How Hospitality Company Reduced Payroll Errors by 75% With Employee Self-Service Kiosk

In the hospitality industry, payroll issues are often seen as just part of the job—annoying, but unavoidable. But when one hotel group found that payroll errors were growing too frequent and too expensive to ignore, they realized it was time to act. With multiple properties, rotating shifts, and a large number of hourly employees, time tracking had always been a challenge for them. What finally pushed them to find a better solution was a pattern of small but costly problems—employees clocking in early, staying late without approval, or simply forgetting to punch out on time. These seemingly minor issues were adding up to major payroll discrepancies every month.

The Problem: Early Clock-Ins and Late Punch-Outs

The company’s HR team noticed that many employees were clocking in before their scheduled start time and clocking out well after their shifts ended. This wasn’t always intentional—some employees simply arrived early and punched in right away. Others stayed late to chat, clean up, or finish a task and forgot to punch out when they were actually done working.

However, the payroll system didn’t account for context. It simply logged what it was told: if someone clocked in 15 minutes early or stayed 20 minutes late, it assumed that was paid time. Over the course of a month, these extra minutes across dozens of employees became hours of unauthorized overtime—costing the company thousands.

HR staff tried to keep up by manually checking time logs, matching shifts, and correcting errors, but with hundreds of entries each week, it was impossible to catch everything. Employees were also frustrated—some got underpaid due to mistakes, while others faced corrections they didn’t fully understand. Morale dipped. Trust was eroding.

The Search for a Practical Fix

The company didn’t want to overhaul its entire HR system, but it needed something that could plug into what it already had—something that could enforce basic time tracking rules without creating new problems or confusing employees.

That’s when they came across CloudApper hrPad, an employee self-service kiosk that runs on any tablet device. What stood out most was its ability to restrict punch-ins and punch-outs based on employee schedules. This meant that employees could no longer clock in too early or too late unless they were approved to do so.

How It Worked

Implementation was simple. Tablets were mounted at the entrances and break rooms of each property. Employees could clock in using a PIN or Face ID. But the kiosk would only allow them to do so within a set window around their scheduled time. For example, if a shift began at 3:00 PM, the kiosk allowed clock-in between 2:50 and 3:10. Anything outside that range would be denied unless authorized by a manager.

This simple feature changed everything.

Employees quickly adjusted to the new system. They appreciated the clarity and consistency—no more confusion about when they were allowed to punch in or out. HR teams stopped having to sift through logs for errors, and payroll began reflecting actual worked hours more accurately.

The Results

Within three months of using the kiosk system, the company reported:

• A 75% reduction in payroll errors
• Significant drop in unauthorized overtime
• Fewer disputes between employees and HR
• Faster payroll processing with fewer corrections needed

What began as a small fix turned into a noticeable improvement in how the company managed its workforce. Managers regained control over schedules, HR teams had fewer headaches, and employees felt more confident in the accuracy of their paychecks.

A Simpler Way to Stay on Track

Time tracking doesn’t need to be complicated, and it doesn’t need to rely on guesswork. For this hospitality group, using a self-service kiosk like hrPad offered a straightforward way to solve a frustrating, expensive problem. It didn’t overhaul their systems—it just made them work better.

Sometimes, fixing the big problems starts with managing the little ones. In this case, all it took was a kiosk, a clock, and some common sense built into the system.