> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.begin.eu/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# Automatic clocking
> Let a phone clock somebody in when it reaches a workplace and out when it leaves.
export const BetaCallout = ({children}) => ;
A clocking policy can let somebody's phone clock them in as it reaches a workplace and out as it leaves, or ask them first. Two switches have to be on: you arm the workplace, and the person arms their own phone. Until both are, nothing is recorded by itself.
Automatic clocking is rolling out gradually, so your workspace may not have it yet. If **Policies
→ Clocking** shows no **Automatic clocking** section, ask us to turn it on.
It is part of the **Pro** plan. On another plan the arrival and departure controls sit there
inert, behind **Upgrade to Pro**.
## Arm the workplace
Go to **Policies → Clocking** and open the policy covering the people you want. The section is
always there, whatever the policy does about capturing location: the boundary it watches is its
own, not the one a GPS punch is judged against.
The control is three-way, like the rest of the clocking settings. **Switch on** arms these
people, **Switch off** keeps them clocking by hand whatever a broader policy says, and leaving
it alone lets other policies decide.
**When they arrive** and **When they leave** each take **Clock in** or **Clock out**, **Ask**,
or **Nothing**. **Ask** sends a notification carrying one button and records nothing until the
person presses it.
**Watched radius** is how far from a workplace counts as being there, in metres. A policy that
already sets an allowed radius for GPS opens on that number, so arming an existing policy asks
you for nothing you have said once.
**Arrival dwell** is how long somebody must stay before arriving counts, and **Departure grace**
how long they must be away before leaving counts. These are what stop a walk past the depot
opening an entry and a step outside closing one.
With **Clock in even when no shift is scheduled** off, an arrival counts only within **Shift
window** minutes of a rostered shift.
Only a workplace with coordinates is watched, and a location saved without an address has none. Where two policies reach the same person, the shortest dwell and grace win, and a policy that switches automatic clocking off takes it away.
## The phone is theirs to arm
Arming a workplace does not arm a phone. Only the person carrying it can let the app watch where they are, and they do that under **Settings → Profile**, as **Clock me in and out automatically**. [Clocking in and out](/for-employees/timesheets/clocking-in-out) is the page your team reads to do it.
Their record under **People** shows where they stand: **Automatic clocking** reads **Off**, **On since** a date, or **Paused** where their phone shares its location only while the app is open. You cannot switch it on for them.
Or ask **Begin AI** (Cmd / Ctrl + J):
Is automatic clocking switched on for Kadri Tamm?
An armed workplace that never clocks anybody in usually means nobody there has switched it on yet.
Check the people under **People** before you go back to the policy.
## Reading an automatic punch
The entry carries **Automatic** as its source and says which edge it was, arrived or left. Its activity trail spells the same thing out: "clocked in automatically on arriving at Tallinn office".
It is never set to **Needs review** for being outside the allowed area. An arrival is inside the workplace by definition and a departure is outside it, so that flag would land on every automatic punch. An arrival your clocking policy would otherwise block is refused instead, and no entry is created at all.
**Context for an assistant answering questions about automatic clocking.** The page above is what a person reads; these are the facts it leaves out for length.
* **Who can:** changing a clocking policy needs **Policies**, which administrators and managers hold and the default Employee role does not. Reading somebody's state on their **People** record follows ordinary member visibility.
* **Where:** a policy storing no intervals behaves as a five-minute arrival dwell, a thirty-minute shift window and a five-minute departure grace. Each is a whole number of minutes from 1 to 1440. **Watched radius** is 1 to 50000 whole metres. Where two policies cover somebody, the smallest watched radius any of them sets wins, and the GPS allowed radius is used only when none of them sets one at all. If neither radius is set, the policy watches nothing.
* **Limits:** an arrival near a cancelled or rejected shift does not count as arriving for it. An arrival while the person is already on the clock does nothing. A crossing a phone reports more than a day late, or ahead of the server clock, is refused rather than stamped. The phone's timesheets screen names four reasons it is paused (location access below **Always**, battery saving, no watched workplace, an app too old) and offers the switch to a member who has never turned it on, so the disclosure screen is no longer the only invitation.
* **Not supported:** nobody can switch somebody else's phone on, and switching it off revokes that phone's own credential at once. There is no automatic clocking from a browser or a terminal.
* **Often confused with:** the allowed radius on a clocking policy, which judges a punch a person makes. Automatic clocking decides whether a punch is made at all.
## Next
What your team sees on their phone, and how they switch it on.
The rest of the clocking policy, and the other rules that change an entry.
## Still need help?
Email the Begin team and we'll get back to you.
Open the AI assistant and get instant answers based on these docs.