Attendance rules and setup

Your attendance rules say how your organisation works: which days and hours make a normal day, what kind of break it has, when your leave year starts, and how timesheets are approved. Agoo asks for them when you start, keeps a checklist on Home until each one is confirmed, and keeps every earlier version, so a change never rewrites months already worked. The rules are on every plan, in Console → Attendance → Settings.

Setting up staff timeCopy Anchor Link

When you set up your organisation, the setup wizard asks Will you keep staff time in Agoo? after your first site. Only Owners and Admins see it.

• Yes opens one screen with four things, each filled in with Ghana's defaults: your working week and day, the kind of day, your leave year and annual leave, and the timesheet period and approval steps. Change what's different and save.
• Not now skips it. Home asks again later.
• We don't keep staff time tells Agoo you don't use attendance, and Home stops asking. You can still set the rules whenever you like.

The checklist on HomeCopy Anchor Link

Until every setting is confirmed, Home shows Set up staff time to people who manage attendance for the whole organisation or its settings. Each line opens the setting, and you confirm it by saving or by choosing Looks right. Agoo records who confirmed it and when.

The last three tick themselves once nobody is missing, or when you choose Looks right. Items your plan doesn't include show which plan adds them and don't count. Rosters and payroll pay codes join the list when they arrive. The card goes once everything is confirmed, and comes back if an upgrade adds an item.

Each confirmation is recorded in the audit trail as Confirmed attendance settings, and your answer to the wizard's question as Answered whether to keep staff time in Agoo.

The rulesCopy Anchor Link

Open Console → Attendance → Settings. Each section says what it's for, shows Ghana's default, and has Looks right if it's already right for you.

Working timeCopy Anchor Link

BreaksCopy Anchor Link

The Labour Act has two kinds of working day, and the kind decides whether the break is paid.

How Agoo counts it, every day:

• A paid break is never taken off. It's inside the hours worked, as the Act says, and the timesheet shows it beside the day: "30 min paid".
• An unpaid break comes off automatically on a finished day once its work reaches the threshold: an 08:00 to 17:00 day counts 8 hours, shown as "1 h unpaid, automatic". A day still running, or with a missing clock-out, keeps its paired time until it's finished; Agoo never guesses.
• Clocking out for lunch is the break. If someone clocks out and back in during the day, that time was never counted, so nothing more comes off ("42 min unpaid, clocked out"), whichever kind of day you run. Breaks clocked at the kiosk or in the app work the same way.
• A shift can have its own break, paid, unpaid or none, which it keeps whatever the standard day says: a night ward with a paid half hour on a hospital that runs split days, for example.
• The nursing hour is paid (Labour Act, s.57). HR switches it on for a nursing mother for up to a year, from Nursing hour in her attendance; it's never taken off. Agoo keeps only the dates, nothing about a pregnancy or a birth.

Which kind should you choose? Agoo suggests a day in two parts with an unpaid lunch hour when your standard day is 9 hours or longer (08:00 to 17:00 less the hour is the Act's 8 hours, s.33), and one stretch with a paid 30 minutes otherwise. Settings, the setup wizard and Home's checklist show the suggestion with Use this; nothing changes until you choose. A change applies from the day you pick, so earlier days keep the break they had.

Lateness and absence (Growth and above, with shifts)Copy Anchor Link

Overtime (Growth and above, with shifts)Copy Anchor Link

LeaveCopy Anchor Link

Public holidaysCopy Anchor Link

Public holidays is on by default. Agoo keeps Ghana's list current for you, including the days declared each year, such as Eid al-Fitr, Shaqq Day (the day after it) and Eid al-Adha, and any day the government moves or adds, usually the day it's announced. A public holiday on a working day is paid (Labour Act s.72), and one inside someone's leave doesn't use their annual leave (s.22).

Turn it off only if your organisation doesn't follow Ghana's public holidays, such as some embassies and international schools.

When a public holiday is added, moved or taken off the list, Agoo works out your staff time again within minutes and emails your Owners and HR to say what changed, with a link to that month's timesheet.

TimesheetsCopy Anchor Link

Changing the rulesCopy Anchor Link

Saving makes a new version of your rules. Choose when it starts:

• Today, the usual choice.
• An earlier date, up to 31 days back, to correct a recent mistake. It can't start before the version already in force.
• A later date, up to a year ahead, for a change you've agreed in advance, such as a new working week from 1 January. It shows as upcoming until then.

Days before the new version keep the rules they had. Each version lists when it started, who saved it and what changed, and each save is recorded in the audit trail as Changed the attendance rules.

Who can change them: anyone who manages attendance for the whole organisation: Owners, Admins, and HR or Site admins whose role covers every site. The leave and timesheet settings also need the payroll permission, which only Owners, Admins and HR have. Everyone who can see attendance can read the rules.