How Buddy Punch Helps Multi-Location Businesses Prevent Time Theft
In 2012, I was running three franchises with nothing but paper time cards.
Every week, I found myself driving between stores to collect slips with half-legible punches. Then, I’d spend my nights chasing down timesheet errors. Sometimes those errors were honest-to-goodness mistakes. And sometimes, I was dismayed to discover employees were punching in for friends who weren’t even there.
This was not how I wanted to spend my weekends as a business owner.
I shared my complaint with my roommate, friend, and ace engineer Nick Murphy. He took my gripe and, over the course of a weekend, built the bones of what would become Buddy Punch.
Buddy Punch is a simple web and mobile app that automatically calculates hours and shuts down time theft. It requires no hardware, no special training, and no IT department to run.
is a simple web and mobile app that automatically calculates hours and shuts down time theft. It requires no hardware, no special training, and no IT department to run.
The name “Buddy Punch” comes straight from the problem we set out to solve. "Buddy punching" is industry slang for one employee clocking in for another, and it was the biggest driver of wasted payroll dollars in our business. We knew we weren’t alone.
We were right.
Today, more than 10,000 organizations use Buddy Punch to track time, prevent fraud, and simplify payroll. We’re still a bootstrapped team, and we still build with the same philosophy: keep it simple, keep it fair, and make sure every punch is a legitimate one.
Buddy Punch's Time Theft Prevention Features
Here's an overview of the time theft prevention features you'll find in Buddy Punch.
| Feature | Price | How It Works |
| GPS on Punch | $4.49/user/month | Captures employee GPS location at clock in/out |
| Real-Time GPS Tracking | Add on available for $2/user/month | Shows employee location live throughout the workday |
| Geofencing | $5.99/user/month | Restrict punches to job sites with custom geofences |
| Photos on Punch | $5.99/user/month | Require employees to take a photo at punch in/out for verification |
| Facial Recognition via Face ID | $4.49/user/month | Verify identity with facial recognition powered by Face ID on Apple deviced |
Below, we'll take a more in-depth look at how each of these features helps multi-location businesses prevent time theft.
GPS on Punch
With GPS on Punch, every clock-in/out event is tied to a GPS timestamp. If an employee claims they were on-site at 8:00 a.m., you’ll see the exact map location confirming it.
For industries like construction and field services, this can be especially valuable because it eliminates the risk of employees clocking in from off-site locations.
Real-Time GPS Tracking
Some businesses want more than just punch-in verification. For $2 more per user, Buddy Punch lets you see where employees are in real-time throughout the day.
For example, a company with drivers on the road could use this feature to verify routes and resolve payroll disputes quickly without needing to make constant calls to employees.
Geofencing
With geofencing, managers can set a virtual boundary around each job site. Employees can only clock in or out if they’re inside the designated area.
So if you’re a landscaping business, you could set geofences around client properties to make sure crews only log time when they’re physically at the site.
Photos on Punch
This feature requires employees to take a quick photo each time they clock in or out. This discourages employees from buddy punching and catches them in the act when they do it.
Facial Recognition (Face ID)
For even stronger verification, Face ID ensures the person clocking in is the one scheduled to work. It works on Apple devices like iPads and iPhones.
In a restaurant or warehouse, employees might use this at a central iPad time clock kiosk to eliminate buddy punching and reduce disputes about who was actually on shift.
Results Reported By Our Customers
Time and again, the feedback from our customers across industries shows that Buddy Punch simplifies payroll, increases accountability, and saves managers hours every week.
Take construction, for example. Payroll administrators often deal with employees moving from site to site, making it difficult to verify where hours are logged:
Employees can punch in wherever they’re assigned and, with geofencing, we can see where they are when they punch in. It’s prevented stealing time.
Healthcare faces different challenges. The industry suffers from high turnover, and hospital administrators must manage a massive workforce under strict compliance requirements that leave little room for error:
[With Buddy Punch] employees just need to be within a geofence to log in. No jumping through endless steps. It’s straightforward and makes time theft impossible.
For teams managing dozens, or even hundreds, of hourly employees, preventing even a small percentage of fraudulent punches translates into significant annual savings.
Other industries rely on Buddy Punch’s accountability tools in unique ways.
An HR professional in consumer goods explained that requiring photos on punch helped them manage 15-30 temporary employees brought in from multiple staffing agencies.
Using an iPad kiosk, they could run weekly reports and verify punches with photos to ensure accurate payroll across agencies.
Buddy Punch’s time theft prevention and workforce management features feed directly into stronger financial control for any organization, no matter the industry. Whether it’s eliminating disputes in construction, keeping hospital staff accountable, or streamlining payroll in retail, Buddy Punch delivers measurable results for company leaders.
Other Features Designed for Multi-Location Teams
Time theft prevention may be the first reason businesses turn to Buddy Punch, but it’s rarely the only one.
It’s difficult enough to balance compliance, scheduling, and accountability when all your employees are under one roof. Once you’re managing multiple franchises, or you have crews working out in the field, things get even trickier.
Fortunately, we’ve got tools for you, too.
Buddy Punch has mobile apps for iOS, Android, and ChromeOS, so it’s easy for employees to clock in from their devices, no matter what they carry and where they are.
Once employee time is captured, our break and overtime tracking keeps businesses compliant with labor laws by automatically applying the right rules in the background.
With Buddy Punch, managers can drag and drop shifts, filter by location or department, and even let employees trade or cover shifts, which reduces last-minute staffing issues.
Our attendance tracking system notifies managers when employees miss shifts, arrive late, or forget to punch in or out. That way, they can step in before small issues become bigger, entrenched problems, without having to micromanage the schedule.
Buddy Punch FAQs
Here are answers to some common questions about Buddy Punch's time theft prevention features.
Does Buddy Punch track employees' locations when they're off the clock?
No. GPS tracking only runs when employees are clocked in.
Does Buddy Punch track mileage or distance traveled?
Not directly. But real-time GPS tracking shows route history, which many businesses use as a proxy for mileage.
Will Buddy Punch drain the battery on my employees' phones?
No. GPS on Punch only pings the location at clock-in/out. Real-time tracking is lightweight and designed for mobile workforces.
How much mobile data does Buddy Punch use?
Minimal. It’s built for crews in the field where connectivity can be spotty.
Will Buddy Punch tell me when an employee tries to clock in outside of a geofence?
Yes. You’ll see a record of the attempt, and the punch will be denied.