Logging in and choosing the right site

Open rotasmart.co.uk, enter your email and password, and confirm any one-time code if your site uses multi-factor login. After login you land on Home.

RotaSmart separates organisations from sites. If you manage more than one location, check the site shown in the top bar before making changes. Use the site selector to switch to the correct site.

If you cannot log in, use the password reset flow on the login page or ask an administrator to check that your account is active for the right site.

Login and access troubleshooting

If a manager or staff member cannot access RotaSmart, first check the basics: correct email address, password reset completed, one-time code entered where required, and the correct site selected after login.

For staff app access, check Staff to confirm the person is current, verified, linked to the right site, and using the same email or phone details that were invited or self-enrolled. If they were archived or left as historic, they will not behave like active rota staff.

A 403 or forbidden response usually means the account is recognised but does not have permission for that page, site, or staff record. Check their role, site access, and whether they are trying to view another staff member's private staff-app data.

First time setup

Complete First Time Setup before relying on forecasts or rota generation. The setup flow captures site basics, trading hours, departments, cover rules, labour targets, seasonality, budgets, and payroll defaults.

Use the setup flow to enter the site name, postcode, VAT rate, sales basis, opening and closing times, food service type, departments such as Bar or Kitchen, minimum cover, wage target percentages, break rules, holiday calculations, and time-off pay settings.

If staff will clock in and out through RotaSmart Team, also review the location and geofence choice. Existing sites should normally start on warn-only mode unless you intentionally want to block clocking outside the site.

Review the final step before confirming. You can revisit setup later if site rules change.

Home dashboard

Home gives a quick view of the current week. Use it to check forecast sales, actual sales, scheduled hours, required hours, labour true cost, predictive accuracy, readiness, and workflow links.

Forecast and actual sales help you spot whether trade is moving away from plan. Scheduled hours and labour cost show the rota impact. Readiness indicators show whether sales and rota setup are complete for the selected week.

For a normal weekly flow, move from Sales to Rota to Reports. If readiness is red, open the linked module and complete the missing work. The page-level Ask help button explains workflows; the separate RotaSmart Helper is for operational checks and data-specific suggestions.

Sales forecast setup

Open Sales and choose the week you want to forecast. Use Forecast setup to enter expected sales before building the rota.

The Week trade review compares this week's forecast to recent actuals and highlights events or unusual trading patterns. Use it as a sense check before saving the forecast.

In the forecast grid, click a cell and type the expected sales amount. Row and day totals update as values change. Use Preview RotaSmart forecast to load a suggested starting point, Duplicate last week to copy last week's actual sales, Reset sales to clear the grid, and Save week after larger edits.

Trading context helps you adjust for weather, bank holidays, public events, and other local factors.

Actual sales capture

Use Actuals capture after trading has happened. Actual sales improve forecast accuracy, labour percentage reporting, and future rota decisions.

To import actuals, export a CSV from your EPOS system, check it has the expected date, time, wet sales, and food sales columns, then choose the file and preview the import. If the mapping looks wrong, clear or adjust the format before importing. Import only after the preview looks correct.

To enter actuals manually, use the actual sales grid. It mirrors the forecast grid. Click cells and enter the actual sales for each hour or half-hour, using totals to check against receipts.

Enter actuals promptly after trading. Predictive accuracy, wage percentage reporting, and future forecast quality depend on complete actual sales.

Rota grid and shift editing

The Rota page shows staff down the left and days across the top. Each cell represents a staff member's shift for that day. Rota-related pages also show compact sub-tabs for Plan, Availability, Sign-off, and Time off so the rota workflow stays in one area.

Use the shift editor to add or amend shifts. Choose the staff member, area or department, start time, end time, unpaid break, and any notes. Areas should match the departments configured in setup or settings.

The summary bar updates labour cost, wage percentage, budget variance, fairness, and fatigue as shifts change. Where drag-and-drop is enabled, review the result after moving shifts so staff, time off, breaks, and cost still look right.

Build rota and fill open shifts

Build rota uses forecast demand, opening times, cover rules, and staffing rules to generate or improve the rota. Complete Sales first so the builder has a reliable demand forecast.

Use Build rota when you want RotaSmart to create or improve cover. Use Fill open shifts when shifts already exist but need assigning to staff.

Use Replace current rota only when you want a full rebuild. If you want to keep manual or template shifts, use a merge-style flow and review the result before publishing.

Templates

Templates save repeatable rota patterns. A staff-assigned template keeps the named staff allocation. A structure-only template keeps shift shapes without assigning specific staff.

Load templates when a week follows a known pattern. Use merge mode if you want to fill empty slots while keeping existing shifts.

Review template results before publishing, especially if availability, time off, or demand has changed.

Publish rota

Publish the rota when the selected week is ready for staff. Before publishing, check forecast sales, coverage, staff availability, time-off requests, and labour cost.

Publishing makes the rota available to staff through RotaSmart Team. If the completion indicator is not green, check that shifts exist for the correct week and that required setup is complete.

Availability calendar

The availability calendar shows staff availability, unavailable periods, preferred working patterns, and time-off requests.

Use this view before assigning shifts so the rota does not rely on staff who are unavailable or have approved time off. Availability is a hard scheduling constraint; preferences are a softer planning signal.

Staff scheduling preferences

Staff preferences are soft planning signals. They can show preferred days, avoid days, preferred time bands, avoid late finishes, max late or closing shifts per week, and a short manager-visible note.

Availability and approved time off remain hard constraints. Preferences should guide fairer planning, but managers can still roster a shift when the business needs it. Preference conflicts appear as warnings rather than blockers.

Staff training and experience levels

Use Training & experience in the Staff record to show how confidently someone can work each rota area. The levels are Trainee, Competent, Strong, and Lead.

Competent is the normal level for areas the person can work. Strong staff are preferred for busy or closing shifts. Lead staff are preferred where the shift needs lead-level cover. Trainees are treated carefully: RotaSmart will only auto-assign them when a Strong or Lead person is also covering the same area at the same time.

These levels guide auto-assignment and warnings. They do not block a manager from making a deliberate manual rota edit when you know the context.

Shift swaps and cover requests

Use the shift market and Staff tools when a staff member wants to offer a shift, request a swap, or claim open cover. Staff can start the flow from RotaSmart Team where enabled.

If manager approval is required, review pending offers before they apply to the rota. This keeps flexibility for staff while protecting coverage and payroll records.

Shift sign-off and clockings

Shift sign-off is where managers review clocked work before it becomes approved payroll time. Each row should be reviewed as a payable item with scheduled, clocked, break, paid, decision, and status information.

Approve uses the current actual times shown on the row. Amend lets the manager correct start time, end time, breaks, role, or reason before approval. Use scheduled copies the rota shift times when there is a scheduled shift. Dispute keeps the row out of approved payroll hours.

Open or incomplete clockings need an end time before they can be approved. Off-rota work can still be reviewed and approved as payable when valid.

Rota seen status

After a rota is published, staff can mark it as seen in RotaSmart Team. Managers see simple counts for Seen, Not seen, and Changed since seen.

Use this as a lightweight communication check. It does not replace publishing, clocking, or sign-off; it only shows whether the latest rota version has reached staff.

Time off requests

Staff can submit time-off requests through RotaSmart Team. Managers review them from Staff or rota-related request views.

Approve, decline, or discuss requests before building the rota. Approved time off should be considered when assigning shifts and checking rota coverage.

Use week filters and request status to focus the list. Approving a request should update the staff member's availability for rota planning.

Reports

Reports are used to review performance after planning and trading. Weekly performance brings together sales, labour, forecast accuracy, wage percentage, and rota quality.

Use Forecast accuracy to understand how close the forecast was to actual sales. Use Labour cost and wage percentage to check scheduled or approved cost against target. Use Rota coverage to find under-cover and over-cover. Use Scheduled staff cost review for gross hours, paid hours, and estimated employer cost.

Use CSV downloads where available if you need to review figures outside RotaSmart. Payroll-style reports should be treated as estimates unless the relevant shifts have been approved in sign-off.

Forecast context and what-if checks

Forecast context chips call out useful planning signals such as bank holidays, school holidays, weather or event adjustments, actuals trends, and missing actuals where available.

The What-if panel is a planning aid. You can adjust sales percentage or planned hours to see the wage percentage and labour budget impact, but it does not save anything. Apply real changes through Sales or the rota editor.

People checks and fairness

People checks summarise rota fairness and fatigue signals without blocking the rota. Review consecutive-day risk, repeated late or close shifts, weekend imbalance, and rest-between-shifts warnings before publishing.

Suggested swaps are low-impact ideas only. Check availability, skills, time off, and operational cover before applying any change.

Site profile

Site profile settings hold the site name, postcode, VAT rate, and whether sales are treated as gross or net for budget purposes.

These settings affect forecast totals, labour percentage, and reporting. Check them before comparing wage percentage or sales-based targets.

If your site uses staff clocking, also review the location settings and geofence radius. The postcode and location rules affect whether RotaSmart can warn about or block off-site clocking.

Roles and rota areas

Roles and rota areas define how shifts are grouped and who can work them. Typical areas include Bar, Floor, Kitchen, and Manager.

Assign each active rota area to a reporting group so coverage and reports roll up correctly. Use area colours for quick recognition on the rota. Staff trained areas should match the roles they can work.

Opening times

Opening times define when the site trades and when non-productive work such as prep or delivery may happen.

Sales forecasting and rota demand rely on these windows. If opening times are missing or incomplete, forecast grids and rota generation may not behave as expected.

Break rules

Break rules control default unpaid break minutes for shifts. They affect paid hours, estimated pay, and labour cost reports.

Set break defaults that match your operating policy. Managers can still amend breaks during shift sign-off where actual work differs from the default.

Geofence and clocking location rules

Geofence settings control how RotaSmart handles staff clocking location. Off means location is not checked. Warn only saves the clock event and flags missing or outside-site location for manager review. Block outside site rejects clocking when the location is missing or outside the allowed area.

Use warn-only while testing a site or when phone location reliability is still being checked. Use block mode only when the site is confident the radius and staff device permissions are working.

Location warnings are reviewed in staff clocking information and shift sign-off. The staff app should show simple statuses such as on site, location needed, outside site area, or location unavailable.

Buffers and cover rules

Cover rules and buffers define minimum staffing by area and time of day. Budget rules set labour target percentages or budget amounts.

These settings drive rota generation, coverage warnings, and labour cost checks. If targets are not configured, RotaSmart can still show rotas but cannot judge wage pressure reliably.

Holiday and time-off pay

Holiday and time-off pay settings control how time away from work is handled in pay estimates and reports.

Check pay period, calculation date, pay date, holiday mode, leave types, and contract-day assumptions before relying on pay outputs.

Employment policies, holiday, sickness and tips setup

Use Employment Policies and the Staff employment fields before approving sickness, holiday or payroll. RotaSmart uses these settings to calculate holiday, Statutory Sick Pay, company sick pay, tips/tronc treatment and payroll line items from the server. Employers remain responsible for checking payroll, tax, pension and legal compliance before submission.

Start with the staff record. Open Staff, edit the employee, and complete worker type, contract type, contracted hours, normal working days, pay rate, holiday method, SSP qualifying-day method and tip treatment. Then open Settings and check Employment Policies for the leave year, rolled-up holiday setting, company sick pay, tips/tronc policy and payroll export treatment.

Worker type means the person's real working pattern, such as regular, irregular or part-year. Choose regular when the working pattern is predictable. Choose irregular or part-year when hours or days change materially. This setting is important because it decides the holiday route and whether rolled-up holiday pay may be available.

Contract type describes the employment arrangement, such as permanent, casual, fixed term or zero-hours. It helps managers understand the record, but it does not replace worker type for holiday and SSP calculations.

Contracted hours are the hours the person is normally contracted to work. Complete them for regular workers and anyone with a fixed pattern. If they are missing, RotaSmart may block holiday or payroll values instead of guessing.

Normal working days are the days that normally count as working or qualifying days. Use fixed days for a fixed pattern. For workers whose days change, use the rota or explicit qualifying-day method where available so sickness is assessed against the right days.

Pay rate is needed to turn hours into money. Enter the current pay rate before approving absence or payroll. Missing pay rates should produce a setup blocker rather than a silent zero.

Holiday method decides how entitlement and holiday pay should be worked out. Use fixed entitlement for regular workers where that matches the contract. Use the accrual or pay-history route for irregular or part-year workers where that matches your policy.

SSP qualifying-day method tells RotaSmart how to identify the days that count for Statutory Sick Pay. Use contract days for a fixed pattern, rota days for changing patterns, or explicit qualifying days where your policy sets them separately.

Tip treatment tells RotaSmart whether the person receives no tips, direct cash tips, an independent tronc, or employer-controlled tips. Complete this when tips are enabled so reports and payroll exports can keep base pay, tips and tronc treatment separate.

Leave year is the annual holiday period used for balances. Set it to match the dates used in contracts or your handbook so accrued, used, booked and remaining holiday are shown in the correct period.

Rolled-up holiday setting controls whether holiday pay is paid as a separate addition in each pay period. Only enable it where the worker type and leave year allow it. If a worker is not eligible, RotaSmart should show a blocker and the normal holiday pay route should be used instead.

Company sick pay is any employer sick pay paid above SSP. Set the policy that matches the contract or handbook. RotaSmart shows company sick pay separately from SSP so payroll can check both amounts.

Payroll export treatment controls how holiday pay, rolled-up holiday pay, SSP, company sick pay, tips and adjustments are labelled for payroll. Always review the Payroll preview before exporting or finalising.

When a blocker appears, do not treat it as zero pay. A blocker means RotaSmart needs missing setup before it can calculate a reliable server value. Common blockers are missing worker type, missing pay rate, missing SSP qualifying-day setup, rolled-up holiday not permitted for the worker, and missing tip treatment.

Managers should keep using the normal workflows. Holiday should be approved through Time Off, sickness should be recorded through the existing sickness workflow, shifts should be reviewed in Shift Sign-Off, and Payroll should be reviewed before export. The same workflow creates the server calculation snapshots, payroll line items and audit records.

Staff management

Use Staff to add, edit, invite, verify, and manage employees. Current staff are active for rota planning. Historic staff remain available for records but should not be assigned to new shifts.

When adding or editing staff, check name, email, phone, role or trained areas, contract hours, hourly rate, and permissions. Contract hours help fairness checks. Hourly rate supports labour cost and pay estimates.

Staff can self-enrol through RotaSmart Team. Managers review submitted details before approving the account. If a staff member cannot see their rota or pay information, check they are verified, current, linked to the right site, and using the correct login details.

Staff requests and clocking review

Staff requests include availability, time off, and clocking-related information. Review these before and after rota creation.

Clock events are audit data. Manager shift sign-off is the main place to approve, amend, dispute, or finalise paid time. Use staff request and clocking feeds to spot missing clock-outs, unusual clocking patterns, location warnings, and pending changes.

Help centre

The Help Centre contains searchable guides and troubleshooting notes. Use search or topic filters to find setup, sales, rota, staff, reports, and troubleshooting guidance.

Use What's new or release notes to understand recent changes. Use Accessibility in the top bar for dark mode, larger text, high contrast, colour-blind friendly colours, or reduced motion.

Ask help is for "how do I" questions and uses this guide as its source. The separate RotaSmart Helper remains for operational checks such as spotting setup gaps or rota risks.

Weekly manager workflow

A normal weekly cycle starts with setup and sales, then moves into rota planning, staff requests, publishing, clocking, sign-off, and reports.

1. Check setup and opening times.
2. Enter or update the sales forecast.
3. Review staff availability and time off.
4. Build or amend the rota.
5. Publish the rota when ready.
6. Let staff clock in, clock out, and request changes through RotaSmart Team.
7. Review clockings in shift sign-off.
8. Use reports to compare forecast, actual sales, labour cost, and rota quality.