Ponchi User Guide

Prefer a PDF? Download the English guide or la guía en español.

Part 1 · For managers and owners

1. Create your company and sign in

Download Ponchi from the App Store or Google Play, or open app.ponchi.app in a browser. Tap Get Started to create your company. You will get a 5-digit Company ID; you and your team sign in with that ID, a username and a 4-digit PIN.

Everything works on the phone and on the web. Managers usually build the schedule and run reports on the web, and the team clocks in from their phones.

Your company's time zone is detected automatically when you sign up. If you ever move, change it under Settings > Time Zone. Shift times, clock-in days and alerts all follow it.

2. Locations

Go to More > Locations on the phone or Locations on the web and add every site where your team works. A company with one site can skip this; everything works without it.

• Address and geofence. Search the address or use the map pin, then set a radius in feet. Employees assigned to that location must be inside the radius to clock in.
• Rules per location. Each location can override the company setting for selfie on clock-in and clock-out, shift swaps, give-aways and open shifts. Leave a rule on Inherit to use the company setting.
• Assign people. An employee can belong to one location or several. People in two stores show up on both schedules.
• Location switcher. With two or more locations, a location chooser appears on the Schedule, Employees, Timesheets and Reports pages. Pick one store or All locations. Managers and admins see everything; employees only see their own location.

3. Positions and colors

Go to More > Positions and add the roles you schedule: Server, Bartender, Cook, Host and so on. Every position gets its own color, and the schedule paints each shift in that color so you can read the week at a glance.

• Change a color on the phone under Positions, or on the web by clicking the color dot in the schedule legend.
• When you add a shift, the position fills in with the employee's own position. Use the dropdown to pick a different one for that shift.

4. Add your team

Open Employees > Add Employee. Enter the name, position, role (Employee, Manager or Admin), and the location or locations they work at. Give each person their username and PIN.

• Usernames must be unique inside your company.
• Admins can do everything. Managers run the day: schedule, approve requests and hours, message the team. Employees clock in, see their schedule and send requests.
• To move someone to another store, edit them and change their locations. To let someone go, deactivate them; their history stays in your reports.

5. Choose how employees clock in

Go to Settings > Clock In / Out. Pick Selfie, GPS + geofence, or Both. You can also require a selfie on clock-out and turn on break tracking.

On the phone, choosing the Selfie or GPS preset turns the other one off. Choose Both to keep selfie and geofence on together.

A clock-in outside the geofence is refused and the employee sees how far away they are. Location is only checked at the moment of clock-in and clock-out, never in the background.

6. Kiosk mode (optional)

Use More > Kiosk Station to turn one shared tablet into a clock-in station. Employees tap their PIN to clock in, take breaks and clock out. Leaving kiosk mode needs an Admin PIN.

7. Build the schedule

Open Schedule. Every active employee at the selected location has a row, even before they have any shifts. Use the arrows to move between weeks.

• Add a shift. Click + Add in any cell. The employee, the day and their position are filled in. Set the times, add a note, save. Pick several days at once with Multiple days.
• Edit or delete. Every shift block has a pencil and a trash icon.
• Copy Last Week. Copies last week's shifts into the week on screen. Shifts that already exist are skipped, and so is anyone with an approved day off; the app tells you who was skipped and why.
• Night shifts. Enter them as one shift with the real end time, for example 6:00 PM to 2:00 AM. The shift stays on the day it starts and shows +1d after the end time. Hours count across midnight.
• Day-off protection. Days with an approved time-off request show a red OFF marker. If you schedule someone on such a day anyway, Ponchi warns you and asks you to confirm.
• Open shifts. Use Post Open for a shift anyone can claim. Employees at that location are notified and the first to claim gets it.
• Find people fast. Search by name, sort by name, position or hours, and use the Position dropdown to show one position at a time.

8. Drafts, then publish

Shifts you add on the schedule are saved as drafts. Drafts have a dashed outline and a DRAFT tag. Employees cannot see them, get no notification for them, and reminders and alerts ignore them. Take your time and change your mind as often as you want.

• When the week is ready, click Save & Publish at the top right on the web, or tap the amber banner on the phone. Every employee with shifts that week gets one notification with their shift count.
• Made a mess? Discard drafts deletes every draft in that week and leaves published shifts alone.
• Editing or deleting a shift that is already published takes effect right away and the employee is told.

9. Requests and approvals

The Requests tab is one inbox for everything that needs a decision. It has four tabs, the same on the phone and on the web, and everyone sees them: Pending, Approved, Picked up and Denied. Each card says plainly where things stand and who decided, for example Taken by Priya, approved by Dana, Oct 6.

• Time off and availability. A day off, a recurring day off (every Monday), or a window of hours someone is available. Approving a day off deletes any shift on that day and protects the day on the schedule; the request stays under Approved so you can always see who approved it.
• Time changes and swaps. Approve or deny, with an optional note the employee sees. A swap first waits for the other employee to accept, then comes to you.
• Give-aways. When someone gives a shift away it stays their shift and responsibility until it is taken. Coworkers who ask for it appear on the card. You decide how it ends: approve a coworker's claim, use Give it to… to hand it to anyone directly, or Cancel the shift to take it off the schedule and release the person. A give-away nobody took before its day arrives moves to Denied as Not taken — date passed, and the shift stays with its owner.
• Edit and delete. Every card has Edit (reason, requested times, your note) and Delete. Deleting an untaken give-away hands the shift back to its owner as a normal shift. Decided requests can be reopened if you change your mind.
• Clock sessions. Under Timesheets you can review clock-ins, fix a time or add a missing session. Every edit is kept in the edit log.

Whether these requests are allowed at all is a company setting, and can differ by location. Requests that sit for 24 hours trigger a reminder to you and to the employee. Every action is written to the History tab.

10. What your team is notified about

• Schedule published: one message per person with their shift count for the week.
• Shift reminder: 2 hours before each shift starts.
• Not clocked in: managers are alerted 15 minutes after a shift started with no clock-in.
• Still clocked in: the employee is reminded 15 and 45 minutes after their shift ended (see Forgotten clock-outs).
• Requests: approvals, denials and swap confirmations.
• Announcements and recognition: sent to everyone or to one location, your choice.

11. Forgotten clock-outs

When someone is still clocked in after their shift ended, Ponchi reminds them. If nobody acts, it closes the shift at the scheduled end and flags it for you.

• Reminders. 15 and 45 minutes after the scheduled end, the employee is told they are still clocked in. In the app they choose I'm still working (no automatic clock-out for that shift, and they are asked again two hours later) or I already left and pick the time they left. They are clocked out at that time and it comes to you for approval.
• Automatic clock-out. If nobody clocks out within 3 hours of the scheduled end, the shift is closed at the scheduled end time, marked AUTO and flagged for review. The employee can answer That's wrong — fix the time; the time only changes when you approve.
• Shifts that are not on the schedule are never closed automatically, because there is no end time to use. The employee is reminded after 10 and 12 hours, and you are told after 14.
• Review. On the phone these appear in Requests under Pending, where you approve, deny, confirm or edit the time. On the web, Time Cards shows a Clock-outs to review panel, and AUTO and REVIEW badges on the rows.
• Switches. Clock-out reminders and Automatic clock-out are both on by default. Turn either off under Settings.

Between 10 PM and 7 AM, the notice that someone was clocked out and your review summary wait until morning. The end-of-shift reminders are not held, because the person has just left.

12. Timesheets, reports and payroll

Open Reports. Switch between Hours, Payroll, Overtime, Attendance, By Position, Patterns and the Edit Log; choose daily, weekly, monthly or a custom range, and filter by location. Export Excel produces a payroll-ready file. Attendance compares each published shift with the actual clock-in and shows on time, late or absent.

13. Messages, announcements and recognition

Use Messages for direct chats and team announcements, and Recognition to give shout-outs such as Team Player or Star Employee. With more than one location, both let you choose Everyone or a single location, so a note meant for one store never reaches the other.

14. Shift checklists

A shift checklist is the list of jobs for one shift: opening the bar, closing the kitchen, the hourly bathroom check. Each person ticks it off on their phone and signs it before clocking out, and you see who signed and what was skipped.

• Build the lists. On the web open Shift Checklists > Build lists. Choose Add ready-made lists to start from bar, restaurant and lounge lists, or New checklist to write your own.
• Who gets it. Pick the positions, morning or evening shift (a shift that starts before 3 PM counts as morning) and the locations. The position of the shift a person is scheduled for decides which list they get.
• Four kinds of line. A tick box, a number to record (a fridge temperature), a repeated check that stamps the time on every tap (bathrooms every hour), or a short note. Pick days for weekly jobs; a line with no day picked shows every day.
• Sign before clocking out. By default the app holds the clock-out until the list is signed. A job that could not be done takes a short reason instead of a tick, so nobody gets stuck. You can switch to letting people clock out and showing the list as not signed, under Build lists on the web or Settings on the phone.
• Review. On the phone tap Shift Checklists on the Home screen; on the web open Shift Checklists > Review. You see who signed and when, what was not done and why, and the numbers recorded. Tap Mark as checked once you have looked, and export a week to a spreadsheet from the web.

A shared kiosk tablet and a manager clocking someone out are never held back. Those shifts show as Not signed in the review.

15. Onboarding checklists and documents

Under More > Checklists on the phone, or Onboarding on the web, build onboarding lists (W-4, I-9, direct deposit, handbook) and assign them to new hires. Uploaded files live under All Documents.

16. Account, subscription and language

Open More > My Account to see your plan, trial days left and usage. Billing is managed on the web at app.ponchi.app. Switch the app language between English and Español here, and change the company time zone under Settings.

Part 2 · For employees

1. Sign in

Enter the Company ID, username and PIN your manager gave you. On a shared tablet, just tap your PIN on the kiosk screen. You can use the app in English or Español.

2. Clock in and out

On the Clock screen tap Clock In. Depending on your workplace you may be asked for a selfie and you may need to be at the store. Tap Start Break for breaks and Clock Out at the end of your shift.

If clock-in says you are too far away, you are outside the store's allowed radius. Move closer and try again. If your phone has no location, turn Location on for Ponchi in your phone settings.

Forgot to clock out? You get a reminder 15 and 45 minutes after your shift ended. Open the app and tap I'm still working if you are, or I already left and choose the time you left; your manager approves it. If nobody clocks you out, the app records your scheduled end time. If that is not right, tap That's wrong — fix the time to send the correct one.

3. Your shift checklist

If your workplace uses checklists, a Shift checklist card appears on the Clock screen while you are clocked in. Tap it to open your list for today.

• Tick each job as you finish it.
• For a number, such as a temperature, type the reading.
• For a job you repeat, tap Add a check each time you do it.
• If you could not do something, tap Can't and write a short reason.
• When every line has a tick or a reason, type your name and tap Sign checklist.

If you tap Clock Out before signing, the app opens your checklist first and continues the clock-out once it is signed.

4. Your schedule

• My Schedule shows your shifts for the week. A night shift such as 6:00 PM to 2:00 AM appears on the day it starts with +1d after the end time.
• Team view (fullscreen) shows everyone at your location, in position colors. If your company has more than one location, each shift block also names the place.
• You only see shifts your manager has published. When the week is published you get one notification with your shift count, and a reminder 2 hours before every shift.
• Available shifts at the top lists open shifts and give-aways you can claim. The first three are shown; tap Show all for the rest. A give-away disappears from the list once its day has passed.

5. Time off, availability and shift requests

• My Availability: ask for a day off, a recurring day off, or set the hours you can work. Once approved, the schedule protects that day.
• Requests: ask for a time change, swap with a coworker, give a shift away or claim one. Swaps need the other person to accept first, then a manager.
• A given-away shift is still yours until a coworker takes it and a manager approves, or a manager cancels it. The app reminds you of this when you post it. If nobody takes it, it stays on your schedule.
• Follow it in Requests. The Pending, Approved, Picked up and Denied tabs show every request and who decided. While nobody has decided yet, you can still edit the reason or withdraw the request.
• You are notified when a request is approved or denied.

6. Hours, messages and recognition

My Hours shows your hours this week, this month or the last 30 days. Messages holds chats and announcements from your managers. Under Recognition you can give a coworker a shout-out or send anonymous feedback to management.