Allow Employees to Clock-In or Clock-Out Without a Schedule
This article explains how to enable and use the Allow clock-in/clock-out without schedule setting in Zenoti. This enhancement supports flexible workforce management by letting employees track attendance without needing a predefined shift.
Overview
Traditionally, employees in Zenoti are required to have scheduled shifts to clock in and out. However, many businesses work with freelance professionals, interns, or part-time staff who do not follow fixed schedules. This feature allows these employees to clock in and out without a predefined shift, ensuring attendance, payroll, and reporting remain accurate and consistent.
Once enabled, this setting applies across the organization and cannot be turned off to prevent payroll and attendance inconsistencies.
Key terms
Clock-in/Clock-out: The process by which employees mark the beginning and end of their workday.
Predefined Shift: A scheduled block of time assigned to an employee for working hours.
Attendance Settings: A configuration area in Zenoti that controls how employee work hours are tracked.
Scenarios
Multi-role employees (e.g., Stylist and Receptionist): An employee may work as a stylist from Friday to Sunday and as a receptionist from Monday to Thursday. You can schedule only the stylist shifts, while the employee can still clock in on receptionist days without being bookable. This prevents incorrect availability from being shown and avoids accidental bookings.
Assistants and trainees: Assistants and trainees do not take appointments but still need to record their working hours. With this feature, they can clock in and out without being scheduled, allowing for accurate attendance and payroll tracking without inflating the business’s bookable capacity.
Operational Support Tasks: Stylists often assist with shampooing, billing, or handling walk-ins during peak hours. These tasks are operational and not linked to appointments. Clocking in without a schedule allows their time to be tracked without artificially increasing utilization metrics.
Clinical and Compliance Days: In MedSpa settings, providers may come in for charting, audits, or training—none of which involve patient appointments. Scheduling these days makes them appear underutilized. With this feature, they can clock in, get paid, and not affect revenue or availability reports.
Floating Staff or Event Support: Staff who rotate across locations or support special events(like bridal or wellness days) often face schedule mismatches. This feature allows them to clock in regardless of scheduling delays or complexities, ensuring attendance and payroll are accurate.
Considerations
Once enabled, the setting cannot be disabled.
Employees can clock in/out without a schedule. However, a schedule is still required for appointment bookings.
If your payroll or utilization is calculated using a combination of Scheduled and Actual hours, the results may be inaccurate. It is recommended to switch to Actual check-in/check-out time to ensure accuracy.
If the setting Book appointments with therapists not scheduled for the day in Appointment Book and POS is enabled:
Employees clocking in without a schedule will appear in red on the schedule.
No action is required.
Early check-in limits, attendance grace periods, and schedule-linked thresholds will be bypassed for unscheduled employees.
Attendance reports will display "N/A" for Scheduled Hours for these employees.
Attendance summary reports and utilization data may differ from that of scheduled employees.
You can still enter expected times in the Manage Employee Check-in screen. This will automatically create a temporary schedule for the employee.
If your business uses Queue Mode wait times based on scheduled shifts, the times will be inaccurate. Switch to check-in/check-out-based wait times for accuracy.
For all employees clocking in/out without schedules, it is recommended to use actual clock times instead of scheduled times in all related settings.