Delivery drivers, security guards, cleaning crews, and maintenance technicians cannot walk up to an office scanner to clock in. They start shifts at client sites, in vehicles, or at locations that change every day. A GPS check-in solves this without adding hardware or manual paperwork.

How GPS Check-In Works

The employee opens the app or web page on their phone and taps "Check In." At that moment, the app captures the device's GPS coordinates and records a timestamp. The system logs: employee ID, time, latitude, longitude. On check-out, the same process runs again.

No continuous tracking happens between those two moments. The system records a point, not a route. That distinction matters for privacy and for battery life.

The manager sees which employees checked in, at what time, and whether the GPS coordinates match the expected work location.

Accuracy to Expect

Modern smartphone GPS is accurate to within 5-15 metres in open conditions. In urban areas with tall buildings, accuracy drops to 15-50 metres. Inside buildings, GPS often fails entirely, so some systems fall back to WiFi positioning or allow manual check-in with a photo.

For most field work, 15-metre accuracy is more than enough. If you need to confirm someone is at a specific address, not just in the general area, set a geofence radius of 50-100 metres to account for signal variation.

Privacy Considerations

Employees often worry about continuous location tracking. The concern is understandable, but a check-in system does not work that way. It captures one location point at start and one at end. No tracking happens in between.

Document this clearly in your employment policy. Employees should understand precisely what data is captured and stored. In the EU, GDPR applies to location data collected from employees. Keep records only as long as necessary, typically aligned with your working time record obligations.

Common Setups for Field Teams

Delivery drivers: Check in at the depot before the route starts, check out on return. GPS confirms they were at the depot, not somewhere else at 06:00. Mileage tracking is a separate system.

Security guards: Check in at the client site location. If they cover multiple checkpoints during a shift, that requires a different feature (tour tracking) beyond basic GPS check-in.

Cleaning crews: Each crew member checks in at the client address at the start of the cleaning job. Useful for confirming start time for invoicing.

Maintenance technicians: Check in at each job site. Useful for billing clients accurately by job location.

Limitations to Know

GPS fails indoors. Warehouses, basements, and large buildings block satellite signals. A field worker doing indoor maintenance will not get a reliable GPS fix. Set up a fallback method: a QR code at the site entrance, or manual entry with manager confirmation.

Older Android phones and budget devices have weaker GPS chips. If your team uses varied hardware, test the check-in flow on the weakest device before rolling out.

Rezano GPS Check-In

Rezano includes GPS check-in for field teams. Employees check in from their phone browser, no app install required. The manager dashboard shows a live map of who checked in, where, and when. For locations with poor GPS signal, QR codes work as an alternative in the same system.