this page, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.
One Tablet, a PIN Each, and a Record That Has to Last Six Years
If you run shift workers — bar staff, site labourers, retail assistants — tracking hours is a genuine problem. Paper gets lost, people forget their start time, and asking thirty workers to install an app and hold a licence each is disproportionate.
Clockify’s kiosk mode answers it with one shared device at the entrance and a PIN per worker. The commercial case rests on a licence type called a Limited Member, and two details about it are usually reported wrong.
Limited Members require the Basic plan, not Standard. Clockify’s own documentation puts the feature at “Basic plan or higher”, which makes the cheapest viable setup $3.99 a month rather than $5.49.
And kiosk mode left the free plan in April 2026. It is now a paid feature, which closes the route some businesses were planning on.
The compliance half of this article matters more than the software half, because the retention period most guides quote — two years — is the wrong one for anyone paying hourly workers near the minimum wage. Minimum wage records have to be kept for six.
What Kiosk Mode Does
Activated on a device, the kiosk shows your team list. A worker selects their name, enters a four-digit PIN, and is clocked in. Same to clock out. Clock-ins can be tagged to projects or work types, so labour splits by job or department.
The hardware is undemanding: a second-hand Android tablet and a wall mount. Clockify runs in any modern browser.
Every clock-in and clock-out is timestamped in the dashboard, where you can view timesheets by day, week or range, export to CSV or PDF, and run reports of total hours per worker per period.
Two features worth checking against your tier, because they are commonly listed as though they come with the kiosk itself:
- Automatic break deductions — Breaks is a Basic feature
- Alerts when someone forgets to clock out — reminders sit on Standard
An unclosed shift running to midnight is a payroll error waiting to happen, so if that alert is the thing you want, budget Standard rather than Basic.
The Kiosk Features by Plan
Clockify’s own feature documentation splits the kiosk across three tiers:
| Plan | Annual (USD) | ~GBP | Kiosk capability |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | $3.99 | £3.00 | Kiosk PIN, Limited Members |
| Standard | $5.49 | £4.13 | Kiosk customisation and QR code, reminders |
| Pro | $7.99 | £6.01 | Kiosk photo capture |
Limited Member seats cost from $0.79 per seat — about £0.59 — against from $3.99 for a full seat. Clockify’s documentation gives the figure as “from $0.79/seat” without stating the billing period, so confirm it is monthly.
Note that downgrading to the free plan, or letting a trial lapse, deactivates your Limited Members. The licence depends on an active paid subscription.
The Economics, With Real Numbers
Clockify prices in US dollars, which changes the arithmetic. A dollar figure converts to a smaller sterling number, and VAT at 20% is added after conversion. Sterling below converts at roughly £1 = $1.33, the late-October 2026 rate, before VAT.
A 30-person team:
| Setup | Monthly (USD) | ~GBP |
|---|---|---|
| 30 full Basic seats | $119.70 | £90.00 |
| 1 Basic admin + 29 Limited Members | $26.90 | £20.23 |
| 30 full Standard seats | $164.70 | £123.83 |
| 1 Standard admin + 29 Limited Members | $28.40 | £21.35 |
The saving on Basic is about $93 a month, or roughly £70. On Standard it is about $136, roughly £102.
Worth stating because the figure gets garbled: the dollar saving is around $93, and that is about £70 in sterling, not £90. Quoting the dollar number with a pound sign overstates what lands on your card by a third.
The saving scales with headcount. For a construction firm with 80 site workers or a hospitality group across several venues, the difference is substantial and the case is straightforward.
Buddy Punching: The Answer Is in the Product
PIN systems have an obvious weakness — a worker can clock a colleague in. This is usually met with advice to consider a biometric system instead, at considerably more cost.
That skips the feature Clockify already has. Kiosk photo capture, on the Pro plan at $7.99, photographs the person clocking in. It is not biometric identification, and it does not need to be: a timestamped photo against each clock-in is enough to make buddy punching obvious on review and enough to deter it once staff know it is on.
So the escalation path is Basic for PINs, Pro for photo capture, not Clockify for PINs and a different vendor for biometrics.
One caution if you turn it on. Photographing staff at clock-in is a meaningful increase in what you process about them. You need a lawful basis, workers must be told clearly what is captured and why, retention should be short and defined, and a data protection impact assessment is advisable. A photograph alone is not biometric data, but if you ever process images to identify people automatically, it becomes special category data and the bar rises sharply. Take advice before enabling it across a workforce.
UK Record-Keeping: Two Different Clocks
This is where most guidance on kiosk systems goes wrong, because it cites one retention period when two apply.
Working Time Regulations — Two Years
Under the Working Time Regulations 1998, employers must keep records adequate to show compliance with:
- The 48-hour average weekly limit, for workers who have not opted out in writing
- Young workers’ daily and weekly hour limits and night-work restrictions
- Night workers’ hour limits and the availability of free health assessments
These must be kept for at least two years and be accessible to employees on request.
Two precisions on the usual summary. The duty is to hold records adequate to demonstrate compliance, not to log every worker’s daily hours — reforms since Brexit moved deliberately away from a blanket daily-recording requirement. And the record-keeping duty covers the limits above; it does not extend to proving each worker took their rest breaks, which is a separate obligation with no equivalent record-keeping requirement.
That “accessible to employees on request” point has a practical consequence for kiosk setups. Limited Members have restricted access to the Clockify interface by design. If a worker asks for their hours, you need a route to give them — a manager-run export will do, but decide what that process is before someone asks rather than after.
National Minimum Wage — Six Years
This is the one that applies to the audience this article is about, and it is three times longer.
Employers must keep National Minimum Wage records for a minimum of six years, up from three, for pay reference periods from 1 April 2021. The six years run from the end of the pay reference period following the one the records cover.
If you employ hourly workers at or near the minimum wage — bar staff, site labourers, retail assistants — this is your real retention obligation, and HMRC enforces it. Hours worked against pay received is precisely what an NMW investigation examines, which makes a timestamped, exportable kiosk record genuinely valuable rather than merely tidy.
Who Actually Enforces What
Worth separating, because it is usually blurred. HMRC enforces the National Minimum Wage — that is where the six-year retention and the investigation risk come from. The Working Time Regulations work differently: some provisions are enforced by the HSE and local authorities, and individual rights are pursued through employment tribunals.
Note also that since 1 October 2026, the time limit for bringing most tribunal claims extended from three months to six. Whatever your retention policy says, the window in which a claim can arrive has doubled.
Payroll: It Is RTI, Not MTD
A correction worth making because the two get conflated constantly.
Making Tax Digital does not apply to payroll. MTD governs VAT and Income Tax reporting and belongs to your accounting software. Payroll reporting to HMRC is Real Time Information — a Full Payment Submission on or before each payday, every time you pay someone.
So kiosk data feeding your payroll process is an RTI matter, not an MTD one. Clockify does not submit anything to HMRC; it exports hours that your payroll software turns into pay, deductions and an FPS. Our payroll comparison covers the main UK options, and payroll software against HMRC’s Basic PAYE Tools covers whether you need paid software at all.
Which UK Sectors It Suits
Construction and Site Work
Site workers often have no company email or work smartphone. A tablet in the welfare unit is a practical answer, and knowing who is on site at a given moment has a safety value beyond payroll.
One distinction that matters here. Kiosk clock-ins give you hours, not employment status. If the people tapping in are subcontractors rather than employees, they are not on your payroll at all — CIS applies instead, with verification, deduction at 0%, 20% or 30%, and monthly returns by the 19th. Nil returns became mandatory again on 6 April 2026. Tracking a subcontractor’s hours through a kiosk does not change any of that, and it does not make them an employee — but a pattern of fixed shifts, controlled hours and continuous engagement is the sort of thing that invites a status question. Our guides to hiring subcontractors cover where that line sits.
Hospitality and Catering
Kitchen, bar and front-of-house staff are not at desks and move quickly. A kiosk at the staff entrance takes seconds and needs no training. This is also the sector where NMW investigations are most common, which makes the six-year record the point rather than a footnote.
Retail
High turnover, variable hours and part-time or zero-hours contracts generate payroll queries. A visible auditable record settles most of them before they escalate.
Setting It Up
- Create a Clockify account and subscribe to Basic or higher — kiosk mode is no longer on the free plan
- Add your team and assign Limited Member status to kiosk-only workers
- Set up projects or clients if you want clock-ins tagged
- Go to the Kiosk section and create a kiosk
- Open the kiosk URL on your device and mount it at the entrance
PINs are set by you or auto-generated, and the kiosk runs in a locked browser view so workers cannot navigate away.
Practical Points
- Mount the device properly. A wobbly stand in a busy kitchen will cause problems.
- Plan for connectivity. Kiosk mode needs an internet connection. On a site with patchy signal, a dedicated mobile data connection for the kiosk is the pragmatic answer.
- Brief the team. Two minutes avoids people clocking in under the wrong name.
- Decide your data position before launch. Clock-in data is personal data: inform workers what is recorded and why, agree a retention policy that satisfies the six-year NMW requirement, and have a processor agreement with Clockify. Since 19 June 2026 you also need a data protection complaints procedure with an accessible route, acknowledgement within 30 days and a prominent link from your privacy notice.
Limitations Worth Knowing
- It needs internet access. No connection, no clock-in. A 4G dongle is the workaround.
- PIN sharing is possible — answered by photo capture on Pro, as above.
- Limited Members cannot see much, by design. Plan how a worker gets their own hours on request.
- Pricing is in US dollars, so your sterling cost moves with the exchange rate and your card may add a conversion fee.
- Kiosk capability is split across three tiers, so check which features you actually need before picking a plan.
FAQ
Which plan do I need for kiosk mode?
Basic, at $3.99 per seat per month annually — about £3.60 including VAT. That covers kiosk PINs and Limited Members. Standard adds customisation, a QR code and reminders; Pro adds photo capture. Kiosk mode is not available on the free plan since April 2026.
How much are Limited Member seats?
From $0.79 per seat, about £0.59 before VAT, against from $3.99 for a full seat. They require an active Basic or higher subscription — downgrading deactivates them.
What does it save on a 30-person team?
Roughly $93 a month, about £70 in sterling, against 30 full Basic seats. On Standard the saving is nearer $136, about £102.
How long do I have to keep the records?
Two different periods. Working time records: at least two years, and accessible to employees on request. National Minimum Wage records: at least six years for pay reference periods from April 2021. If you pay hourly workers near the minimum wage, six years is your operative answer.
Does kiosk mode work offline?
It needs an active connection to record a clock-in. Verify current offline capability with Clockify before relying on it, and consider a dedicated mobile data connection for sites with poor signal.
How do I stop workers clocking each other in?
Kiosk photo capture on the Pro plan photographs whoever clocks in. Cheaper than a biometric system and generally sufficient. Tell staff it is on, keep the images briefly, and take advice before rolling it out.
Can a Limited Member see their own timesheet?
Access is restricted by design. Since working time records must be available to employees on request, agree how you will provide them — usually a manager export — before someone asks.
Does this help with Making Tax Digital?
No, and MTD is the wrong regime. Payroll reporting to HMRC is RTI, with a Full Payment Submission on or before each payday. MTD covers VAT and Income Tax.
Is it GDPR compliant?
Clockify is your processor and you need an agreement with it, but compliance is yours: inform workers, identify a lawful basis, define retention, and handle requests for their data. Photo capture raises the stakes and deserves a DPIA.
Is It Worth It?
For construction, hospitality and retail businesses running hourly teams, kiosk mode is one of the more practical answers available, and the Limited Member licence is what makes it affordable — about £20 a month for a 30-person team on Basic against £90 for full seats.
Three things to settle before you commit. The plan: Basic for PINs, Standard if you want clock-out reminders, Pro if buddy punching worries you. The retention period: six years for minimum wage records, not the two years usually quoted, and that is the number your policy should carry. And the data position: workers informed, lawful basis identified, processor agreement in place, and a complaints route that has been required since June.
Past about eight to ten shift workers the arithmetic clearly favours it. Below that, a full seat each is simpler to administer and barely more expensive.
Our Clockify pricing guide sets out every tier in sterling, using Clockify for UK client billing covers the invoicing side, and if the five-user free cap is what brought you here, our Clockify alternatives comparison covers what else is available.
Pricing and features correct at time of writing, in US dollars; sterling figures are illustrative conversions at $1.33 and exclude VAT unless stated. Clockify moved kiosk mode to paid plans in April 2026 — confirm current details before purchasing. This article is general information about UK employment, tax and data protection obligations, not legal advice; confirm record-keeping and minimum wage obligations with HMRC or a qualified adviser, and take advice before photographing or monitoring staff.