Time Clock must be enabled in Clinic Settings before it appears under Admin. The feature is off by default. Once the toggle is enabled, a Time Clock permission becomes available under Admin > Users > Roles.

Pay Period Total = Hours Worked + Overtime + Paid Leave. Unpaid Leave is tracked separately and does not count toward the Pay Period Total.

All timesheets must be approved before a pay period can be closed. If any timesheet has an incomplete entry (a clock-in with no clock-out), Approve All will skip it. Correct the entry first, then approve.

Pay periods must form a continuous timeline — no gaps or overlaps. When you adjust the dates of an open pay period, adjacent open periods may adjust automatically to maintain continuity. Shepherd will never automatically modify a closed period, and changes that would require doing so are blocked.

Clinics enabling Time Clock for the first time are guided through a three-step setup before accessing the feature.

Payroll Schedule Set your Pay Period Length and enter the start and end dates of your current pay period. An Upcoming Pay Period Example previews the resulting schedule based on your settings.

Leave Types Select or customize the leave categories your practice uses (e.g., Holiday, Sick, Personal, Continuing Education). You can add or remove categories after setup is complete.

Preferences Set how employee names are sorted in exported timesheets, and configure the Clock-In Reminder notification.

Click Finish Setup to complete configuration. You'll land on the main Time Clock Timesheets view.

Each employee who needs to clock in and out must have the Time Clock permission enabled on their user account. Practice Owner and Admin roles have the Time Clock permission enabled by default.
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Navigate to Admin > Time Clock > Settings to configure time tracking and payroll options for your clinic.

First Day of the Work Week: Sets the day your work week begins. Used to calculate overtime thresholds.

Full-time Weekly Hours: The number of hours considered full-time at your clinic. Hours worked beyond this threshold are counted as overtime.

Pay Period Length: How frequently payroll runs. Options:

Upcoming Pay Period Example: A preview of the next pay period based on your Pay Period Length setting. Updates before you save so you can confirm the schedule looks correct.

Controls how employee names are sorted in exported timesheets. Select Last Name (default) or First Name.

Customize the paid and unpaid leave categories available when logging time off. Default categories include Holiday, Sick, Personal, and Continuing Education. Click +

Add Leave Category to create additional types, or click the red minus icon to remove one.

Clock-In Reminder — When enabled, users who are logged into Shepherd but are not currently clocked in receive a prompt to clock in. The reminder fires once per day, on the user's first login of that day.

Click Save after making any changes to Settings.

Employees with the Time Clock permission can clock in and out from anywhere in Shepherd using the clock icon in the top right corner of the application.

Once clocked in, the play icon changes to a green stop icon (below). When the employee is ready to clock out, they click the stop icon and confirm by clicking Clock Out.

Lunch breaks: To record a break, employees clock out and add a note (for example, "Lunch") to notify admins of the reason. They clock back in when the break ends.

Employees can view their own timesheet history without admin access. This view is read-only — employees cannot edit entries, approve timesheets, or see another employee's records. If a correction is needed, an admin must make it from the main Time Clock workflow.

To access your own timesheets: From any page in Shepherd, click your name in the bottom left corner, then select My Profile > Time Clock.

Admin users with Time Clock permission can access full timesheet management from Admin > Time Clock.

Time Clock uses a three-level structure. Each level provides the actions relevant to that stage of the payroll workflow.

The default view when you open Admin > Time Clock. Shows all pay periods for the selected year with total hours and Pay Period Status. Click the pencil icon in the Actions column to open a pay period.

Shows all employees and their hour totals for the selected pay period. Columns include Hours Worked, Overtime, Paid Leave, Unpaid Leave, Pay Period Total, and Timesheet Status.

Available actions: Edit Period Dates, Export, Close Period, and Approve All. You can also approve or unapprove individual timesheets directly from the Timesheet Status dropdown on each row without opening the individual timesheet. Click any employee's name to open their individual timesheet.

A daily breakdown of a single employee's clock-in and clock-out entries for the pay period. Summary cards at the top display totals for Overtime, Paid Leave, and Unpaid Leave. This is where you edit clock-in and clock-out times, add time entries, add time off, and approve or revoke timesheet approval.

Admins can correct an employee's time entries from the individual timesheet view.

If an employee worked multiple shifts in a single day:

Approving a timesheet locks it; revoking unlocks it for edits. All timesheets must be approved before a pay period can be closed.

To approve a single timesheet: From the employee list, click the Timesheet Status dropdown and select Approved. Or open the employee's individual timesheet and click Approve Timesheet in the top right.

To approve all timesheets at once: Click Approve All at the bottom right of the employee list. Timesheets with incomplete entries (a clock-in with no clock-out) are skipped and must be corrected before they can be approved.

To revoke a single timesheet approval: From the employee list, click the Timesheet Status dropdown and select Unapproved. Or open the individual timesheet and click Revoke Timesheet Approval in the top right. There is no warning prompt before revocation — the action completes immediately. Re-approve once corrections are made.
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From the employee list view, click Export to download timesheet data. Options include:

From the employee list view, click Edit Period Dates to adjust the start and end dates for an open pay period. Changes to an open period's dates may automatically adjust adjacent open periods to maintain a continuous timeline. Shepherd will not automatically modify a closed period, and changes that would require doing so are blocked.

From the pay period list (Admin > Time Clock), click + Add Pay Period in the top right to create a future pay period.
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Once all timesheets are approved, click Close Period at the top right of the employee list. Closing a pay period:

If corrections are needed after a period is closed, it can be reopened.

Once reopened, you can modify time entries and period dates. Note that changes cannot create a gap or overlap with another closed period.

Shepherd calculates the Pay Period Total as:

Pay Period Total = Hours Worked + Overtime + Paid Leave

Unpaid Leave is tracked and displayed in the timesheet but is not included in the Pay Period Total.

Overtime is calculated based on the Full-time Weekly Hours set in Time Clock Settings. Any hours worked beyond that weekly threshold are counted as overtime for the pay period.

Example: If Full-time Weekly Hours is set to 40 and an employee works 46 hours in a week, Shepherd calculates 6 overtime hours for that week.

Shepherd displays all time totals in decimal format. To convert minutes to a decimal, divide by 60.

Example: An employee works 8 hours and 15 minutes.

The Time Clock Activity Log tracks changes made within the feature.

The Approve Timesheet option is unavailable when a timesheet contains an incomplete entry — a clock-in record with no corresponding clock-out time. Look for any day row where the Clock Out column is highlighted or shows a warning indicator. Enter the missing clock-out time, then approve the timesheet.

Approve All skips any timesheet that has an incomplete entry (a clock-in with no clock-out time). Skipped timesheets remain in Unapproved status. Correct the incomplete entry on each skipped timesheet, then approve them individually or run Approve All again.

A pay period can only be closed after every timesheet in that period has been approved. If the Close Period button is unavailable, check whether any employees still show an Unapproved status in the Timesheet Status column. Approve or correct all remaining timesheets, then close the period.