A third kind: co-managers

A staff member can also be given full manager access to one location, without owning the account themselves. They sign in the same way as any employee, but land in the full management view instead of the employee portal. See Co-managers →

The checklist

1. Sign up and confirm your email. Choose your Business type (it must be picked), then type the code we email you. If RotaIQ says You've been invited to join a team, that email already has a staff invite waiting: see Working for more than one business →. See Signing in and passwords →
2. Finish the set-up wizard. Company name, business type (it sets your labour target; change it later in Setup → Pay & Budget) and employer NI, pension and holiday accrual. The UK defaults are filled in; leave them if unsure.
3. Name your site. Setup → Locations. Running more than one? See Multiple sites →
4. Add your team. One at a time with the wizard, or all at once from a spreadsheet. See Adding staff →
5. Enter last week's net sales on the Rota tab, so RotaIQ can forecast this week and work out your labour budget. See Forecast and budget →
6. Build your first week. See Building the rota →
7. Publish it. Everyone with an email on file is told their shifts. See Publishing →
8. Invite your team to the app so they can see shifts, clock in and request leave. See Invites and removing staff →
9. Choose your rules in Setup → Attendance & Leave: clock-in, leave, open shifts, swaps and alerts. Attendance, Leave and My Clock are on from the start; the rest are off until you turn them on. See Setup reference →

Accept your invite

1. Open the invite link your manager emailed or sent you. Always use the newest one: if your manager resends it, the older link stops working. Don't use Sign up free on the sign-in page: that sets up a new business, not a login for your workplace.
2. Choose a password (at least 8 characters). Your name and email are already filled in. Sign up with the email your manager has for you; the invite only works with that address.
3. Type the code we email you to confirm it's your address.
4. You're in. Your Home screen shows today's shift and the rest of your week. Next time, sign in at app.rotaiq.co.uk.

What you can do

• See your shifts and confirm you've seen them. Your shifts →
• Clock in and out on your phone, if your workplace uses it. Clocking in and out →
• Request holiday and see your balance. Requesting leave →
• Put RotaIQ on your phone's home screen. RotaIQ on your phone →

Signing in

Go to app.rotaiq.co.uk (or open the RotaIQ icon on your home screen), enter your email and password, and tap Sign in. Everyone uses the same sign-in page: owners, managers and team members land on their own screens automatically.

Forgot your password

1. On the sign-in page, tap Forgot password?
2. Enter the email address you sign in with and tap Send code. You'll see Check your inbox.
3. Type the code from the email and tap Continue.
4. Type your new password twice (at least 8 characters) and tap Update password. You're signed in.

• Only an email with a RotaIQ login gets a code. The screen says "Check your inbox" whatever you type, so if nothing arrives, check it's the email you sign in with.
• Team members: that's the email you accepted your invite with. It can be different from the one your manager has on your staff record.
• One request a minute. If you ask again, use the code in the newest email; an older code won't work.
• Not there? Check your junk or spam folder, then use Send a new code.

Changing your password

• Owners: Setup → General → Your account → Change password emails you a reset. Follow it to choose a new password.
• Team members and co-managers: use Forgot password? on the sign-in page, or ask your manager to send a reset from Staff (see Invites and removing staff →).
• Setting a new password signs you out on every other device. The one you're using stays signed in.

Signing out

Managers: open the menu under your name at the top right and choose Log out. Team members: tap the sign-out button at the top of the screen.

This signs out only the phone or computer you're using. Anywhere else you're signed in stays signed in. To sign out everywhere else (for example after using a shared computer), set a new password.

Confirming a new account

When you sign up, or accept an invite, we email you a code to prove the address is yours. Type it in and you're signed straight in. You only do this once.

Add it to your home screen: iPhone or iPad

1. Open app.rotaiq.co.uk in Safari. Safari is the most reliable way on iPhone and iPad.
2. Tap the Share icon, the square with an arrow pointing up.
3. Tap "Add to Home Screen" (scroll down the list if you don't see it).
4. Tap Add. The RotaIQ icon is now on your home screen.

Add it to your home screen: Android

1. Open app.rotaiq.co.uk in Chrome.
2. Tap the three-dot menu, top right.
3. Tap "Add to Home screen" (on some phones it says "Install app").
4. Tap Add or Install.

For managers on a phone

You land on Home: a tile for every part of RotaIQ, named as on a computer (Dashboard, Rota, Reports, Staff, Leave, Attendance, My Clock, Setup). Inside any of them, the ☰ button opens the full menu, with Home at the top. Tapping the RotaIQ logo also takes you Home. Building a whole rota is quickest on a computer; approvals, checks and clocking in work well on the phone.

For team members on a phone

The ☰ menu takes you to Home, My Shifts, Clock, Request leave, Availability, Open shifts, Team rota and History (some only appear if your manager has switched them on).

What's on it

• Scheduled - this week's rota cost against your labour budget and target %.
• Actual - what's actually been spent so far today and this week, from clocked hours.
• Currently clocked in - live, refreshes every 30 seconds, and flags anyone clocking in from outside their location's geofence.
• Leave - who's on leave today or this week, with approve/decline actions built in.
• Shift offers - open shifts and swaps waiting on your approval.
• Staff alerts, Timesheet reviews (grouped by day, today first), Cost breakdown, Special events, Minimum wage check, Pending invites, Rota status, Unfilled shifts, Overtime cost - each surfaces one thing worth checking without digging into a tab.
• Shift acknowledgements and Shift acknowledgements (detail) - two optional widgets: an overview showing green/amber per staff member for this week, and a detail version listing exactly which specific shifts each amber person still hasn't acknowledged.
• Upcoming leave - approved leave coming up, so you can plan around it.
• Today's staffing (rota'ed) and This week's staffing (rota'ed) - how many people are on the rota today, and on each day this week, per location.
• Labour % trend - only shown if you've switched it on in Setup.
• Location snapshot - on multi-site accounts, a per-location breakdown of spend and clocked-in staff.

Customising it

Click Customize to show, hide, reorder, or reset widgets to the default layout. Your layout is saved per user - a co-manager can arrange theirs differently from yours.

Simple or Detailed view

Switch near the top of the Dashboard between Simple - a handful of headline figures - and Detailed, the full widget grid described above. Whichever you pick is remembered on your account, so it's the same on every device you sign in on, not just the one you set it on.

The Simple view starts with a Next action: the most urgent thing to deal with, in this order - shifts nobody clocked in for, timesheets to approve, leave requests, shift swaps, then this week's rota if it isn't published or has unpublished changes. Its button takes you straight to the right page, and anything else outstanding is listed underneath. When nothing's waiting it says you're all caught up.

Add and edit shifts

1. Open the Rota tab. Use ‹ This week › to pick the week.
2. Click + in a person's row under the day. A shift starts at 09:00–17:00.
3. Set the start and end time, the break (minutes, paid or unpaid), the role, and overtime if needed. Changes save automatically.
4. Click any shift to change it, or Delete shift in the editor to remove it.

Speed it up

• Drag a shift to another day or person to move it. Hold Shift (or ⌥ Option on a Mac) as you start dragging to copy it instead.
• Copy a day or the whole week and paste it into another, for weeks that repeat.
• Shift presets (common start and end times) fill the times in one click. Set them up in Roles and presets →
• Templates save a whole week's pattern. See Rota templates →
• Split and overnight shifts both work: add two shifts on one day, or end a shift after midnight.
• Each person's role shows under their name, with Salaried or Hourly on the line below. If a name is cut short, hover over it to see it in full.
• Hover their weekly total for the cost breakdown, even in a week with no shifts. Hourly staff with no shifts show "No shifts this week" and their rate; salaried staff show their yearly gross salary and "no shifts this week".

Leave and unavailability from the rota

Click someone's shift, then:

• ✈️ Add leave opens a pop-up. Choose the Type (Annual, Sick, Unpaid or Other), then How much: Full day, Half day or Hours. Add a note if you like, and choose whether to Remove their shift that day: a full day removes it by default; for a half day or some hours it stays, since they usually work the rest. Annual leave shows their balance before and after.
• Hours for someone whose holiday is in days: the hours become a share of their day. For example, 3 hours from a 7-hour shift is 0.43 days. Their day is the length of that shift (or their Hours per day for a shift you've just added with +). More than one day is refused here: use the Leave tab for that.
• 🚫 Add unavailability marks them unavailable that day and removes the shift.
• To remove either, click its badge on the grid. A part-day leave badge shows "½ day" or the hours.

For leave over several days, use the Leave tab.

Room to see the whole week

• A full week fits a laptop screen, and on a tablet or smaller laptop down to about 700 pixels wide.
• On the Rota, in a window narrower than about 1,000 pixels (a tablet held upright, or a small window), the left-hand menu shrinks to icons by itself. Click » at the bottom of the menu to open it again for the rest of your visit.
• On a narrow screen the buttons in the week bar move onto a second line, so ‹ and › always stay visible.
• A long job role on a shift is shortened with "…" (hover to see it). For more room on any screen, click « Collapse at the bottom of the left-hand menu.

Moved or deleted staff

If a shift belongs to someone who has moved location or been deleted, it shows in a red Moved / other staff section at the bottom of the grid, so you can still remove it.

Saving

The rota saves itself. In the week bar you'll see Saving…, then ✓ All changes saved. If a save fails (usually a lost connection) it shows a red Couldn't save · Retry button: check your connection and click it.

If you try to go to another week or location while a change hasn't saved, RotaIQ asks first:

• Stay and retry keeps you on the week so you can press Retry. Choose this.
• Leave without saving moves on, and that change is lost.

Publish a week

1. When the week is ready, click Publish at the top of the Rota.
2. RotaIQ warns you if anyone can't be told (no email on file, or they haven't accepted their invite).
3. Everyone on the rota gets an email and, in the app, a notification. The button turns green.

Changing a published week

Edit shifts as normal, then click Publish again. Only the people whose shifts changed are told, so a small tweak doesn't message everyone. To tell everyone anyway, use Publish All, shown next to Publish once the week has been published.

A published week can't be unpublished, so staff never lose sight of shifts they've already seen. Hover the green button to see when it was last published and by whom.

Version history

Every publish is kept. Click the wrench icon at the top right of the week bar, then Version history…, to see who published each version, when, and what changed.

Over your labour target?

If the week costs more than your target % of forecast sales, RotaIQ asks you to confirm before publishing. You can still publish. Switch the warning off in Setup → Pay & Budget.

Make and use a template

1. Click the wrench icon at the top right of the week bar, then Rota templates…
2. Create a new template and build the pattern in its grid: who works, which shift, which day.
3. Pick a week and apply the template.

Approve a week, step by step

1. Open Attendance (or click Check attendance → on the dashboard's Next action).
2. Each person shows their rota'd shifts against their clock-ins. A red day means a shift with no clock-in.
3. Fill in a missing time, or correct one, and add a reason. Every change is kept in the entry's history.
4. Approve or deny each entry with the ✓ and ✕ buttons on its row (the pencil edits, the bin deletes), or use Approve all pending for a person or the whole week.
5. Export the week as CSV or PDF for payroll: Export All CSV / Export All PDF, or one person from their row.

Good to know

• Someone still clocked in isn't counted until they clock out.
• The variance (actual hours minus rota'd hours) only counts days that have finished. Today shows In progress and later days aren't counted, so early in the week it doesn't look like everyone is hours behind. Reports → Rota overview works the same way.
• On a phone each day is a card: the expected times on the first line, the actual time in and out (tap to add or change) with the total and difference on the second, and the status and buttons on the third. After you fill in someone's missing times, that shift shows ✓ Approve this shift as the next step.
• Salaried staff cost on the same basis as the rota: their weekly salary (with employer NI and pension), shared over the hours rostered that week. Someone who works their rostered week costs exactly what the rota planned; part-way through the week you see the share worked so far, and hours above their contract are overtime. The same figure is used for Spent this week on the dashboard and the actuals in Reports.
• The cost breakdown toggle shows pay, employer NI and pension for approved hours. Attendance shows Gross payroll cost (pay for the hours clocked) or, if you prefer, the Total cost to employer (with employer National Insurance, pension and holiday accrual): switch with Show total cost to employer in Attendance in Setup → Attendance & Leave. Tap or hover the ⓘ next to any figure to see what it counts.
• Weeks or a monthly payroll period: see Payroll period →

Geofence violations

If a site has a geofence, clock-ins and clock-outs made outside it are counted separately, each with a link to a map of where it happened.

Automatic clock-out

Forgotten clock-outs can be closed for you after a set number of hours: Setup → Attendance & Leave → Automatic clock-out. The employee and managers are told when it happens.

• Add a leave request for any staff member, and approve or decline pending ones here.
• Duration is worked out for you - calendar days for day-based leave, or weekdays × hours-per-day for hours-based leave, so a request spanning a weekend doesn't overstate the total.
• Each staff card shows Used vs. Remaining against their Allowance for the current holiday year. The year's boundary dates - set in Setup → Pay & Budget - are shown at the top, alongside the previous year for reference. Used and remaining count approved leave only; pending and declined requests don't count.
• For accrued-hours staff, remaining balance is calculated from either their scheduled rota hours or their actual clocked hours, depending on the Accrual source toggle in Setup → Pay & Budget.
• Balances reset automatically at the holiday year boundary - nothing to do manually when the year rolls over.

Minimum notice for annual leave

Require annual leave to be requested at least a set number of days in advance, from Setup → Attendance & Leave - 0 (the default) means no minimum. It only ever applies to annual leave; sick, unpaid and other leave types are exempt, since they're inherently short-notice. It also only applies to leave employees request themselves - adding leave on someone's behalf here isn't affected.

Blocking leave on certain dates

Stop staff submitting an annual leave request that overlaps a date you choose - your busiest trading days, for example - from Setup → Attendance & Leave. Like minimum notice, this only applies to annual leave requested by staff themselves; you can still add leave for someone on a blocked date yourself.

Manager notifications and reminders

You're notified in-app and by push the moment an employee submits a leave request, so nothing sits waiting for a decision unnoticed - see Notifications →. Optionally switch on Send leave reminders in Setup → Attendance & Leave for a reminder email to both the employee and you, a configurable number of days before an approved holiday starts.

Leave over someone's balance

When you approve or add annual leave that would take someone below their allowance (or below the holiday they've accrued from hours worked), RotaIQ checks first. Choose how in Setup → Features under Leave over the holiday balance:

• Warn (the default): you're told by how much, and give a reason to Approve anyway. The reason, who approved it and when are kept with the leave.
• Block: the leave can't be approved. Change the dates or the amount.
• Off: no check.

Wherever a balance is below zero (the Leave page, the staff profile and the Annual leave report), it reads, for example, Over accrued by 6.4 hrs (approved by Sam Smith on 3 Nov 2026). Older leave approved before this check shows no approval recorded.

Turn them on

Setup → Attendance & Leave: switch on Enable open shifts (in Open shifts) and, separately, Enable shift swaps (in Shift swaps).

Offer an open shift

1. On the Rota, add a shift with nobody assigned.
2. Open it and choose Open this shift. Eligible staff are emailed and see it under Open shifts.
3. When someone claims it, approve or decline it in the Shift offers widget on the Detailed dashboard.

With Approve claims automatically on, the first person to claim gets it straight away and you get a notification.

Swaps

Team members can choose Offer this shift on one of their own shifts. When a colleague takes it, you approve or decline it in Shift offers. Swaps always need your approval.

Shift times that can't be read

RotaIQ checks each shift's start, end and break wherever shifts are added. If something can't be read, the shift editor says what's wrong and won't close until you fix it or delete the shift; pasted or template shifts that can't be read are skipped and you're told how many. A shift that's 0 hours long, or costs £0 because the person has no pay rate, asks you to confirm before it's kept.

Breaks: the law and your policy

• UK law: an adult who works more than 6 hours in a day gets one uninterrupted 20-minute break. Staff under 18 get 30 minutes when they work more than 4.5 hours. RotaIQ adds split shifts on the same day together, and uses the person's age on the shift date (from their date of birth).
• Your company policy: if you give a longer break, for example 30 minutes for more than 8 hours, turn on Company break policy in Setup → Features, then set the minutes and hours in Setup → Attendance & Leave → Break warnings and click Save. Shifts short of it are marked as your company policy, not as UK law.
• The shift editor tells you which applies, and the warning on the rota says so when you hover over it.

What it adds

Once switched on, employees get an Acknowledge action on each of their shifts from their own portal, one at a time or all at once. It doesn't gate or delay anything - it's purely a record that they've seen it.

What you'll see

Acknowledged shifts get a small green thumbs-up badge in the corner of their chip on the Rota → grid - so you can tell at a glance who's confirmed and who hasn't, without leaving the grid.

Warning if a shift goes unacknowledged too long

Set how many days is too long in Setup → Attendance & Leave. Once a published shift passes that threshold without being acknowledged, it's highlighted amber on the Rota → grid instead of staying neutral, and the employee gets an email reminder.

Set it up once

1. Add yourself as a staff member in Staff, if you aren't already.
2. Open your staff record and use This is me to link it to your login.
3. My Clock now shows your shifts today and the same clock-in button your team uses.

Reading the week

• Top of the Rota: forecast sales, your labour budget, the week's scheduled cost and labour % against your target.
• Each person's total (right-hand column): hours and full cost for the week. Hover it (or tap on a phone) to see the breakdown.
• Department cards under the grid: each department's cost and its share of the week.
• Day totals at the bottom of each department: hours and cost per day.

Hourly staff

Pay is hours × rate. Employer NI is charged only on weekly pay above the NI threshold (about £96 a week for most staff) and pension only above the pension threshold (£120 a week), shared across their shifts that week. So a part-timer on a few hours can show £0 NI and pension: that's correct. Holiday accrual (12.07% by default) is added on top.

Salaried staff

A salaried person costs their weekly salary (annual salary ÷ 52, plus NI and pension) every week, spread across their shifts. Hours rota'd above their contracted hours are overtime, added on top; set a shift's overtime to 1.5x or Unpaid in the shift editor. A new starter is costed from their start date in their first week. Choose whether salary counts in weeks with no shifts in Setup → Pay & Budget → Salaried staff.

UK rates, kept up to date for you

• The minimum wage, employer NI, pension, statutory sick pay and holiday accrual figures come from the UK rates RotaIQ keeps up to date. You'll see them in Setup → Pay & Budget → Employer cost rates, with the next year's rates underneath as soon as they're announced.
• Each week is costed with the rates in force that week, so an April rota planned in March uses April's rates, and last year's reports don't change.
• Use the UK rate is ticked for NI, pension and holiday accrual unless you've set your own. Untick it to enter your own figure, for example if you pay more pension than the minimum. Your own figure then stays as it is when the law changes.
• RotaIQ checks hourly rates, not payslips: check accommodation offsets and pay-period averaging with your payroll provider.

How the forecast works

1. Each week, enter that week's net sales on the Rota tab once it has finished.
2. RotaIQ forecasts the next weeks from the average of the last three finished weeks.
3. Your labour budget = forecast × target %. Your target comes from your business type; change it in Setup → Pay & Budget.

If any of those three weeks has no sales, a warning at the top of the Rota offers a button for each missing week.

Special events

Expecting a busier day (a match, a festival, a private party)? Add it as a special event from the Dashboard with its expected extra sales, and tick "include in forecast" to add it on top of that week's forecast. Events also show in that day's column on the Rota.

Correcting the forecast or budget

Switch on Enable manual forecast override and/or Enable manual budget override in Setup → Pay & Budget. The boxes on the Rota become editable, with a "manually adjusted" note until you reset them. Type your normal trading figure: included events are still added on top.

Advanced forecasting

For a fuller tool, switch on Enable advanced forecasting (it replaces the two overrides). A Forecast this week button on the Rota lets you forecast one weekly figure or each day separately. The daily grid shows the 3-week average, your forecast, the budget, what's scheduled and the difference, with headcount by department.

Changing someone's pay

1. Open the person in Staff and change their hourly rate, annual salary or contracted hours.
2. RotaIQ asks When does this pay change apply from? Choose the start of this week, today, another date, or All weeks, including past rotas.
3. Rotas before that date keep the old pay. From that date the new pay is used everywhere: Rota, Reports, Attendance and the weekly email. A salary change mid-week is worked out day by day.

Every change and its date is recorded in the person's History tab.

Switching between hourly and salaried

Use Switch to Hourly or Switch to Salaried in their profile header. RotaIQ suggests a starting rate (the minimum wage, if switching to hourly) and asks when the switch applies from.

Minimum wage, age and NI

• Hourly rates are checked against the minimum wage for the person's age as you type, using the UK rates in force (kept up to date by RotaIQ).
• Salaried staff are checked too, on their salary per contracted hour (contracted hours are required for salaried staff). Anyone below shows in the Dashboard's Minimum wage check and on their profile.
• If someone's NI category no longer matches their age (for example 21 or over still on M), their profile says so with a one-click change.
• You can switch either warning off in Setup → Features → Minimum wage warnings or NI category and age warnings.
• Enter a date of birth and RotaIQ keeps their age up to date. When a birthday moves them into a new band, you get an email to review their rate, NI category and pension.
• All 17 HMRC NI category letters are available, suggested from age and changeable at any time.

How costs are calculated

An hourly person's profile shows their True hourly cost to employer: pay, employer NI, pension and holiday accrual, each listed, worked out the same way as the rota, plus their total for the week. With no shifts that week it's an estimate at their rate. See Costs on the rota →

Weekly budget report

Headline cards for staff cost (with its NI/pension breakdown), wage budget vs. your target %, and labour cost % vs. target - plus a day-by-day cost/revenue table. Staff cost includes holiday accrual and overtime, the same figure as the Rota tab, and the Staff hours & cost summary ends with a total row. Export as CSV or PDF.

Annual leave report

Allowance/used/remaining per staff member for the current holiday year. Accrued-hours staff show "Accrued" instead of a fixed number.

Rota overview

Hours and labour cost from the rota (scheduled shifts, not clock-ins) across all your locations, at full employer cost. Total hours and cost by Employee, Job Role, Location or Group, for any date range. Optionally split each total further by a second dimension, drill into a row for the detail behind it, sort any column, compare rota'd hours and cost with actual clocked hours, and switch on Compare to previous period to see the same range a period earlier alongside it. Export as CSV or PDF. Avg £/hr (hourly) is the average cost per hour of your hourly staff; salaried staff show n/a, because a salary isn't an hourly rate and dividing it by a few rostered hours would give a misleading figure.

Staff hours & cost summary

One row per person for the week: department, pay type, contracted hours, gross hours, breaks, paid hours, overtime, hours under contract, full cost, and a status check - with a Total row at the bottom for the whole team.

Staff coverage by day

How many different people are scheduled each day of the selected week, per location - a quick check that no day is short-staffed.

Labour cost trend

Only shown if enabled in Setup → Pay & Budget: sales, labour cost and labour % over the last several weeks, with a "no data" message until you've entered weekly sales.

Printable rota

Print the full report or just the rota grid, straight from this tab.

Switching it on

In Setup → Attendance & Leave, find the "Payroll period" section, choose Weekly or Monthly, and - if Monthly - set which day of the month your payroll period starts on (clamped 1-28, to sidestep short months like February). A preview shows your current period's exact start and end dates before you save.

What changes in Attendance

• The Attendance tab's date nav switches from "this week" to "this period," and every figure on screen - scheduled vs. actual hours, cost, missing clock-ins, pending review - covers the whole period at once instead of just one week.
• CSV and PDF exports cover the same period you're viewing, with the date range in the filename, so a monthly payroll run is one export instead of four or five weekly ones stitched together.
• Everything else works exactly the same way: approve, decline, edit, and the audit trail are all still per-entry, regardless of which period you're viewing.

Add one person

1. Open Staff and click + Add staff.
2. Name, department and pay type (Salaried or Casual/hourly).
3. Pay rate (or salary), weekly hours and role. Hourly rates are checked against minimum wage as you type.
4. Date of birth (or just an age), NI category, apprentice status, pension.
5. Start date and leave. If they start part-way through the holiday year, RotaIQ offers a pro-rated allowance.
6. Check the summary and save.

Two people with the same name? RotaIQ warns you when you type a name you already have (and in a spreadsheet import), but still lets you add them. In every staff list, a repeated name shows a detail after it so you can pick the right person: their role, or their location, or the end of their email address. You can switch this off in Setup → Features.

Add a whole team from a spreadsheet

1. Click Import from sheet above the staff list and download the template.
2. Fill in one row per person. Departments and roles must already exist (see Roles and presets →).
3. Upload it. Every row is checked first; any problem rows are listed with the reason, so you can fix and re-upload.

Someone who covers more than one role

Add extra department and role pairs in their profile's Other roles section. The shift editor then offers all of them, and the cost goes to the department of the role on each shift.

Staff history

Every change to a person (who, when, old and new value) is in their History tab.

Choose how leave is measured

Open the person in Staff and choose the Leave tab. Under Leave entitlement:

• Holiday measured in: Days or Hours.
• For hours, the Holiday method: Fixed (a set number of hours a year) or Accrued (a percentage of the hours they work, with no fixed number).
• Annual allowance, in days or hours (not shown for accrued).
• Hours per day: the length of their normal working day. It shows for days-based staff too, because it sets how hours of leave added from the rota count as days, and the day length used if you switch them to hours.

Switching between days and hours

1. Check Hours per day first. If it's blank, RotaIQ uses their contracted hours a week ÷ 5 (salaried staff), or otherwise 8 hours.
2. Click Days or Hours next to Holiday measured in.
3. RotaIQ shows what will change before it does anything: their allowance and every leave entry already booked, before and after, and which day length it used.
4. Click Switch to hours (or Switch to days) to convert them, or Cancel, change Hours per day, and switch again.

For example, at 7.5 hours a day, 28 days becomes 210 hours and 1.5 days already booked becomes 11.25 hours. Nothing is lost: switching back converts them again. If the conversion can't be saved, nothing is changed and you're told.

New starters part-way through the year

When a start date falls inside the current holiday year, RotaIQ offers to pro-rate their allowance: Use pro-rated or Use full year. The person's Leave tab also shows the pro-rated figure at any time. You can still type a different number.

The holiday year

Set when your holiday year starts in Setup → Pay & Budget → Holiday year. Balances reset by themselves at the start of each year. For accrued staff, choose whether rota'd or clocked hours count in Setup → Pay & Budget → Employer cost rates.

Invite someone

1. Open the person in Staff and scroll to Employee portal invite.
2. Check their Employee email address, then click Send invite. They get an email with a link.
3. No email? Click Generate link, then Copy link and send it by text or WhatsApp.

Resend or cancel

• Resend email sends a fresh link and the old one stops working straight away.
• Revoke cancels the invite.
• The invite only works with the email address on their staff record, and lasts 30 days.
• That email can't already have a RotaIQ login (for example from another job). If it does, see Working for more than one business →

If the invite email isn't sent

The invite is still created, and RotaIQ tells you the email didn't go:

• "…because your sign-in has ended": you were signed out on another device, which can stop this one sending emails. Log out, sign back in, open the person again and click Resend email.
• "…the email couldn't be sent": click Resend email to try again, or Copy link and send it yourself.

Setup → General → Email delivery lists every email sent and any that failed.

Reset a team member's password

Once someone has signed up, their invite box says Account active and has a Reset password button.

1. Open the person in Staff and scroll to Employee portal invite.
2. Click Reset password. They get an email with a code to choose a new password; you never see or set it.
3. Underneath, RotaIQ shows where it went, partly hidden (for example "Sent to e•••@gmail.com, the email they sign in with").

• It goes to the email they sign in with, which can be different from the email on their staff record. Ask them to check that inbox, including junk.
• Not signed up yet? There's no password to reset: send them an invite instead.

When someone leaves

Delete them from Staff. They move to Setup → Team → Deleted staff and can be restored any time with their shift, leave and attendance history intact. Their login stops working at once; removing a manager ends their access to your account straight away.

Make someone a co-manager

1. In Staff, open the person, mark them as a manager and set their location.
2. Invite them from Employee portal invite.
3. When they sign in, they get the full manager screens, with a blue "Managing [your business] · [location]" banner.

What they can and can't do

Letting them change Setup

Setup → General → Manager access: switch on Let co-managers edit all Setup settings. Your login and account deletion always stay yours.

• Add as many locations as you run from Setup → Locations, each with its own name and optional clock-in geofence radius.
• Staff can be assigned to one location, or marked Shared (all locations) if they work across sites.
• Switch your active location from the top of the app - the Rota, Staff list, and most Dashboard widgets always reflect whichever location you're currently viewing.
• The two exceptions are Actual and Currently clocked in on the Dashboard, which always total across every location.
• If a shared staff member already has a shift at one location, you'll be warned before double-booking them at another - see Rota →.

Weather forecast

Switch on Show weather on the Rota grid here to add a small forecast badge to each day column on the Rota tab, for any location with coordinates set below. Pick Normal, Large or Extra large for the badge size.

The bell

The bell in the top bar keeps your last 30 alerts. A red count shows new ones; opening it marks them read, and tapping one takes you to the right page. In the app, tapping a notification on your phone does the same.

Every message, and its switch

"Push" means a notification in the RotaIQ phone app. Switches are in Setup → Attendance & Leave unless it says otherwise.

Choosing what you get

Turn each one on or off, and set its timing, in the Setup sections named above.

The switches

One master switch, four independent alerts

Turn on Enable late clocking alerts in Setup → Attendance & Leave first - it's the single off switch for all four below. Then choose which of the four you actually want:

• Remind employee — not clocked in / not clocked out: a push + email straight to the employee once they're a set number of minutes late.
• Alert managers — employee not clocked in / not clocked out: a push notification and an email to you and any co-managers, naming the person, once they're a set number of minutes late, so a missed clock-in doesn't go unnoticed all day. Tapping the push opens Attendance. "Not clocked in" is on for every account by default (after 60 minutes).

Each of the four has its own minutes-late threshold, so an employee reminder can fire quickly (say, 15 minutes) while the manager escalation gives it longer (say, 60) before involving you.

Two ways to round - pick one

• Round clock times: each clock-in and clock-out is itself rounded to the nearest interval you choose - that rounded time is what shows on the timesheet and is what pay/hours are based on. Hover over a rounded time to see the real punch underneath.
• Round total hours: clock-in and clock-out stay exactly as punched. Only the final hours-worked total for the shift is rounded.

They're alternatives, not both at once - switch between them or back to Off (exact times, no rounding) at any time. Choose 1, 5, 10 or 15 minutes as your rounding interval.

• Off: anyone can clock in whether or not they have a shift scheduled today - this is how RotaIQ has always worked, and stays the default.
• Warn: staff with no shift scheduled today are asked to confirm before clocking in, but can still go ahead.
• Require a shift: staff with no shift scheduled today can't clock in at all, until a shift is added for them.

Turn it on

Setup → Attendance & Leave → Staff availability. Your team gets an Availability screen; you get a warning on the Rota.

How it works

• Staff set regular days they can't work (optionally only certain hours), or one-off dates.
• You can set it for them too, from their staff profile's Availability tab.
• Scheduling them anyway shows a warning and asks you to confirm. You can still go ahead.
• Hide the overlay on the Rota with Hide availability.

Departments

Setup → Team → Departments. Every business starts with Front of House, Back of House and Cleaning; set them up the way you work, for example Bar, Kitchen, Events or Housekeeping.

• + Add department: type a name and add it. It gets a short tag (for example BAR) and a colour, which you can change.
• Rename: edit the name and press Enter. Everyone in it, their shifts and its roles move to the new name.
• ↑ ↓ change the order departments appear on the rota and in reports.
• Archive hides a department from lists once nobody is in it. Its past rotas and costs still show in reports, and Restore brings it back.

The rota groups staff by department, and the Weekly budget report shows each department's labour cost and share. You can switch this off in Setup → Features.

Roles

Setup → Team → Roles. Roles belong to a department (see Departments above) and appear when you assign shifts. Click a role's colour dot to change the colour of its shifts on the rota.

Shift presets

Save common shift times (Breakfast, Close…) so you can pick them in the shift editor instead of typing times.

Deleted staff

People you remove are listed in Setup → Team → Deleted staff. Restore them to bring them back into rotas with their history intact.

Company details

Your company name appears on reports and printed rotas. The address is for your records and never shown to staff. The time zone is used to work out exactly when shifts start and end for reminders and alerts; it defaults to UK time.

Light or dark

Setup → General → Appearance switches between a dark and a light colour scheme.

Email delivery

Lists the last 20 emails your account tried to send: invites, rota notices, shift offers, leave decisions and alerts. If something isn't arriving, look here first; a failed send shows a plain reason and a red banner appears until you've seen it.

Closing your account

Setup → General → Your account has the option to delete the account. You're signed out at once and your staff lose access too. Nothing is erased: email support@truli.co.uk to have it restored. Only the owner can do this.

Team members deleting their login

Team members and co-managers can delete their own login from the Delete my account link at the bottom of their screen. Their staff record and history stay with you.

How the trial works

• Every new account gets 60 days free from signup, with nothing to enter and no card required to start.
• As the trial gets closer to ending, the banner's wording changes to reflect how many days are actually left, becoming more prominent in the final two weeks.
• Add a card at any point during the trial - from the banner, or from Setup → Billing - and your remaining trial days carry over exactly; nothing is lost by adding a card early.

Emails during your trial

• When you sign up you get a welcome email explaining the trial.
• Every 5 days while there's no card on the account, a short reminder says how many days are left. Near the end you get the 14, 7, 2 and 1 days left reminders instead.
• Each email has an Add your card button that goes straight to our secure card page (run by Stripe) without signing in, so it works even if you set up RotaIQ on your phone. A button works for 7 days; after that, sign in at rotaiq.co.uk and go to Setup → Billing.
• The emails stop as soon as a card is added.

Adding a card

Add card details takes you to a secure Stripe-hosted checkout page - RotaIQ never sees or stores your card details itself. You're billed £5 per location per month, and the amount updates automatically if you add or remove locations later. Adding a card in the last 48 hours of your trial is fine - billing starts when the trial ends.

If the trial ends with no card added

Nobody on the account - owner, co-managers or staff - can use RotaIQ until a card is added. You'll see a plain screen explaining this, with the same Add card details button; a co-manager can add one on the owner's behalf. Nothing is deleted while locked - it all comes straight back the moment a card's added.

If a payment fails

1. A banner tells you there's a problem with your last payment, and Setup → Billing shows Payment problem.
2. Click Manage billing on the banner (or in Setup → Billing) and update your card on Stripe's secure page.
3. If it isn't sorted within 3 days, the account locks for everyone until the payment goes through - nothing is deleted, and it unlocks as soon as it's paid.

Managing or cancelling

Once you have an active subscription, Setup → Billing shows your next charge date and amount, and a Manage billing button - taking you to Stripe's own Customer Portal to update your card, view invoices, or cancel. Cancelling keeps your full access until the end of the period you've already paid for; Setup → Billing shows exactly when that is.

Switching a feature

• Open Setup → Features. Each feature has a one-line description and a Learn more link to its own help article.
• Most features are simply On or Off. Rules (for example a legal check) have three settings: Off, Warn (you are told, and can carry on) and Block (the action is stopped).
• Features that can differ by site have a Different at some locations link. Pick a setting for a location, or leave it as Same as company.
• Reset to default puts a feature back to how RotaIQ ships it.

Good to know

• Turning a feature off never deletes anything it has recorded. Turn it back on and the information is there again.
• If a feature says Set by Truli, our team has fixed its setting for your account (for example while we fix a problem). Contact support if you need it changed.
• Co-managers can change features only if you allow Manager access in Setup.

Feature change log

Under the list, Feature change log shows every change: when, which feature, whether it was for the company or a location, what it changed from and to, and who made it. Changes made by our team show as Truli.

Home

• Today's shift at the top, then the rest of this week and next.
• Acknowledge tells your manager you've seen a shift; Acknowledge all shifts does them all at once.
• A banner appears when your manager changes the rota.

My Shifts and History

My Shifts lists everything published, grouped into This Week, This Month and Coming Up. History keeps your past shifts.

Notifications

The bell shows rota changes, leave decisions and shift offers. If your manager has switched it on, you'll also get a reminder email before each shift.

Location checks

Some locations check that you're actually on site before letting you clock in, using your phone or browser's location. If it's set to advisory only, you'll just see a note; if it's enforced, clocking in from too far away will be blocked with a message telling you the distance.

If location permission isn't working

If your browser has blocked or denied location access, you'll see help specific to your device and browser - including separate guidance for Safari on iPhone/iPad and on desktop, since Safari doesn't always report its permission state reliably.

Overnight shifts

If your shift crosses midnight, clocking out still finds your open entry correctly - you won't be stuck unable to clock out just because the date has changed.

If you don't have a shift scheduled today

Depending on how your manager has it set up, clocking in on a day you have no shift scheduled might ask you to confirm first, or might not be allowed at all until a shift's added for you. If you think this is wrong, check with your manager - your shift may not have been published yet.

• Set a start date, end date, leave type (annual, sick, unpaid, or other), and an optional note, then submit.
• If your leave is measured in hours, weekends are excluded from the calculation automatically - a Monday-to-Friday request counts five days' worth of hours, not seven.
• New requests show immediately as Awaiting manager approval.
• If your manager requires advance notice for annual leave, requesting it too close to the start date shows a message telling you exactly how many days' notice is needed - sick, unpaid and other leave types are never affected by this.
• Your balance card shows Total (or Accrued), Used, and Remaining, for the current holiday year set by your manager.

• Weekly: toggle any day of the week you're recurringly unavailable - optionally restricted to certain hours instead of the whole day, with a note if useful.
• One-off: pick a specific date range instead, with the same optional hours and note. You can have several of these at once.
• If your manager schedules you anyway, and if a shift on My Shifts collides with a day you've marked unavailable, you'll see a warning with a one-click shortcut to request leave for that day instead.

Claiming an open shift

See "Available to claim" for shifts your manager has opened up. Claim one and it moves to Your claims - awaiting manager approval. If someone else claims it a moment before you, you'll be told it's already gone rather than the app pretending it worked.

Offering one of your own

On any of your own upcoming shifts, choose Offer this shift and add a note. It appears under Your offers with a status - waiting for a colleague, awaiting manager approval, approved, or declined. You can cancel it yourself as long as it's still open and unclaimed.

• On My Shifts →, choose Acknowledge on any shift, or Acknowledge all shifts to confirm everything currently unacknowledged in one go.
• It turns into a green "Acknowledged" confirmation - your manager sees a matching badge on their side.
• If your manager changes that shift's day, time, break, role, or reassigns it, and republishes, you'll need to acknowledge it again - it only ever reflects what's currently scheduled.

• If your manager sent you a preview link in the past, opening it now takes you to set up your login instead - the same as an invite. See Your first five minutes →.
• Once you've signed in, you'll see your shifts, leave and history in My Shifts →.
• If the link says it's expired or no longer valid, ask your manager to resend your invite.

A team member can't clock in

• "Too far away": they need to be on site. Check the pin and radius in Setup → Locations; a radius can be advisory (a note only) or enforced.
• Location blocked: their phone or browser is refusing location. RotaIQ shows help for their device; usually it's Settings → Safari (or Chrome) → Location → Allow.
• "No shift today": Require a shift to clock in is on. Add and publish their shift, or switch the rule to Warn.
• "Clock-in not yet linked": their login isn't connected to their staff record. Resend their invite and ask them to sign up with the email on their record.
• "You are already clocked in": they're still clocked in from earlier. They clock out first, or you fix the times in Attendance.
• Account locked: nobody can clock in while the trial has ended or a payment has failed. See Billing →

The invite email hasn't arrived

• Ask them to check junk or spam.
• Check the email address on their staff record for a typo.
• Setup → General → Email delivery shows whether it was sent and, if not, why.
• Resend email sends a fresh link (the old one stops working), or Copy link and send it yourself.
• If RotaIQ said the email wasn't sent because your sign-in has ended, log out, sign back in, then click Resend email. See Invites →

"An account with this email already exists"

• That email already has a RotaIQ login, usually from another business. One email can only belong to one business at the moment.
• Invite them with a different email address. A plus address such as jane+cafe2@gmail.com works and arrives in the same inbox. See Working for more than one business →

A team member can't see their shifts

• The week isn't published, or has changes since: click Publish.
• Their shifts are at another location, or they're assigned to a different site.
• Their start date is in the future: staff don't appear on weeks before they start.
• They signed up with a different email to the one on their staff record, so their login isn't linked. Resend the invite.

The sign-in or reset code hasn't arrived, or doesn't work

• Check junk or spam, and that the email address is spelt right.
• Use the email you sign in with. Only an email with a RotaIQ login gets a reset code, even though the screen says "Check your inbox" either way. Team members: it's the email you accepted your invite with.
• You can only ask for a code about once a minute: wait, then try again.
• Asked more than once? Use the code from the newest email; older codes stop working.
• Still nothing after a few minutes? Email support@truli.co.uk.

A team member's password reset didn't arrive

• Staff → Reset password sends to the email they sign in with, which may not be the one on their staff record. The note under the button shows where it went.
• If it says they haven't signed up yet, send them an invite instead.

Our account is locked

• Trial ended: the owner or a co-manager adds a card from the lock screen or Setup → Billing.
• Payment failed: after 3 days the account locks. Manage billing to update the card.
• Suspended: email support@truli.co.uk.
• Nothing is deleted while locked. Everything comes back once it's sorted.

The figures look wrong

• No labour % or an odd budget: net sales are missing for a forecast week. Use the buttons in the warning at the top of the Rota.
• Costs changed for past weeks: a pay change was set to apply to all weeks. Check the person's History tab.
• Actual spend looks low: only approved hours count, and anyone still clocked in isn't counted yet.
• A salaried person costs money in a week they're not working: that's the default (you pay them anyway). Change it in Setup → Pay & Budget → Salaried staff.
• A part-timer shows £0 NI or pension: correct; both only apply above weekly thresholds. See Costs on the rota →

I'm not getting notifications

• Phone notifications need the RotaIQ app with notifications allowed. The bell in the top bar keeps your last 30 either way.
• Most emails can be switched on or off. See Notifications and emails → for which switch controls what.
• Check Setup → General → Email delivery and your junk folder.

A change to the rota didn't save

• Wait for ✓ All changes saved in the week bar before closing the page. If it says Couldn't save · Retry, check your connection and click it.
• If RotaIQ asks about leaving a week that didn't save, choose Stay and retry. Leave without saving loses the change.
• RotaIQ doesn't refresh by itself. If another manager is editing the same week, press the refresh button in the top bar to see their changes.

A co-manager can't change a setting

• By default co-managers can see Setup but not change most of it. The owner switches on Setup → General → Manager access.
• The owner's login and deleting the account always stay with the owner.

A leave request won't go through

• Annual leave may need a minimum number of days' notice, or the dates may be blocked. Both are in Setup → Attendance & Leave → Leave features.
• Sick, unpaid and other leave are never blocked. A manager can always add leave on someone's behalf.

I'm still signed in on another device

• Logging out only signs out the device you're using. To sign out everywhere else, set a new password. See Signing in and passwords →

The page looks out of date

• RotaIQ loads when you open it and doesn't refresh by itself. Press the refresh button in the top bar; the "Updated … ago" line shows when it last loaded.

How it works today

• Each RotaIQ login uses one email address, and opens one business.
• If a second business invites the same email, the invite can't be accepted: signing up says An account with this email already exists, and signing in only opens the first business.
• The same applies to a team member who wants to start their own business on RotaIQ with the email they already use for work.

The fix: use a different email for the second business

1. The second business opens the person in Staff and changes their Employee email address to a different one.
2. They click Resend email (or Send invite). The new invite goes to the new address.
3. The person accepts it and signs up with that address. They now have two logins, one for each business, and sign in with whichever email belongs to the business they want.

No second email address? Use a plus address

Add + and a word before the @ in their usual address, for example jane+cafe2@gmail.com. RotaIQ treats it as a different email, but it arrives in the same inbox as jane@gmail.com.

• Works with Gmail, Outlook.com and Microsoft 365.
• Some other email providers don't support it. If the invite doesn't arrive, use a genuinely different address.
• The person must always sign in, and reset their password, with the plus address for that business.

Team members starting their own business

Sign up for the new business with a different email (a plus address works). If you use the email that already has a staff invite waiting, sign-up stops and says You've been invited to join a team. If you really mean to set up your own business with that email, choose This is for my own business, sign up anyway. That email then can't accept the staff invite, so your employer will need to invite you on a different one.

Email us

support@truli.co.uk

To help us help you quickly, include

• Your business name, and the location if you have more than one.
• Who it affects (your name, or the team member's).
• What you were doing and what happened, word for word if there was a message.
• A screenshot if you can.
• Whether it was on a computer or a phone, and which browser or app.

What we keep

• Your business details and settings.
• Staff details you enter: name, contact email, role, pay, date of birth or age, NI category, start date, leave.
• Rotas, sales figures you enter, leave requests and clock-in times.
• Location at the moment someone clocks in or out, used for the on-site check. RotaIQ doesn't track anyone at any other time.

Who can see it

• The owner, and co-managers for their own location.
• Team members see their own shifts, leave and clock-ins, and (if switched on) colleagues' shifts at their location. Never pay or costs.
• Truli support, only when helping you with a problem.

Removing data

• Delete a staff member: they move to Deleted staff and their login stops. Removing staff →
• Team members can delete their own login. Account settings →
• For anything else, or a copy of your data, email support@truli.co.uk.

1. Switch someone's holiday between days and hours

Switching now converts their allowance and every leave entry already booked, so 1.5 days doesn't turn into 1.5 hours.

1. Open Staff, click the person, and choose the Leave tab.
2. Check Hours per day. It now shows for days-based staff too. If it's blank, RotaIQ uses their contracted hours a week ÷ 5 (salaried), or 8 hours.
3. Click Days or Hours next to Holiday measured in.
4. Check the before and after, then click Switch to hours (or Switch to days).

More: Leave settings for each person →

2. Add leave from the rota with a type and amount

Add leave used to book a full day of annual leave straight away. It now opens a pop-up.

1. On the Rota, click the person's shift, then ✈️ Add leave.
2. Choose the Type: Annual, Sick, Unpaid or Other.
3. Choose How much: Full day, Half day or Hours. For someone whose holiday is in days, hours become a share of their day (3 hours of a 7-hour shift is 0.43 days). More than a day is refused: use the Leave tab.
4. Leave Remove their shift that day ticked for a full day; for part of a day it starts unticked, as they usually work the rest.
5. Annual leave shows their balance before and after. Click the orange Add … button. The grid shows "½ day" or the hours on a part-day badge.

3. The rota fits tablets and smaller laptops

• A full week fits down to about 700 pixels wide, including an iPad held upright.
• On the Rota, in a window under about 1,000 pixels wide, the menu shrinks to icons by itself. Click » at the bottom of the menu to open it again.
• The week bar's buttons move to a second line instead of pushing ‹ off the screen.
• Under each name: the role, then Salaried or Hourly on the next line. Hover a cut-off name to see it in full.
• Hover a weekly total in a week with no shifts: hourly staff show their rate, salaried staff their yearly gross salary. The salaried breakdown now splits salary, overtime, employer NI and pension, like hourly staff.

4. See when the rota has saved

Save now has gone. The rota still saves by itself, and now tells you how it's doing.

1. After a change, the week bar shows Saving…, then ✓ All changes saved.
2. If a save fails it shows a red Couldn't save · Retry. Check your connection and click it.
3. If you try to leave that week or location before it has saved, RotaIQ asks first. Choose Stay and retry; Leave without saving loses the change.

5. Copy a shift by dragging

Hold Shift (or ⌥ Option on a Mac) as you start dragging a shift to copy it instead of moving it. Building the rota →

6. Sign-up spots staff who were invited

• Business type now starts empty and must be chosen.
• The form says Joining your workplace? at the top: team members should use the invite link from their employer, not sign up.
• If the email already has a staff invite waiting, sign-up stops and says You've been invited to join a team, pointing them to the invite email. Someone who really is setting up their own business can choose This is for my own business, sign up anyway.

7. Invites, passwords and signing out

• Invite emails no longer fail silently. If one can't be sent, RotaIQ says so: if your sign-in has ended, log out and back in, then Resend email; otherwise Resend email or Copy link. Invites →
• Staff → Reset password now goes to the email the person signs in with (which can differ from their staff record), and shows where it went, partly hidden, or why it couldn't be sent.
• Log out now signs out only the device you're using. Setting a new password signs out every other device.
• Forgot password: use the email you sign in with, and the code from the newest email. Signing in and passwords →
• Working for two businesses? New article: Working for more than one business →

8. Managers on a phone: every section on Home

Manager Mode has gone. On a phone you land on Home: a greeting, the date, and a tile for every section (Dashboard, Rota, Reports, Staff, Leave, Attendance, My Clock, Setup). Inside a section, ☰ opens the full menu with Home at the top, and the RotaIQ logo takes you Home. RotaIQ on your phone →

9. Attendance rows stay still

Each entry's actions are now one row of icon buttons: ✓ approve, ✕ deny, the pencil edits and the bin deletes (hover for the name). Filling in missed days no longer makes the page jump, and a time you add by hand takes that day's rota shift and site instead of showing "Unassigned". Approving timesheets →

Also changed - nothing for you to do

• Wording: "minimum wage" everywhere instead of "National Living Wage" (for example "ages 21 and over"); Timesheet reviews say "Not clocked in"; the manager late-alert switches say they send a push and an email; titles across the app are in sentence case (for example "Special events", "Staff coverage by day", "Rota overview", "Shift swaps").
• Attendance: the "Clock entries" figure counts entries, so two clock-ins by one person count as 2.
• Exports: CSV files open in Excel with £ signs intact.
• On a phone: My Shifts puts Acknowledge and Offer this shift under each shift, so nothing runs off the card; the Weekly budget report boxes stack so big figures fit.
• Navigation: Staff always opens on the full staff list, every page opens at the top, and a clearer loading screen shows while RotaIQ starts.
• Import from sheet: the window no longer gets cut off on shorter screens.
• Reports: Rota overview no longer shows the wrong range if you change the dates quickly.

1. See your Next action

The Simple dashboard now tells you the single most urgent thing to deal with, and takes you straight to it.

1. Open Dashboard and choose Simple at the top right.
2. Read the Next action banner at the top. It picks, in this order: shifts nobody clocked in for, timesheets to approve, leave requests, shift swaps, then this week's rota if it isn't published.
3. Click the button on the right (for example Check attendance →) to go straight to the page where you deal with it.
4. Anything else waiting is listed after Then: - click any of those to go to it too. When nothing's waiting, it says You're all caught up.

2. Check timesheets by day

Timesheet reviews on the Detailed dashboard are now grouped under day headings, today first, in time order.

1. Open Dashboard and choose Detailed.
2. Find the Timesheet reviews widget. Not clocked in lists rota'd shifts nobody clocked in for; Awaiting approval lists clock-ins waiting for you.
3. Click Review → to open Attendance and approve or fix them.

3. Give the rota more room

A full week now always fits a normal laptop screen. If you'd like even more room, shrink the menu.

1. Click « Collapse at the bottom of the left-hand menu.
2. The menu shrinks to icons. Hover over an icon to see the page name, and click it as normal.
3. Click » to open the menu again. RotaIQ remembers your choice on that computer.

4. Spot shifts missing a legal break

A working day of more than 6 hours without its break now shows a red ⚠ No break on the Rota.

1. Open Rota and look for ⚠ No break on a shift.
2. Click the shift and add a break (20 minutes when someone works more than 6 hours in a day, or 30 minutes over 4.5 hours for staff under 18), then Save.
3. Don't want these warnings? Go to Setup → Attendance & Leave, scroll to Break warnings, switch off Show missing breaks on the rota and click Save.

5. "Not clocked in" alerts for managers

These are now on for every account. When a shift has started and nobody has clocked in after 60 minutes, you and your co-managers get a push notification and an email naming the person. Tapping the notification in the app opens Attendance.

1. To change the timing or turn it off, go to Setup → Attendance & Leave and scroll to Late clock-in / clock-out alerts.
2. Under Manager alerts, use Alert managers — employee not clocked in to switch it on or off, and change Alert after … minutes late if you want it sooner or later.
3. Click Save.

6. Resend a staff invite

Invites are now safer: resending cancels the old link, and the invite only works with the email on the staff member's record.

1. Open Staff and click the person's name.
2. Scroll to Employee portal invite and check their email address is right.
3. Click Resend email. The previous link stops working straight away - make sure they use the newest email.
4. Removing a manager from Staff now ends their access to your account immediately.

7. See the team total in Reports

The Staff hours & cost summary now ends with a total row.

1. Open Reports and scroll to Staff hours & cost summary.
2. The last row, Total, adds up gross hours, breaks, paid hours, overtime, under-hours and cost for everyone shown.

Also changed - nothing for you to do

• New salaried starters are costed from their start date in their first week - a Friday starter costs 3/7 of a week.
• Summary tab: weekly staff cost now includes holiday accrual and overtime, so it matches the Rota tab (and reads higher than before).
• Leave balances count approved leave only - pending and declined requests don't count.
• Staff at two sites: the Trend chart no longer charges a salaried person's whole salary to both sites.
• Safer saving: edits made just before changing week, refreshing or opening a notification are always saved, and two managers editing the same week no longer undo each other's changes.
• Clock-in: clock-ins are dated in your account's time zone, clocking in twice at once only creates one entry, and co-managers' attendance edits appear in the edit history.
• Leave and shift rules: minimum notice for annual leave is always enforced, and staff who work for two companies can only use the right company's record.
• Billing: adding a card in the last two days of your trial works, and an account locked for a missed payment is sent to update its card rather than starting a second subscription.
• Reports: Rota overview shows rota'd hours and cost alongside actual clocked hours, and CSV exports keep negative numbers as numbers in Excel.

Salaried staff and overtime

• Fixed weekly salary: a salaried person costs their annual salary ÷ 52, plus employer NI and pension, every week - taken from their current salary on their profile.
• Overtime on top: hours rota'd above their contracted weekly hours are added at their hourly rate (salary ÷ weekly hours, plus NI and pension). It counts at the standard rate unless you set that shift to 1.5x or Unpaid in the shift editor.
• Weeks with no shifts: the salary still counts (holiday, or not rota'd yet), because you pay it anyway. Prefer to only count weeks they're rota'd? Change it in Setup → Pay & Budget → Salaried staff.
• See the split: hover over (or tap) a salaried person's weekly total on the Rota grid to see their salary, overtime and total.

Pay changes from a date

• When you change someone's hourly rate, salary, contracted hours or pay type, RotaIQ asks when the change applies from - the start of this week, today, any date you pick, or all weeks.
• Rotas before that date keep the old pay, so last month's figures don't change when someone gets a pay rise. A salary change part-way through a week is worked out day by day.
• The change and its date are recorded in the person's History tab.

Forecast, rota and dashboard

• Events on manual forecasts: if you type your own forecast (or use Advanced forecasting), events marked "include in forecast" are now added on top - so enter your normal trading figure, without the events.
• Missed clock-ins: the Dashboard's Timesheet reviews (and the Simple view) now list rota'd shifts nobody clocked in for.
• Rota: breaks show as a ☕ icon with the minutes; department cards under the grid show each department's share of the week's rota cost.
• Reports: the Totals report is now Rota overview, with a short explanation of what it includes.

Forecasting and budget

• Rolling 3-week forecast: each week's suggested forecast is now the average net sales of the three most recent finished weeks before it, so every week gets its own figure. For weeks further ahead it uses the last three finished weeks and says which ones (for example "3-week average of w/c 21 Sept–5 Oct").
• Missing sales warning: a yellow box at the top of the Rota when net sales haven't been entered for any of those weeks, with a button to jump straight to each one. Switch it off in Setup → Pay & Budget.
• Over-target warning: if a week's labour cost is over your target % of forecast revenue, Publish asks you to confirm first, showing how much you're over. You can still publish. Switch it off in Setup → Pay & Budget.

Pay and holiday figures

• Exact to the penny: hourly rates, shift costs, NI, pension and budgets now always show pounds and pence (£11.20, not £11), and NI and pension percentages show exactly what you set.
• Pro-rated holiday for new starters: when you add someone who starts partway through the leave year, RotaIQ offers their pro-rated allowance straight away. Their profile's Leave tab also has a Use X days button at any time, or Keep full allowance if you give new starters the full year.

Signing in

• Email codes: confirming a new account and resetting a password now use a code from the email, typed straight into RotaIQ, so you never have to leave the app. The email still has a link if you'd rather use that.
• Signing in before confirming your email sends you a fresh code automatically.

Open shifts, trials and the phone app

• Approve open-shift claims automatically: an optional switch under Setup → Attendance & Leave → Open shifts. The first person to claim gets the shift, and managers get an "Open shift filled" notification. Shift swaps still need approval.
• Trial ended email: owners now get an email at the moment a trial ends without a card, explaining that nothing has been deleted and how to add one.
• On a phone: an "Updated 14:32 · 5 min ago" line under the top bar shows how fresh what you're looking at is, with a Refresh link once it's 30 minutes old. Setting up on a phone suggests finishing on a computer, and you can choose Set up on a computer later.
• Changed shifts: when you republish, staff are told exactly what changed (for example "Tuesday: 09:00–17:00 → 10:00–18:00"), and anyone taken off the rota completely is told too.

Rota

• Weather on the Rota grid: a small forecast badge on each day column, for any location with coordinates set - so you can spot a wet Saturday before you finish scheduling. Turn it off, or make the badge Normal, Large or Extra large, in Setup › Locations.
• Company closures: mark dates the business is closed - a Christmas shutdown, a refurbishment - and any week overlapping one shows a clear Closed notice on the Rota tab and to staff, instead of just looking unpublished.
• Quick-add leave on the grid: add or remove a one-off leave day straight from the Rota grid, the same way you already could for unavailability - no need to jump to the Leave tab.
• Publish version history: the wrench menu's Version history… now shows who published each version of the week, and what changed.

Leave

• Block leave requests on certain dates: stop staff submitting annual leave requests that overlap dates you choose - your busiest trading days, for example.
• Manager notifications: you're now notified in-app and by push the moment an employee submits a leave request, so nothing sits waiting for a decision unnoticed.
• Leave reminders: an optional reminder email to both the employee and you, a configurable number of days before an approved holiday starts.

Attendance

• Geofence violations: clock-ins and clock-outs recorded outside a location's geofence now show up as their own list, each with a link straight to the map.
• Automatic clock-out: optionally clock a staff member out automatically if they're left clocked in for too long, instead of their hours running away unnoticed.
• Per-employee payroll export: export a single staff member's hours and cost, alongside the existing whole-period export.
• Faster staff picker: a quick filter to jump straight to the person you're looking for.

Reports

• Totals report: a new report on the Reports tab totalling hours and cost by Employee, Job Role, Location or Group, with drill-down, sorting, percentage-of-total, and comparison to a previous period.

Dashboard & notifications

• Simple / Detailed view: switch the Dashboard between a quick, headline-only view and the full detailed grid - your choice is remembered on your account, so it follows you to any device.
• Notification bell: a running history of your alerts - late clocking, new leave requests and more - in one place in the top bar.

Setup

• Company address: a new field under Setup › General for your company's registered address.

Mobile app

• Android push notifications: shift and attendance alerts now arrive as real push notifications on Android, not just in-app.