Written by: Tom Smith

Time management plays a very important role in maintaining any business nowadays. Being able to complete work and organize a team are essentials. A great tool that can help with this is Deputy, which focuses on time tracking and workforce management. So what is Deputy? is Deputy a timesheet app, a time tracking app, or a time and attendance app? It’s all of the above!

Useful for businesses of all sizes, Deputy automatically records staff members’ time, as well as creating and sharing rotas, and makes sure the company is in compliance with labour laws.

In this Deputy software review 2024 we go into the details of the software an we’ll explore what the platform has to offer and see if it is the right fit for your business.

Pros

✅ User-Friendly Interface
✅ Mobile Accessibility
✅ Integration Capabilities
✅ Real-Time Reporting
✅ Touchless clock in with facial recognition
✅ Advanced and auto Scheduling Features

Cons

❌ Learning Curve for Advanced Features
❌ Limited Customization
❌ App does not work in offline mode

Pricing

Deputy have different price plans to choose from depending on your business size and needs. All plans have 24/7 support.

For an extra $2 per user/month you can get the Deputy HR add feature where you get: personalized career hub & job advertising, streamlined applicant management, completely paperless onboarding, secure document management, staff feedback surveys & reports and seamless experience from hire to first shift (Source: Deputy)

• Billing Options: Deputy allows users to choose one of two billing options: monthly and annual. Users who are looking to use the service for a long period of time can choose the annual plan in order to save money because it does come with a discount.
• Free Trial: There is no free plan with Deputy, but you can sign up for a free trial (up to 31 days no credit card required) to get a taste of what Deputy offers so you can decide whether it’s a good fit for your business.
• Book a Demo: You can speak with a Deputy expert to explore how they can support your team.

How does it compare in pricing to its competitors

Deputy provides good value for money and if you choose the premium plan you get a 16% discount, bringing the cost down to $5 per user per month when billed annually. Deputy also offers a flexible weekly plan, which is ideal for seasonal businesses or companies hosting short-term events like conferences, making it a convenient option for those with fluctuating staffing needs.

Key Features

Touchless Clock-In and Out in Deputy

For employees, Deputy’s touchless clock-in and clock-out tracker enables you to minimize the need for touch, keeping your team safe and your records accurate. This feature uses facial recognition to allow employees to clock in and out without coming into contact with shared devices, which helps maintain hygiene and efficiency.

And you can use voice commands (which doubles down on accessibility and reduces physical interactions even further). For those customers needing to track employee location, the mobile app is layered with GPS integration, making sure that those clocking in are actually at the assigned job site.

This reduces administrative overhead, minimizes errors, and helps executing the policies governing attendance. Whether you are managing a small team with a few members or a multi-location enterprise with hundreds of employees, the use of touchless clock-in and out simply makes time-tracking seamless, secure and efficient.

With Deputy you can clock-in and out using facial recognition (Source: Deputy)

Pre-Shift Health Check in Deputy

With Deputy’s pre-shift health check feature, you can ensure employee well-being without jeopardizing a safe working environment. This feature will enable employees to do their health screenings from the Deputy app, prior to going on-shift. By asking health questions such as: ‘Do you have any cold or flu symptoms?’ and ‘have you knowingly come into contact with others who may have recently been ill?’. This will help reduce the risk of contagion and keep your workplace healthy.

The Deputy time clock app can automatically assess employee wellness before their shift, block clock-ins if concerning symptoms are detected, and alert managers (Source: Deputy)

The pre-shift health check integrates seamlessly with the clock-in process, ensuring that employees only clock in when they’re cleared to work. This approach not only enhances safety but also simplifies compliance with health regulations. Whether you’re managing a small team or a larger operation, the pre-shift health check helps foster a culture of health and safety.

How do you know that your employee passed the pre-shift health check before they clocked in? Because it is integrated as part of the clock-in process, ensuring that your employee is cleared to work before they are allowed to punch in. And that makes it easy to comply with health regulations.

Real-Time Attendance Management in Deputy

You can monitor your workforce in real time and optimize your business operations with the Deputy featured “Real-time Attendance Management”. This feature will automate your workforce tracking, allowing you to check who is available at site, who is late or missing a shift, tracking their attendance live, and keeping your attendance record up to date.

​You can see who is on shift, running late, or on break in real time with the real-time attendance feature. When employees clock in and out using the time tracking app, supervisors receive instant updates (Source: Deputy)

Upon Deputy login, the employee will be able to easily sign-in or out through their online account. The moment they start or end their shift, the record will update automatically on your end, giving you real-time information which you can easily access.

The feature also integrates with calendar scheduling tools so you can see at a glance whether attendance matches your workforce needs. It significantly decreases administrative overhead by eradicating the number of hours your workers put into manual time-tracking, and it also ensures compliance with labour laws.

The ability to monitor attendance in real time ensures that managers of a single local team maintain optimal workforce and productivity, but it becomes even more important as geographic boundaries expand and multiple locations play a role in the business.

Break Compliance in Deputy

With Deputy’s break compliance feature, you can efficiently manage employee meal and rest breaks while ensuring adherence to labor regulations.

With Deputy’s automated break compliance feature, you can easily schedule and track employee meal and rest breaks while always remaining compliant with labour laws. This feature is tailored for businesses with shift-based workers, making the scheduling and tracking of both paid and unpaid breaks easier.

Deputy helps employers schedule proper breaks, flag any that are missed and record agreement from employees if they waive their break (Source: Deputy)

It allows for multiple break scheduling and tracking, and can enforce onsite break rules, taking start and stop times into account. Some try to get ahead of strict break laws, enforcing rules across different jurisdictions depending on where a shift is starting, others come with preset templates for different shifts to ease worker scheduling.

With each shift, employers can set the strictest break laws, and then be alerted if an employee doesn’t take a full and properly scheduled break, or shortens it. These features provide employees with a clear view of their entitlements, affording them access and accountability.

Employee Attestation in Deputy

Deputy’s Employee Attestation feature helps employers simplify the compliance process and improve the accountability of employees in an organization. This feature will enable employers to create customized questions that employees must answer before the start of a shift.

This feature not only improves workplace safety, but also ensures that workers acknowledge their situation and readiness to work, for example, if an associate claims to be feeling sick. Unwanted punch-ins will be automatically blocked until management handles the situation, preventing your work team from potential hazards.

Automated Timesheets and Payroll Integration in Deputy

Deputy’s automated timesheets and payroll integration can have a huge impact on your payroll, streamlining your entire payroll process saving you time and reducing errors. The system will automatically populate the timesheets and eliminate manual entry of employees hours.

Save hours on employee admin and create more time for the business. Managers can approve timesheets individually or in bulk. And it only takes one tap to export to your payroll software (Source: Deputy)

Timesheets integrate with all major payroll systems, including QuickBooks and ADP. You can easily set different pay rates for different roles, and specify different hourly rates for different shifts. This functionality will keep your payroll up to date and accurate, as well as help you stay on the right side of labour laws. Deputy’s aim with their clock-in/out/out feature is to make payroll a painless process whether you’re operating a small team of workers at one location or a chain of businesses across a state or country.

Software Integrations in Deputy

Deputy’s software integrations offer seamless ways for connecting Deputy with your tools – improving your workforce management experience. Deputy connects with many popular platforms such as QuickBooks, Xero, and Google Workspace, so you can sync data between your systems to automate processes and reduce redundant data entry, two common factors in the production of errors.

Deputy integrates seamlessly with payroll, point of sale, and HR systems (Source: Deputy)

You also have the ability to build custom integrations using the company’s API, whether you’re using Deputy with an ERP system such as Lightspeed, project management tools in Asana, or better communication through Slack. This kind of connected environment ensures that things work together better, streamlining workflows and improving productivity by keeping information accurate when and where you or your staff need it most.

Cloud-Based and Multi-Device Support in Deputy

Deputy has robust cloud-based access and multi-device flexibility, allowing you to manage your workforce wherever you are and whenever you want. You can access this feature through your smartphone, tablet and/or desktop, and have a real-time monitoring of your staff, including the schedules, attendance and payroll.
The cloud host supports the automatic updates of the site constantly, so you’ll always have the latest features, which is useful for all business sizes. This flexibility encourages your team collaboration, such as when you talk to each team about their joining shifts or some specific tasks.

Customer reviews

Deputy has great reviews on its ability to ​track time and make employee scheduling easy. You can efficiently create, publish and update schedules without workplace conflicts.

But reviewers experienced something of a learning curve with some functionality, such as payroll integration and reporting. Some users also reported a desire for more integration with external calendars and enhanced reporting options. ​

How does the biggest review sites rate Deputy?

(Updated October 2024)

G2: 4.6/5

Capterra: 4.6/5

Trust Radius: 8.5/10

Trustpilot: 4.3/5

Customer Support

Conclusion

Deputy is a highly efficient time tracking and scheduling solution that makes your company’s workflow easier. It has many of the tools you would want and look for in a time tracking/time and attendance app, like compliance tools, payroll integrations, chat and task management and ai-based scheduling, and they all come at a reasonable cost. But customization could have been a little better, and there could have been more features and customization options for the task management and newsfeed tools, which may make it less adaptable to specific organizational needs.​

Deputy is suitable for…

• Small to Medium-Sized Businesses: Offers scalability and user-friendly features for growing teams​
• Retail and Hospitality: Helps manage fluctuating staffing needs with robust scheduling and attendance features​
• Service Industries: Automates timesheets and ensures break compliance for hourly employees​
• Multi-Location Operations: Centralizes management for businesses with multiple sites​
• Health-Conscious Organizations: Features like touchless clock-in enhance safety and hygiene​
• Diverse Workforces: Mobile app support ensures accessibility for remote and field employees​

Deputy may not be suitable for…

• Large Enterprises: Companies with complex needs may find Deputy lacks some advanced features and integrations available in larger systems​
• Startups and small businesses on a budget: Higher-tier pricing for basic features could be inaccessible for startups or small businesses on a tight budget.
• Industries with Unique Compliance Needs: Organizations requiring specific industry compliance features may find Deputy insufficient​
• Companies Lacking Internet Reliability: Businesses in areas with poor internet connectivity could face challenges with the cloud-based system​
• Users Who Need Extensive Customization: Some reviewers have mentioned that the customization options are not extensive enough for businesses to be able to adapt the software to their highly specific operational workflows.

If your not sure if Deputy has exactly what you are looking for in a time tracking solutions check out our Clockify review.