How poor time and attendance tracking is costing your Retail business — and how to take control

Retail is an inherently fast-paced industry. Staff come-and-go throughout the seasons, while holidays and sales periods keep managers on their toes with reporting and admin duties.

For many operators, however, poor time and attendance tracking of workers on the floor remains an invisible drain on profits and morale. While managers focus on improving sales and customer experience, inefficient manual processes quietly eat away at the bottom line.

From time theft to inaccurate payroll, ineffective tracking doesn’t just create administrative headaches. It can also trigger compliance breaches, drive up labour costs, and damage employee trust.

So, how much is it really costing your business, and what can you do about it?

The hidden costs of inaccurate time tracking

According to the Australian Payroll Association, time theft and manual payroll errors cost employers millions each year. Even a few minutes of “buddy punching” — when one employee clocks in for another — can add up to thousands of overpayments annually.

In the Retail sector, where staff work varied shifts and multiple locations, these errors can multiply quickly.

When you rely on outdated systems, or worse, paper timesheets, the following problems become inevitable:

• Time theft and false reporting: Manual processes make it easier for employees to over-report hours worked

• Payroll inaccuracies: Incorrect timesheets delay pay cycles and undermine trust

• Compliance breaches: Miscalculations of breaks, overtime and penalty rates can breach Fair Work obligations

• Admin overload: Managers spend hours verifying and correcting timesheets, reducing time spent on customer-facing work

Time and attendance: The Retail reality check

Unlike desk-based roles, retail workers are constantly on the move, from stores to stockrooms. Without accurate visibility into attendance data, it’s impossible to know who’s working, where, and when.

The result? Overstaffing, understaffing, and compliance headaches that impact both customer experience and margins. Retailers that fail to modernise their timekeeping processes risk falling behind. In an industry defined by thin profit margins, efficient labour management isn’t a luxury — it’s essential.

Taking control with Humanforce Time & Attendance

Humanforce Time & Attendance helps Retail businesses regain control over labour costs, compliance, and employee experience — all from one intuitive, cloud-based system.

Here’s how it helps solve the biggest time and attendance challenges:

1. Work-time precision

Track and monitor real attendance, not estimates. Humanforce captures accurate, real-time data across multiple locations, ensuring you pay staff for the hours they actually work. Managers can view and approve timesheets instantly via the Humanforce Work App, with data syncing seamlessly into payroll systems for error-free processing.

2. Advanced QR clocking

Using Advanced QR Clocking through the Humanforce Work App or in-store kiosks, employees clock in securely with dynamic QR codes that refresh every few seconds. This prevents “buddy punching” and ensures only authorised employees can start their shifts, reducing time theft and improving accountability.

This capability is ideal for multi-site retailers managing high volumes of casual staff across flagship stores, franchises, and seasonal locations.

3. Seamless payroll integration

The Humanforce Awards & Compliance engine automatically applies the correct pay rates, penalty loadings and overtime rules. Whether your staff work across different stores or under multiple retail awards, this ensures payroll is consistent, compliant, and accurate every time.

4. Instant timesheet approvals

Forget paper-based timesheets and endless spreadsheets. Humanforce automatically generates and submits digital timesheets for each shift. With pre-set rules, timesheets that meet certain criteria can be auto-approved, with only those that do not meet that criteria requiring manual approvals from managers. Even better, it can all be done via mobile — saving hours in administrative time each week.

5. Real-time labour insights

With Humanforce Workforce Analytics, managers gain real-time visibility into labour costs, absenteeism, shift coverage, shift acceptance rates, and more. This allows you to make informed staffing decisions, identify unproductive hours, and align labour allocation with customer demand — particularly during sales periods or seasonal spikes.

The strategic value of time tracking and employee experience

Accurate time and attendance tracking does more than ensure compliance — it drives both operational efficiency and employee engagement. With the Humanforce Work App, employees can manage rosters, timesheets and clock-ins seamlessly, while Workforce Analytics transforms attendance data into actionable insights that optimise scheduling, reduce overtime, and improve labour planning. The result is a more empowered and efficient workforce — the foundation of modern business success. 

About Humanforce

Humanforce is the all-in-one platform for frontline and flexible workforces, offering a truly employee centred, intelligent and compliant human capital management (HCM) suite – without compromise. Founded in 2002, Humanforce has a 2300+ customer base and over half a million users worldwide. Today, we have offices across Australia, New Zealand, the US, and the UK.

Our vision is to make work easier and life better by focusing on the needs and fulfilment of frontline workers, and the efficiency and optimisation of businesses.

To learn more about how Humanforce’s solution can help automate people processes in your business, please contact us.