What free plans usually limit
Every provider sets different terms, but the common limits fall into a handful of areas. Before signing up, read the plan terms line by line and ask directly when you would have to upgrade as the business grows.
- Number of users: free only for small teams; once you hire past the cap, the whole company moves to a paid plan
- Check-in methods: free covers a button or a photo, while identity checks (such as face scan) or location checks sit in higher tiers
- Branches or check-in locations: one site only, or a single geofence
- Data history: short retention, or reports for the current month only
- What happens next: export only — no link to shift schedules, leave, overtime or payroll
- Support: nobody to help with setup, or with problems at payroll close
- Hardware: the software is free but you buy the scanners or tablets
Hidden costs that never appear on the price list
The biggest cost of a time attendance system is rarely the software. It is the staff time spent handling the data afterwards. If the system only gives you a file of in/out times, someone has to match it against the roster, leave and overtime, then re-enter it into payroll every period.
That work usually lands on HR or supervisors, grows with headcount, shifts and branches, and is almost never counted as a cost of the attendance system.
- Spreadsheet hours: merging files from several branches, fixing mismatched names, chasing forgotten check-outs, comparing with the roster
- Payroll errors: the more times data is re-typed, the more mistakes — both overpaying and underpaying, and underpaying hits employee trust directly
- Buddy punching: if the method does not confirm it is really the employee, you may pay for hours nobody worked (see how to prevent buddy punching)
- Devices at every branch: purchase, installation, spare parts and someone’s time when a device fails — multiplied by the number of branches
- Switching later: if you cannot export your full history, moving to another system once you have grown is harder than doing it at the start
Putting a number on it (an illustrative example)
The figures below are assumptions to show the method, not market averages. Replace them with your own numbers.
Assume a company with 3 branches and 2 payroll periods a month. Each period, HR spends about 2 hours per branch merging time files and checking them against the roster, leave and overtime before entering payroll. Assume HR time costs 200 baht per hour (salary plus benefits divided by working hours).
That gives 3 branches × 2 hours × 2 periods = 12 hours a month, or about 12 × 200 = 2,400 baht a month just on reconciling data — before time spent answering payslip questions, fixing payroll mistakes, or paying for devices at each branch.
The general formula is: branches × hours per branch per period × periods per month × hourly staff cost, plus the monthly share of any hardware. Compare that with the price of a system that removes the work, rather than asking only which system is free.
A checklist for evaluating a “free” time clock
Use these questions to screen a system before rolling it out to every employee — switching later means retraining everyone.
- What is the free limit in people and branches, and how does pricing change once you exceed it?
- Can it confirm it is really the employee, at the actual workplace — or is that a paid feature?
- Is it tied to the shift roster, so you can see who is late and who has not started their shift?
- Does attendance data flow straight into leave, overtime and payroll, or must it be exported and re-entered?
- What hardware must you buy, how much per branch, and who maintains it?
- How long is history kept, and can you export all of your data if you leave?
- What employee data is collected (such as face photos and location), where is it stored, and can it be deleted after a set period?
- Is there help during setup and when problems come up, especially at payroll close?
When free is genuinely enough
Free is not the wrong choice. If the team is small, works in one place with fixed hours, and the owner or supervisor sees everyone every day, a free time clock that records accurately and exports cleanly may be all you need.
The signs you have outgrown it tend to arrive together: a second branch opens, you add shifts, supervisors are not always on site, or HR spends hours every period cleaning up data before payroll. If your roster still lives in a spreadsheet, see when Excel shift schedules stop working as well.
- Fine with free: small team, one location, fixed hours, supervisor on site
- Worth investing: several branches or shifts, off-site teams, pay based on actual hours, frequent overtime
Where OrgFlow fits once you outgrow free
OrgFlow is built for businesses that already run several shifts or branches. It cuts the hidden costs by keeping the data in one flow. Staff check in with a face scan and a GPS location check on their own phone, through an employee app opened in the browser, so there is no device to buy for every branch. If you want a central clock-in point, a shared face-scan tablet per branch also works.
Check-ins are tied to the shift roster, leave and overtime are approved on mobile, and the actual hours of shift / frontline staff plus approved overtime flow into the payroll run — no export and re-entry. If you start from Excel, you can import it yourself, with onboarding help from the team. The employee app is available in Thai and English; the back office is currently in Thai.