Rostering software for retail teams

Predictable trading hours with unpredictable people. Opening and closing shifts that have to be covered, and weekend hours you want recorded accurately.

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What makes retail hard to roster

The problems that come up in this trade whatever software you use, and what happens here instead.

Opens and closes have to be coveredThe roster grid makes a gap obvious before the week starts, not on the morning.

Early clock ins cost moneyStaff arriving twenty minutes early is a real cost. Set an allowed window and get warned past it.

Public holidays hit trading daysYour state holiday list is already in the calendar, and holiday shifts are priced at your holiday rate.

Staff shared between shops get double bookedOne person on two rosters on the same afternoon is easy to do and awkward to undo. Availability is kept by the hour, and a clash is flagged on the shift as you place it, with the reason.

The roster lives on the back room wallWhoever is not in today does not know it changed. Publishing puts it on every phone and notifies the people whose shifts moved.

What you get out of it

The parts of the week that stop taking your evening.

A second shop costs nothing moreVenues are unlimited on every plan, so opening again is a roster change rather than a bigger bill.

The opener gets a reminderA nudge the night before, at the interval you choose, for the shift that cannot be missed.

The bookkeeper gets clean hoursA CSV export of approved hours today, with the MYOB connection coming soon.

Next week takes about ten minutesCopy the week, move what moved, check the estimate, publish. That is the whole job once your team and your rates are in.

Reliability becomes a fact rather than a feelingLate starts, early finishes and no shows are counted over four weeks, twelve weeks or a year, so who gets the keys is a decision you can point at.

A typical week, as an example

FridayBuild next week from the standard trading pattern.

DailyOpeners clock in on their phone at the door, and you see it from home.

WeeklyHours by employee for the fortnight, exported to CSV for the bookkeeper.

MonthlyAdd the second shop, on the same subscription.

Two grocery store workers in aprons talking in an aisle

A clothing store worker checking stock on a tablet

What it is used for in retail

Specific things people in this trade do with it, rather than a list of modules.

An opening and a closing shift on every trading day, copied forward as a pattern
One person across two stores in a week, with each store its own venue
Public holidays for your state already on the calendar, and priced at your rate
A delivery or a stocktake as its own short shift, not a longer day for somebody
A reminder before an early open, at the interval you set
Clock in at the shop, with the distance recorded, rather than on the walk there
Casual hours held under a student visa fortnight, counted from the Monday
A CSV of hours by employee when payroll is done somewhere else

The Thursday nobody opened the shop

Two stores, nine people, an 8:45 open and a delivery due at eleven.

The Thursday nobody opened the shop: when each thing happened, what happened, and what was done
When	What happens	What you do here
8:56am	The shop is still shut. The opener has not clocked in.	Attendance shows a shift that started eleven minutes ago with nothing against it.
9:02am	They answer: slept through the alarm, forty minutes away.	Mark the shift for cover and look at who is free, including the other store.
9:15am	An assistant from the second store can be there by half past.	Move the shift to her. She belongs to both stores, so she is one person, not two records.
10:20am	The truck arrives early.	Edit the delivery shift to start now. The clash check runs again before it saves.
Monday	Two rows in the timesheet look odd, and both are explainable.	The late start and the moved shift each carry their reason, written on the day it happened.

A shop that opened 45 minutes late, and a week nobody has to reconstruct from memory in March.

The jobs that stop being jobs

Where the hours in a week like this go. No stopwatch: the left column is what the work takes without it, and the right is what is left of the same task.

Each job, the way it usually goes, and what it becomes here
The job	Usually	Here
Rostering a pattern that barely changes	Retyping the same openers and closers every week	Copy the week forward, then change the days that moved
Remembering the public holidays	A search, a guess, and one state’s dates applied to another	Your state’s gazetted dates already on the roster, at the rate you set
Staff shared between stores	Two rosters, and a person written on both	One person, both venues, and the hours added up once
Chasing a late open	Finding out from a customer	A shift with no clock in against it, visible as soon as it starts
Signing off the fortnight	A pile of printed timesheets and a highlighter	The differences first, then approve the rest together

What the record shows, and what stays yours

Roster Flow keeps the record. Meeting the obligation is still the workplace's job, and these are the parts of it nothing here decides for you.

What is recorded, on the day it happens

The clock in time for every shift, and the shifts that have none
Late starts and early finishes against what was rostered, shop by shop
Which venue each shift belonged to, for somebody who works across stores
Student visa fortnights counted from a Monday, warned before you publish over the limit
The audit trail for every change, readable later in Settings

What is still yours to decide

The award that decides penalty rates, allowances and what a public holiday is paid at
Checking work rights, which the visa details recorded here do not verify
Rostering rules in your agreement about notice, changes and minimum hours
Whether a late start is paid as rostered or as worked

What has to be kept, and for how long, is set out by the Fair Work Ombudsman. Nothing here interprets an award or certifies that a workplace complies with one.

A roster checklist for retail

Checks worth running before a week is published. Where a rule applies, the check is to look it up in the award or agreement that covers your staff.

Cover every open and every close, including late trading nights
Check part-time employees’ agreed hours before changing their days
Check the minimum engagement in your award before rostering a short shift
Mark the public holidays and trading-hour changes for your state
Compare rostered hours with worked hours each week, by store
Keep availability current for casuals with changing timetables

Free templates and tools for retail

Retail roster templateOpeners, closers, a late night and weekend cover.Staff availability formThe hours each person can work, day by day.Staff coverage calculatorPeople needed each half hour against the shifts on your roster.Public holidays by stateThe dates for every state and territory, with their sources.

Questions people in retail ask

Our opens and closes are the same every week. Do I have to rebuild them?

No. Copy last week and the pattern comes with it, then change what actually moved. A shift can also be copied across the days it repeats on, so a 7am open five days running is placed once rather than five times.

Are my state’s public holidays already in the roster?

You pick your state and the holidays are worked out for you, including the ones that move with Easter, so a Monday that is a holiday in Victoria and an ordinary Monday in New South Wales is right on both rosters. The day is priced at the holiday rate you set.

Staff work across two shops. Do I pay twice?

No. Venues are unlimited on every plan, including the free one, and the price follows how many people you employ rather than how many shops you run. Each shop keeps its own roster, staff and clock in radius, and the totals add up across both.

How do I stop the shop opening late?

Staff get a reminder before they are due, at an interval you choose, which is the part that prevents most of it. If somebody is late enough to count as a no show you get told, with a shortlist of who is free and reliable to ring.

Can I see who is genuinely reliable before I hand them the keys?

Attendance compares rostered time to worked time and counts late starts, early finishes, no shows and sick days over four weeks, twelve weeks or a year. It is a record rather than a score, and it is the difference between remembering that somebody is often late and knowing it.

Does it handle penalty rates for a Sunday trade?

It applies the loadings you set, to the people you say they apply to, and shows what the day costs before you publish. It does not interpret an award or work out what somebody is legally owed. Those rules live in your payroll system, and the estimate here is for deciding whether the extra person is worth it.