Questions, answered plainly.

No. Your timekeeping system stays the system of record for clocking in, corrections and approvals. HourFlag reads the reports it exports for a pay period, and gives each supervisor a short list to check before they approve.

Most timekeeping systems can already schedule and email their reports, and they are good at listing rows. HourFlag adds four things:

• It merges five of them into one ranked list for each supervisor.
• It remembers the last pay period.
• It records what was done about each flag.
• It writes out the steps for each correction.

The free check tells you in writing, flag by flag, whether this found anything your reports alone would not. If it didn’t, the findings report says so in its first paragraph.

The free check reads the standard reports a timekeeping system can export: time entries, automatic clock-outs, missed punches, corrections and who approves what. Today it knows one system’s report layouts, and the first meeting checks that it reads yours. The part that reads files is separate from the rules, so another system’s reports can be added without changing a single rule.

If you use another system, name it in your request: it helps HourFlag decide the order.

Not yet. Today, corrections are made in your timekeeping system from a sheet in its own words. When a supervisor answers “Fix it”, HourFlag lists the steps to take there, and approval stays in your system.

Sending them back automatically is a step your IT can approve later. The free check works the same way: it runs offline and writes nothing to your timekeeping system.

With written rules, applied the same way to every entry. For example: “the clock-out was recorded at 11:59 PM and a new entry opened at 12:01 AM.”

There’s no black-box score and no machine learning. Each flag shows the times behind it, so anyone can check it. Every rule is on the rules page, in the same words the software uses.

No. HourFlag starts with hours: the time recorded minus the time expected (the time a supervisor enters, the schedule, or the opening hours). Dollars are those hours multiplied by a wage you set ($13 an hour in the sample data). That is why every dollar figure is an estimated potential, never a loss.

Supervisors see the hours paid over the schedule. Hours under are counted in the findings report, but never put on a supervisor’s list. When only the student knows the right time, the item shows its hours as needing an answer, with no dollar figure.

Some flagged entries will have a good explanation. Every flag is a prompt for a second look, not a conclusion.

As a check before approval. A flag can come from a simple mistake, like a forgotten clock-out. Every flag is a question to the supervisor, not a conclusion, and the rules are public.

There is a page for student employees, with a paragraph your department can paste into its student handbook.

Five standard reports for each pay period, as XLSX or CSV:

• time entries
• automatic clock-outs
• missed punches
• missed punches approved automatically
• corrections

A list of who approves which work area lets each supervisor see only their own. A schedule file is optional; with it, HourFlag also checks for early clock-ins and late clock-outs that repeat.

From these reports, HourFlag uses employee IDs, work areas, times and schedules, and the details of each correction and missed punch. Any other column is ignored and never kept.

Names aren’t needed: everything is keyed on the employee ID, so drop them before you export if your institution prefers. It doesn’t need Social Security numbers, bank details, grades or anything else from a student’s record.

Not with the free check. It is one file that opens in your web browser and runs offline. Your exports are never uploaded, to HourFlag or anyone else. The only thing the free check stores is a review file, on your computer, next to your exports.

The hosted product is different. It is designed to receive the exports your IT schedules, with logins, and to keep a history of each run so every pay period remembers the last. Your IT reviews the exports, the sign-in and the security before it exists for you.

No. It reads the exports you already run and the files you choose to add, nothing else. It never uses GPS, device or phone data, and it tracks no one during a shift.

It ranks timesheet entries, never people, and there is no score for any student. Every rule it uses is public on the rules page.

Not today. HourFlag is new, and says so plainly. The free check runs offline and sends no student data to HourFlag, and its fingerprint (its SHA-256 hash) comes with the file, so your IT can check the file they open is the one HourFlag built.

The hosted product will go through your software selection process and your IT’s review before anyone licenses it. HourFlag answers your IT and privacy teams’ questions directly, rather than pointing to a badge it doesn’t have.

It is a look back at three past pay periods, on your own timesheets. It goes like this:

1. A 30-minute conversation with HourFlag.
2. You choose three past pay periods and export five standard reports for each one, plus your schedule.
3. After the meeting, HourFlag sends you the free check: one file, with its fingerprint and the steps written out. It opens in your web browser, and you open your exports in it, on your own computer.
4. HourFlag walks you through what it finds on a call, with the free check’s meeting view on, so student names and IDs are hidden on your screen.
5. You keep the findings report.

It’s free, and no data is sent to HourFlag: the free check runs offline. Its terms of use fit on one page, on its first screen, and using it means accepting them: there is nothing to sign. Because it is a look back, those pay periods were paid as recorded, and the report says what a review would have corrected.

If the findings are worth acting on, the next step is a pilot, with its terms agreed in writing before it starts, measured with your own payroll reports, and then a yearly license. If they aren’t, the report says so and it stops there.