The office-IP clock-in lock is Punchwell’s hard control: it refuses an off-site punch server-side, and an IP can’t be faked from a phone at home. But not every shift fits one building. A field crew isn’t on your office Wi-Fi. A wall tablet by the back door has to serve the whole shift. A new hire shouldn’t need to download an app just to clock in.
So Punchwell adds three more ways to capture a punch — a GPS geofence, a kiosk clock screen, and a mobile/PWA punch — and lets you decide how strict each one is. Lock a location to the building, loosen it to a radius around the job site, or just record where the punch landed. One setting per employee, per office.
Get Punchwell Pro — $99/yr → /pricing/
Per site, not per seat. Unlimited employees. Your data stays on your server.
GPS geofence: draw a circle around the job site
When office Wi-Fi isn’t the right boundary — a remote crew, a second site, a pop-up location — turn on the GPS geofence. A punch from the mobile screen gets checked against your work site before it’s accepted.
- Company-wide or per-office fences. Set one fence for the whole company, or give each office in your Structure → Locations list its own latitude, longitude, and radius. A 50-metre circle around the clinic; a wider one around the warehouse yard.
- Radius in metres or feet. Enter the distance in whatever unit your team thinks in. It’s stored canonically in metres; the unit is just for display and entry.
- Same enforcement modes as the IP lock. Choose Block, Warn, or Flag so the fence is as strict — or as soft — as you want.
- It won’t lock out real workers. A missing or weak GPS fix is allowed through (and recorded in Warn or Flag mode), and clock-out is never blocked by distance. Nobody gets stranded on the clock because a signal dropped behind a loading dock.
Be honest about what GPS is. A phone’s location can be spoofed. Treat the geofence as a deterrent, not proof of presence — the office-IP lock is the control that can’t be faked from outside your network. Use the fence where IP doesn’t reach, and use both together where it counts.
Kiosk clock: one shared device, no individual logins
Retail floors, restaurant lines, and warehouses don’t hand every worker a login. They want one tablet by the door that the whole shift uses. That’s the kiosk clock screen — added with the [hrm_kiosk device="…"] shortcode on any page.
- Short code + 6-digit PIN. Employees clock in and out with a personal short code and PIN. No individual WordPress logins on the device, no passwords typed in front of a queue.
- The device has to be enrolled. Only a kiosk device you’ve registered can take punches — a random phone can’t pose as your lobby tablet.
- The venue IP still has to match. The tablet’s network has to be on your allowlist, so the kiosk inherits the same office-only protection as the IP lock. A shared device on the office Wi-Fi: that’s the buddy-punch-resistant combination most cheap clocks can’t do.
- Built as a ready-made pattern. Punchwell ships a “Lobby kiosk” block pattern, so you drop it onto a page and you’re running.
Mobile / PWA punch: no native app to install
Your mobile workers don’t need an App Store download, and you don’t need to maintain one. The mobile punch screen ([hrm_gps_punch]) runs in the browser and installs as a PWA — employees tap “Add to Home Screen” and it behaves like an app icon. No store, no review process, no separate build.
- The device captures GPS and sends it to the same punch action your in-office staff use — one attendance record, one source of truth.
- Installable home-screen app. It’s a Progressive Web App, so it lives on the home screen and feels native without being a native app.
- Requires HTTPS (which your WordPress site should already have) so location and credentials travel securely.
The honest framing: this is a responsive web / PWA screen, not a native iOS or Android app. For a self-hosted time clock, that’s the feature — there’s nothing in an app store phoning home, and nothing new for IT to package.
Combine them with the IP lock — softer or stricter, your call
You don’t pick one and lose the others. Punchwell layers location controls so each group of workers gets the right level of strictness.
| You want… | Use this | How strict |
|---|---|---|
| On-site cashiers who can’t punch from home | Office-IP lock (Block mode) | Hardest — refused server-side off-network |
| A shared shift device at the front desk | Kiosk on the office network | Hard — enrolled device + venue IP |
| A field crew clocking from job sites | Mobile/PWA punch + GPS geofence | Medium — radius around the site, Warn/Flag if you prefer |
| A trusted remote employee anywhere | Mobile punch, no IP lock flag on that person | Soft — record only |
The allowlists are per-employee and per-office, and they only ever widen access — adding an IP or a fence never silently locks someone else out. So you can hard-lock the building, loosen one role to a GPS radius, and leave a remote manager unrestricted, all at once. That per-person, per-office depth is exactly what global-only competitors can’t match — see the comparison.
When to use which
- Everyone’s in one building? Just the office-IP lock. It’s the cleanest, hardest control, and it’s the flagship.
- Shared floor with no logins? Add a kiosk on the office network — short code + PIN, enrolled device, venue IP checked.
- People who travel between sites? Mobile punch + GPS geofence, per-office radius, Warn or Flag if you don’t want to hard-block a weak signal.
- A mix of all three? That’s the normal case — and Punchwell is built for it. Set strictness per employee and per office; the union of allowlists means each person punches the way that fits their job.
Pair any of these with the rest of the suite — shift policies and rounding, leave and PTO accrual, and payroll export — all self-hosted, all on your own WordPress site.
FAQ
Do GPS, kiosk, and mobile punch cost extra? No. They’re all bundled in Pro — $99/year per site, with unlimited employees. Per site, never per seat. The free community version on WordPress.org includes base attendance and a basic single-office IP lock; the full location toolkit is in Pro.
Is the mobile punch a real iOS/Android app? No — and that’s deliberate. It’s a responsive web / PWA screen that installs to the home screen with “Add to Home Screen.” There’s no App Store or Play Store download, nothing for IT to package, and nothing phoning home. It does require HTTPS so location and credentials travel securely.
Can someone fake their GPS location to punch in? A phone’s GPS can be spoofed, so treat the geofence as a deterrent, not proof of presence. The control that can’t be faked from outside your network is the office-IP lock — it refuses the punch server-side. Use the geofence where IP doesn’t reach, and use both together where attendance integrity matters most.
How does the kiosk stop buddy punching if everyone shares it? Three layers. Each employee uses a personal short code and 6-digit PIN, the kiosk device itself has to be enrolled before it can take punches, and the venue’s IP still has to match your allowlist. So a shared tablet on the office Wi-Fi is locked to your building, even without individual logins.
Will a weak GPS signal lock my staff out? No. A missing or weak GPS fix is allowed through (and recorded in Warn or Flag mode), and clock-out is never blocked by distance. The geofence is designed not to strand real workers on the clock.
Do I have to choose between IP lock and GPS? No. You can run the office-IP lock, a GPS geofence, the kiosk, and the mobile punch at the same time, and set strictness per employee and per office. Allowlists only ever widen access, so layering controls never silently locks the wrong person out.
Set the boundary that fits each shift
Hard-lock the building, draw a radius around the job site, or just record where the punch landed — per employee, per office, your call. Self-hosted, GPL, no per-seat fee, no cloud holding your timesheets.
Get Punchwell Pro — $99/yr → /pricing/
Per site, not per seat. Unlimited employees. No card to start the free version on WordPress.org.
See how the controls fit together: Office-IP clock-in lock → · Time clock & attendance → · Compare Punchwell →
Punchwell, by Sturdyhaus. Punchwell is an independently maintained GPL fork of the “WP Human Resource Management” plugin. Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by wpspear, weDevs, or the original author. Product names are referenced descriptively only.