Off: strict
Fits compact sites where the crew parks inside the fence: a house, a store, a single floor. Out-of-area punches simply fail, and the worker walks in and taps again.
Radius in meters anti-spoofing · "clock in anyway" · position at the punch only
A geofence is the circle you draw around a job site. In GEOTT's geolocation mode, a punch is valid only when the phone is inside that circle and passes a check for faked GPS. Here is how to size it, what happens at the edge, and what a geofence can't prove.
One circle per job site · 15-day trial, no card · $7 per active worker per month
It ties every clock-in to a boundary around the place of work. In GEOTT that boundary is a circle around each job site, with a radius you choose in meters. A punch from inside is valid and its hours go to that site; one from outside is refused, or recorded with a flag if you allow it.
Sample drawing, not to scale. The dashed ring is the slack you leave for the phone's own error.
Five moves, all from the admin panel: pin the site on its project map, give it a radius, choose what happens outside the circle, assign the crew and read the first punches. The guided setup creates your first project in about 2 minutes; each new site after that gets its own pin and radius.
Open the project, rename it Site or Job if that's how your crews talk, and place it on the map where the work actually happens.
Enter it in meters. Quick conversions for US crews: 30 m is about 100 ft, 100 m about 330 ft, 150 m about 490 ft.
Leave "clock in anyway" off to refuse punches from beyond the line, or switch it on to accept them with a flag for the admin.
Invite workers by email, WhatsApp or link and put them on the project. Their punches from then on are measured against its circle.
Look at the flags from the first days. If people you know were on site keep landing outside, the circle is too tight for that spot.
The full sequence, from sign-up to the month-end report, is in how GPS time tracking works.
Measure from the pin to the farthest spot where your crew works, then add slack for GPS error. GPS.gov gives 4.9 m (16 ft) as the typical smartphone figure with open sky overhead, and lists buildings, bridges, trees, indoor or underground use and signals bouncing off walls as the things that make it worse.
| Site (sample) | Pin to farthest work point | What degrades GPS there | Sample radius |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bathroom remodel, detached house | 15 m (about 50 ft) | Street trees, work indoors | 40 m (about 130 ft) |
| Office cleaning, downtown mid-rise | 25 m (about 80 ft) | Tall buildings, reflected signals | 80 m (about 260 ft) |
| Parking lot resurfacing | 50 m (about 165 ft) | Little: open sky | 70 m (about 230 ft) |
| New homes on an open lot | 60 m (about 200 ft) | Little: open sky | 90 m (about 295 ft) |
The pattern: open sky needs a small margin, glass towers and basements a big one. A circle drawn to the exact edge of the lot will flag people standing on it, while one twice the size of the block starts accepting the diner next door. Try both extremes in the geofence demo on the home page.
That depends on one setting. With "clock in anyway" off, the punch does not go through and the worker is not on the clock. With it on, the punch is saved and flagged to the admin, so the exception is handled in the office instead of arguing about it at the gate.
Fits compact sites where the crew parks inside the fence: a house, a store, a single floor. Out-of-area punches simply fail, and the worker walks in and taps again.
Fits spread-out jobs and awkward parking. The worker who taps from the van across the road keeps the start time; you see the flag and decide.
Mock-location apps can make a phone report a place it isn't, and a circle alone would believe them. That's why GEOTT runs an anti-spoofing check on every geofenced clock-in, guarding the punch against faked GPS positions. The other gaps, such as forgotten or recovered punches, have their own controls.
It shows where the phone was at two moments, the clock-in and the clock-out, not who was holding it. GEOTT takes no position in between, so the circle says nothing about a mid-morning trip to the hardware store. It also can't beat physics: in a basement or between towers, the reading is weaker, which is why the radius needs slack.
Where there's no data connection, the punch is kept on the phone and synced later (on an iPhone, when GEOTT is next opened online): see offline clock-in. That fixes the network, not a weak GPS fix: the phone still needs a usable position. Crews that move between three sites a day split their hours at clock-out; the pattern is on GPS time tracking for construction. And the circle doesn't settle whether you may use GPS at work at all: that depends on the country and, in the US, on the state. Read is GPS tracking of employees legal? before you roll it out.
Guida in italiano: timbratura in cantiere senza internet e geofence
Geofence questions
Five things: a separate radius for each site, a check against faked locations, a managed way to handle punches from just outside, clock-ins that still work with no signal, and nothing for the crew to install. GEOTT does all five for $7 per active worker per month, with admins free.
Only if you allow it. By default a punch from beyond the circle doesn't go through. Turn on "clock in anyway" and it's accepted but flagged, so the admin sees exactly which punches came from outside and can decide what to do with each one.
Not in GEOTT. The phone's position is read when the worker punches in and when they punch out, and at no other time. Between those two taps there is no location trail, which also keeps the data you hold down to what the timesheet needs.
The answer changes with the country and, in the US, with the state, so check the rules where your crews work before you start. Our guide on GPS tracking of employees explains what to look at. GEOTT's part is limited: a position only at clock-in and clock-out.
Pick your trickiest site, set a radius with some slack and send the invite to the crew working there. After a week of punches you'll know if the circle is right. The trial runs 15 days with no credit card, and afterwards the rate is $7 per active worker: see GEOTT pricing.