Build the schedule, clock the hours, see the labor cost — on tablets you already own

Scheduling, the time clock, and labor cost usually live in three different tools that never quite agree — you build shifts in one app, punch hours in a second, and reconstruct the labor number in a spreadsheet after the fact. Opero puts all three on one spine. You build next week's schedule, staff clock in and out on the tablet you already own, and the labor cost surfaces in the command center grounded in the hours people actually worked. One plan, one platform, no punch-clock hardware to lease.

What Opero scheduling is

Opero scheduling has three connected parts: a weekly shift planner where managers lay out who works when, a shared-device time clock where staff record the actual hours, and labor cost that reads those hours in the command center. Because they sit on the same platform as your POS and pay rates, the plan and the actuals measure against each other automatically — you don't export a schedule into a separate time-tracking product or key hours into payroll math by hand.

• ✓A weekly schedule builder — staff down the side, seven days across the top, per location
• ✓A shared-device time clock where employees punch in and out with a PIN
• ✓Projected labor cost from the plan, and actual labor cost from the clock
• ✓Scheduled-versus-actual hours and no-show flags on the same grid
• ✓Labor cost surfaced in the AI command center, grounded in real clocked hours

Build next week's schedule

The schedule builder is a weekly grid for the active location: your staff run down the side, the seven days run across the top, and a manager adds a shift by picking a person, a day, a start and end time, and an optional role and note. Times are composed in your own local time, so what you type is what the shift is. Shifts start as drafts, and when the week looks right you publish it in one tap. Nothing goes live to the team until you publish — drafts are yours to move around first.

• ✓Add, edit, and delete shifts with a role and notes on each one
• ✓"Copy last week" clones the previous week's shifts forward as drafts to tweak, so you're rarely starting from a blank grid
• ✓Publish the week when it's ready — draft shifts become published shifts in one step
• ✓A projected labor cost totals as you build, using each employee's pay rate
• ✓Cancelled shifts are hidden rather than deleted, so a called-off shift leaves a trace

This is restaurant staff scheduling built for the way a week actually comes together: copy last week, adjust for the events and call-outs you already know about, watch the projected cost move as you go, and publish. Managers, GMs, admins, and owners can build schedules; the roster they schedule from comes straight off the Staff page, so there's no separate employee list to maintain.

A time clock on a tablet you already own

The time clock is a shared surface for a wall tablet at the location. An employee taps in a 4–6 digit PIN, sees their status, and clocks in or out — with an optional break entered on the way out. There's no personal login to manage and no leased punch station: it's the same bring-your-own-tablet model as the rest of the OS, running at its own location-scoped screen so you can dedicate a tablet to the clock by the back door.

• ✓Employees clock in and out with a PIN on a shared tablet — the restaurant time clock app is just another Opero surface
• ✓The PIN is held only for the few seconds between identifying and confirming, then cleared
• ✓Clock actions are server-decided and idempotent — a double tap or a replayed request can't double-punch someone
• ✓Optional break minutes on clock-out are subtracted from worked time
• ✓A clock-in is matched to the scheduled shift it belongs to, so actuals attribute back to the plan

Because the clock-in is tied back to the shift it belongs to, the schedule grid can show you what really happened: a live "actual versus scheduled" readout per employee, a checkmark on shifts that were worked, and a no-show flag on published shifts whose time has passed with no matching punch. The plan and the reality sit on one screen instead of two systems you compare by eye.

Labor cost, grounded in real clocked hours

This is where scheduling pays off as labor cost management. Every clock-in and clock-out writes to the same platform your sales run on, and the AI command center reads those entries against each employee's pay rate to compute labor cost — and labor as a percentage of sales — across the day, the week, and every location. The Staff page also carries a live labor panel: who's on the clock right now, and a per-employee timesheet of hours and cost for the range you pick.

Reading labor against sales is where the real operating calls live, so having both on one dashboard — grounded in the same hours the timesheet reports — means you're deciding from one number instead of arguing between two reports. Pay rates are set on the Staff page by a manager, and they drive both the schedule's projected cost and the command center's actual cost, so the plan and the result speak the same language.

Why it's on the tablets you already own

Scheduling and time clocks are a classic place to get nickel-and-dimed — a per-employee scheduling subscription here, a leased punch clock there. Opero folds both into your one per-location price. The schedule builder and the time clock are part of the platform, the clock runs on a tablet you already own, and there's no separate module fee or per-seat charge for staff you schedule.

• ✓No separate scheduling app stacked on top of your POS
• ✓No leased time-clock hardware — dedicate a tablet you already own
• ✓No per-employee scheduling seat fee — it's covered by the location's plan
• ✓Priced per location, month-to-month, so it scales cleanly as you add sites

How scheduling connects to the rest of the OS

Scheduling isn't a bolt-on — it's one surface on the same platform as everything else, so the hours it captures are the hours everyone else reads:

• ✓Staff page: the roster you schedule from, where servers get PINs and managers set pay rates
• ✓Time clock: punches attribute back to scheduled shifts and drive actual labor cost
• ✓AI command center: labor cost and labor-percent-of-sales, grounded in clocked hours, across every location
• ✓POS: sales are the other half of the labor-versus-sales picture, on the same spine
• ✓Multi-location: each site runs its own schedule and clock, rolled up in one dashboard