HR software for cleaning companies, where the hours are never the same twice

Three things at once

Take them separately and each is manageable. Together they are why the spreadsheet stops working.

The hours are variable. Contracts change, cover gets picked up at short notice, and somebody who did fourteen hours last week does twenty-two this week. That makes holiday entitlement a moving figure rather than a fixed number of days.

The people are dispersed. There is no reception to sign in at, because the workplace is somebody else's building - often several of them in one shift.

The pay is close to the floor. When most of your workforce sits near the National Minimum Wage, the accuracy of your hours records stops being an administrative preference and becomes the thing an HMRC enforcement officer looks at.

Any one of those on its own is survivable. All three, across forty people, is where the sector's paperwork problem actually comes from.

Holiday that moves with the hours

For leave years beginning on or after 1 April 2024, irregular-hours and part-year workers accrue holiday at 12.07% of the hours actually worked in each pay period. Not once a year, and not on a projection - each pay period, as the hours land.

Doing that by hand for a cleaning workforce means recalculating an entitlement for every person, every pay run, from hours that were themselves collected from several sites. It is arithmetic anybody can do and almost nobody does consistently twelve times a year.

In HR Henry the accrual runs off approved timesheets, so the balance follows the hours rather than being maintained alongside them. Where the two disagree in a spreadsheet, one of them is wrong and it is usually the balance.

If you want to check your own figures before changing anything, the free holiday entitlement calculator applies the same method.

Clocking in when there is no reception

Staff who never pass a fixed point clock in from their phone against a specific site. Where you do have a fixed location - a head office, or a large contract with a signing-in point - Sign-In Sally runs on a tablet with tap-to-sign-in, photo capture and instant timestamping.

Shifts are assigned to defined site locations, so a cleaner sees their schedule, the location and the start time, and managers get a live view of who is clocked in, where, and on which job across every site at once.

Breaks are logged with one tap and deducted automatically, so recorded hours are worked hours rather than the span between arriving and leaving. On minimum wage work that distinction is not pedantry - it is the difference between a correct record and an underpayment.

Every clock-in feeds into timesheets for approval, which is what makes the next section possible.

• Phone clock-in for staff who never pass a fixed point.
• Tablet sign-in with photo and timestamp where there is a reception.
• Shifts assigned to named site locations, visible to the worker in advance.
• Live view of who is clocked in, where, across multiple sites.
• Breaks logged and deducted, so recorded hours are worked hours.

The single-document rule

This is the strongest practical argument on this page, and it is routinely missed.

Minimum wage records created on or after 1 April 2021 must be kept for at least six years. That part is straightforward. The part that is not is the requirement to be able to produce the records for a single pay reference period in a single document.

Read that carefully. Not assembled from a rota, a set of timesheets and a payroll export over the course of an afternoon. One document, for one pay period, on request - and HMRC does not have to give you notice.

If your hours live in one file, your rates in another and your pay in a third, you cannot satisfy that quickly. That is not a tidiness problem, it is a structural one, and it is the reason a shared hours spreadsheet eventually has to go.

Holding hours, rates and approvals in one place means the record already exists in the form it is asked for.

Turnover, and the paperwork it generates

Cleaning has high turnover, and every joiner and leaver carries an administrative tail that outlasts them.

Right to work copies must be kept for the whole of employment and for two years after the person leaves, the copy must be one that cannot be changed, and the date of the check must be recorded. So the file of somebody who left last year is not finished with, which is exactly the file most likely to have been thrown out.

In HR Henry each person has one record with documents attached and typed - a right to work copy filed as a right to work copy - and expiry dates where a document has one. The expiring records view lists what is lapsing across everybody, before it lapses.

For training, the catalogue includes Control of Substances Hazardous to Health, Manual Handling, Slips Trips and Falls and Introduction to Personal Safety for Lone Workers, all of which apply directly to cleaning work and all of which are recorded against the person with certificates.

Frequently asked questions

How does holiday work for cleaners on variable hours?

For leave years beginning on or after 1 April 2024, irregular-hours and part-year workers accrue holiday at 12.07% of the hours actually worked in each pay period. In HR Henry the accrual runs off approved timesheets, so the balance follows the hours rather than being maintained separately.

Can staff clock in without a fixed office?

Yes. Staff who never pass a fixed point clock in from their phone against a specific site. Where there is a reception or signing-in point, Sign-In Sally runs on a tablet with photo capture and timestamping.

Can I see who is working across different client sites?

Yes. Shifts are assigned to defined site locations and managers get a live view of who is clocked in, where, and on which job across multiple sites at once.

What are the minimum wage record rules for cleaning companies?

Records created on or after 1 April 2021 must be kept for at least six years, and you must be able to produce the records for a single pay reference period in a single document. That last requirement is the one most spreadsheet setups cannot meet quickly.

How long do I keep records for someone who has left?

Right to work copies must be kept for the whole of their employment and for two years after they leave, with the date of the check recorded. Minimum wage records run for six years, so a leaver's file stays live for some time.

Are breaks handled automatically?

Yes. Breaks are logged with one tap and deducted from worked hours, so the recorded figure is time worked rather than the span between arriving and leaving.