Stop losing moneybetween the rotaand the payslip
Most operators run four systems that quietly disagree. On The Shift is one: the rota knows who is licensed, check-in becomes the timesheet, and the timesheet becomes payroll and the client invoice.
From £34.99/month — covers your first 10 staff
7-day free trialNo card requiredCancel any time
The kind of operators On The Shift is built for
- Northgate Security84 officers · Manchester
- Meridian Facilities38 sites · Birmingham
- Halden ResponseMobile patrol · Leeds
- Calder Vale GroupEvents & venues · Bradford
- Ashwood Site ServicesConstruction · Sheffield
- Parkway FacilitiesRetail parks · Nottingham
Illustrative operator profiles, not named customers. We will put real names and logos here when the businesses behind them have signed off on it — not before.
The gap that costs you
Four systems. None of them agree.
A spreadsheet for the rota. WhatsApp to tell people about it. A paper book for attendance. Another spreadsheet for licences. Every gap between them is an argument about hours, an unbillable shift, or a compliance failure a client finds first.
Hours you can't prove
Check-in by text message means the start time is whenever someone remembered to send it.
Licences that lapse
A renewal missed on a spreadsheet becomes an officer working a site on an expired badge.
Sites you can't evidence
A client asks whether a patrol happened, and a signed paper book is the only answer.
Lone workers you can't reach
Ringing round at 2am to check everyone is safe is not a safety system.
Put a number on it
Your admin already has a price
You are paying it every month, just not on an invoice. Move the sliders to your own numbers.
What is rota admin costing you?
Every month, roughly
£572
of someone’s time, spent moving hours between a spreadsheet, a phone and payroll.
- Admin time
- £572
- On The Shift Starter (40 staff)
- −£79.99
- Difference
- +£492.01
Your numbers, multiplied — 6 hrs × £22 × 4.33 weeks. It ignores the disputed hours and the unbilled overtime, which are usually the bigger number.
One system
Everything from the rota to the payslip
Each part feeds the next. Nothing here is a separate product you have to reconcile at the end of the month.
Build next week's rota in the time it takes to make a coffee
Drag shifts from reusable patterns, fill gaps from a list of who is actually available, and publish to every phone at once. If someone is not qualified to work a site, the rota says so before you assign them — not after.
- Patterns, not copy-pasteNights, four-on-four-off, weekend cover — save the shape once and drop it onto any week.
- Clashes caught as you typeDouble bookings, insufficient rest between shifts and unqualified assignments are refused at the point of the drag.
- Everyone sees the same rotaPublish once. Every phone updates. No more 'I never got the WhatsApp'.
The rota knows who holds a valid licence, so an expired badge cannot quietly end up on a client site.
More on rota & schedulingYour team already has the app they need. It's their phone.
Staff see their shifts, get directions, read the arrival instructions for that specific site, and clock in and out. No training, no handsets to buy, no paperwork to chase at the end of the month.
- Geofenced check-inClocking in only works at the site. Out-of-area attempts are flagged for review or refused outright — your choice.
- Briefed before they arriveGate codes, key locations and who to report to, on the shift itself, so nobody rings the office at 6am.
- Works with no signalReminders are scheduled on the handset, so a basement or a rural yard does not mean a missed check call.
Check-in data becomes the timesheet. Nobody types hours in twice.
More on the staff app
Know your lone workers are safe, without ringing them all night
On The Shift asks each lone worker to confirm they are safe at an interval you set. If they do not answer within the grace period, your control room is told — automatically, with their name, their site and when they were last seen.
- The phone buzzes, even when the app is closedReminders are scheduled by the operating system, so they arrive whether or not the app is open and whether or not there is signal.
- One button to raise the alarmSOS sends the guard's location and a note straight to the office, and marks the shift on the live board.
- Escalation you can evidenceEvery call, answer and missed deadline is timestamped — the record an insurer or an ACS assessor asks for.
Safety features keep working even if an account is suspended for billing. We do not take an alarm away from a person to settle an invoice.
More on lone worker safety
The licence check that happens before the shift, not after the audit
Track SIA licences, right to work, DBS certificates and anything else you need. Set which documents block scheduling, and On The Shift simply will not let an unqualified person be rostered.
- Chased automaticallyReminders go out before something expires, to the person who holds it, on the schedule you set.
- Blocking or warning, per documentAn expired first-aid certificate might warn. An expired SIA licence should stop the assignment dead.
- Evidence on demandEvery document, its expiry and who checked it — exportable when a client or assessor asks.
One place to answer 'prove everyone on this site was licensed on the night in question'.
More on compliance & vetting
Hours that came from the door, not from memory
Timesheets are built from real check-in and check-out data, with breaks, overtime and holiday already applied. Approve the exceptions, export to payroll, and invoice the client from the same approved hours.
- Only the exceptions need youShifts that ran as planned approve themselves. You look at the late ones, the short ones and the overtime.
- Holiday accrued properly12.07% of hours worked, the way the Working Time Regulations actually define it — not a flat guess.
- One set of numbersThe hours you pay and the hours you invoice come from the same approved record, so they cannot disagree.
Payroll goes from a day of spreadsheets to an export and a coffee.
More on timesheets & pay
Evidence the patrol happened, in the order it was supposed to
Place NFC tags or QR stickers at checkpoints, numbered in the order they should be visited. Guards tap each one as they go, and you get a timestamped route rather than a signature in a book.
- NFC or QR, same tagTap a phone on the tag, or scan the printed code. One token behind both, so a damaged sticker is not a dead checkpoint.
- In sequence, on purposeCheckpoints are numbered. Skipping one is visible, which is the entire point of a patrol record.
- A route your client can seeTurn the night's scans into a report worth attaching to an invoice.
Answers the client question that ends contracts: 'how do I know anyone actually walked it?'
More on patrols & checkpoints
Getting started
Running a real rota inside a week
Not a six-month implementation. Setup takes about ten minutes; the rest is deciding your own rules.
- 01Tell us what you runPick your sector and On The Shift changes its vocabulary and its rules to match. Sites and officers, not 'resources'.
- 02Build one real rotaImport your people from a spreadsheet, add a site, drop in a shift pattern. Ten minutes and your team has it on their phones.
- 03Stop retyping everythingCheck-ins become timesheets, timesheets become payroll and the client invoice. The same approved hours all the way through.
Lone worker safety
The check call that buzzes even with no signal
Reminders are scheduled by the handset’s operating system, not sent from a server, so they arrive in a basement and with the app closed. If nobody answers within the grace period, your control room is told automatically — with a name, a site and a last-seen time.
Offline
reminders fire without any signal
One tap
to raise an alarm with location
And it stays on. If an account is ever suspended over an unpaid invoice, check calls and SOS keep working. We do not take a safety alarm off a person to settle a bill.
The staff app, on the phone they already own
Case studies
What changes in the first month
Cut rota admin from two evenings a week to under an hour
2 evenings → 45 minto build the weekly rota
Closed the gap between invoiced hours and paid hours
38 siteswith geofenced check-in
Passed an ACS assessment on evidence already in the system
2 weeks → 1 afternoonto assemble the ACS evidence pack
“Nobody debates hours any more, because the hours came from the door.”
In their words
What changes, according to the people running it
Six things operators tell us after the first couple of months. Each one is about a different part of the system.
“Nobody debates hours any more, because the hours came from the door. That one change removed most of the friction between the office and the officers.”
“We used to prepare for the ACS assessment for a fortnight. Now we export what already happened and spend the afternoon on it.”
“We were losing money in the gap between what we billed and what we paid, and we could not see the gap until it was measured.”
“The check calls run themselves now. My supervisors got a shift's worth of time back every single night, and nothing depends on somebody remembering at 3am.”
“An officer with an expired badge simply cannot be put on a site. It stopped being something we had to remember and became something that cannot happen.”
“Client complaints about missed sites get answered with a timestamp instead of an apology. The complaints themselves dropped once staff knew it was recorded.”
Who it’s for
It speaks your industry, not “resources”
Pick your sector at signup and the whole product changes its vocabulary and its rules. Sites and officers, not a generic scheduler with your words pasted over it.
Security & guarding
Manned guarding, mobile patrols, event security and door supervision. On The Shift knows what an SIA licence is, what a check call is for, and why a patrol needs to be evidenced rather than assumed.
12.07% holiday accrual applied correctly, per hour worked
Commercial cleaning
When the same twelve people cover forty buildings, the difference between profit and loss is whether the hours you invoice match the hours you paid for.
0 hours retyped between clock-in and payroll
Facilities management
Planned maintenance and reactive callouts across a portfolio, with the certification checks and attendance evidence your clients build their own reporting on.
Live view of who is on site right now
Straight answers
What people say before they say yes
“My team won't use an app”
They already use one — this runs on the phone in their pocket, with no training. Signing in is a company code, an email and a password. Most guards use exactly two buttons: check in, and check out.
“We've been burned migrating before”
Bring a spreadsheet of your people and we import it on the call. You can run On The Shift alongside what you have for a month; nothing is deleted and there is no exit fee if it is not working.
“We're too small for this”
Starter is £34.99 a month and covers up to 10 staff. If you spend two evenings a week building a rota, it costs less than the time it gives back.
Last step
See it against your own rota
Half an hour, screen shared, using your sites and your shift patterns rather than a demo account. We build one of your real weeks live on the call.
- A real rota for one of your sites, built while you watch
- Your compliance rules set up, including what should block scheduling
- The staff app on a phone, so you see what your team sees
- An honest answer on whether we're a fit — including when we're not
Prefer to just try it? Start a 7-day trial with no card and no call. The demo is for people who would rather be shown than read documentation.
Step 1
What do you run?
So we can show you the version built for your work, not a generic tour.