OtisIO for construction
The new industry standard.
Facial recognition clock-in without the scanner kit, on tablets and phones you already own. Workers clock in by face recognition that copes with gloves, dust and plasters, a site can prevent a clock-in until right-to-work evidence and the site induction are done, and every one of your sites shows who is on it right now. One platform runs the clock, the compliance, the plant register, the rota and payroll export, for one all-inclusive monthly price across all your sites. Nothing to bolt to a wall. It costs less, does more, and works the way your sites already work, so nobody has to change how they work to fit the software.
One all-inclusive plan priced for your whole estate. No hardware to buy, and no licence per device.
Updated September 2026
- Groundworkers
- Steel fixers
- Carpenters
- Bricklayers
- Scaffolders
- Electricians
- Plumbers
- Plant operators
- Dryliners
- Roofers
- Traffic marshals
- Site managers
- Agency labour
- Subcontractors
Time and attendance
Face, PIN, GPS, tag and QR clock-in, timesheets, payroll, CIS.
People and compliance
Right-to-work evidence, inductions, cards with expiry, checks at clock-in.
Site safety
RAMS and toolbox talks signed by site, emergency roll call, visitors, inspections.
Plant and kit
Register, hire costs and off-hire, inspections, sign-for-it.
A normal day
From the gate to payroll
- 1Clock in at the gate
- 2On the site register
- 3Hours on the timesheet
- 4Exported for payroll
The problem
A contractor running ten sites is really running ten versions of the same three problems: proving who was on which site, getting churning agency labour compliant before they start, and knowing where the plant is. The systems this industry has been sold answer only the first one, and they answer it with a scanner kit bolted to each site gate, a licence per site, and an invoice that grows every time you open a new one. Time and attendance is the start of the job, not the job. The clock, the right-to-work check, the induction, the CSCS card, the plant register and the payroll run belong in one system, priced for the whole estate rather than per gate.
01
Built for the site
Most workforce software is written for people at desks and then squeezed onto a site. This is the other way round. Clock-in works at the gate on a tablet in a case, a phone in a pocket, a tag you tap on the hoarding, or a code on a screen that changes every couple of minutes. Buddy clocking, one worker punching in for a mate who is not there, is a real cost on a site, and every one of those routes is built against it: the face at the gate is matched to the person, the tag has to be physically tapped at the gate, and the code on the screen has expired within a couple of minutes, so a photograph of it is not worth passing on. Punches made in a signal dead spot save in the staff app with their true time and sync when coverage returns, and the day's register builds itself from what actually happened at the gate. Timesheets carry the site and the job so labour costs correctly, day-rate and hourly pay are both understood, and approved hours export to your finance system. The office gets its reports because the site got a tool it will actually use.
02
Face recognition that works with gloves on
Fingerprint scanners and construction sites disagree: gloves, dirt, cuts, plasters and cold mornings all defeat the reader, and the queue at the gate grows while people wipe their hands and try again. Face recognition does not care about any of it. Workers look at a tablet at the gate and they are clocked in, matched on the device itself, opt-in per person with a PIN always available as the alternative. The kiosk runs on tablets you already own, even old ones, so there is no face scanner to buy, no engineer visit to install it, and nothing to take off the wall and refit when the site closes and the next one opens. Crews clocking in on their own phones can be asked for a selfie that is checked against their enrolled face, flagged for a manager to review or refused outright at the sites that want the harder rule.
03
Nobody sets foot on site unchecked
Agency churn is where compliance breaks. A new labourer arrives Monday morning, the paperwork is somewhere between the agency and the office, and the site manager has a choice between turning work away and taking a risk. Here the gate is in the software: the right-to-work share code and document are captured, and the site induction completed, before a worker can clock in at that site, if you choose to hold them. Send RAMS, toolbox talks and site rules to a whole site or a trade in one go, see who has read and signed them, and complete inductions on a phone with signatures and photo evidence, and once a worker is cleared their record travels with them to your next site instead of starting from zero. High churn stops being a compliance hole and becomes a list of people the system clears for you, in order.
Cards and qualifications live on each worker's profile with expiry dates and reminders, CSCS cards, plant tickets, first aid, whatever your sites require, so an expiring ticket surfaces weeks before it becomes a gate refusal. Switch the check on and a shift that needs a ticket can warn, or refuse the clock-in, when the worker's card has lapsed.
Every site is different. Your package should be too.
Tell us how many sites, gates and people you run, and we will build a package around them.
04
Who is on which site, right now
Ask a contractor with ten sites who is on site four right now and the honest answer is usually a phone call. Here it is a screen. Every site keeps a live register built from real punches at the gate, and the estate view rolls them up: headcount per site, who is where, and who has not turned up where they were planned. Workers move between sites without re-registering, and a site that wants people tied to it can be locked down so only its own crew can clock in there. The site register answers who is inside the gate this minute on any phone, and when the alarm goes, a roll call opens from that same register with everyone on the clock and every signed-in visitor on it, ticked off at the muster point. When the client or the HSE asks who was on site on a given day, the register is a report, not a reconstruction.
Every site also produces one A4 sheet a day, built from the gate: who clocked in and out, which visitors signed in, what plant was on site, and the day's site diary. Printed or emailed to the client without anybody typing it up.
05
The plant register runs in the same app as the people
Kit walks. Plant sits on the wrong site earning rental charges. Weekly inspections live in a damp folder in the site cabin. The asset register puts all of it in the same system as the workforce: every item of plant and kit is listed with where it is and who signed it out, weekly inspections are scheduled and recorded against each machine with photos, damage is flagged the day it happens rather than at demob, and rental costs are tracked against the asset so the digger that should have gone off-hire three weeks ago stops being a surprise on the invoice. Sign-out is on-screen with a signature, so "who had the breaker last" has an answer with a name on it.
See it running on one of your sites
Book a call and we will show you the gate, the register and the plant list, set up around how you work.
Built from these features
Every capability above is a page in its own right, with screenshots and the detail.
What it costs
Priced for the estate, not per gate
The fingerprint and face systems this industry knows are sold per site: a scanner kit of hardware at each gate, an annual licence for each site on top, and often a further charge as agency workers churn through. Open a new site and the bill grows; close one and the kit sits in a store. Across ten sites that model typically runs to tens of thousands in year one for time and attendance alone. OtisIO inverts it: one all-inclusive plan priced for your whole estate, not per gate. That covers the whole platform, the facial recognition clock-in, the checks that hold people off site, the live registers, plant and asset management, scheduling, HR, expenses, timesheets and payroll export, priced for the people who use it, on as many devices as you like. It runs on tablets and phones you already own, so the hardware line is zero, it is set up around how you already run your sites rather than the other way round, and opening your next site is a line on one invoice, not a purchase order and an engineer visit. Estate pricing is bespoke: tell us how many sites you run and we will quote a single monthly figure.
- One system running your whole workforce
- One plan
- One system running your whole workforce
- forced hardware: use the tablets and phones you have, or choose your own, with no licence per device
- Zero
- forced hardware: use the tablets and phones you have, or choose your own, with no licence per device
- clock-ins on the staff app keep their true time with no signal, and send when it returns
- Offline
- clock-ins on the staff app keep their true time with no signal, and send when it returns
- deductions worked out on approved hours, with the monthly figures ready for your accountant
- CIS
- deductions worked out on approved hours, with the monthly figures ready for your accountant
In the field
Proving it on live sites
OtisIO's construction platform is in daily use on live construction sites, clocking real gates, gating real inductions and tracking real plant. We would rather show you than tell you: book a demo and we will walk you through the same screens a running contractor uses.
Questions from construction teams
Does face recognition work with PPE on?
Yes for the PPE that matters at a gate. Gloves are irrelevant because nothing is touched, and dust, plasters and hard hats do not stop a face match. Workers look at the tablet and they are clocked in, matched on the device itself, and a PIN is always available as the alternative for anyone who has not opted in.
How fast can an agency worker be cleared for site?
As fast as they can complete the checks on their phone. Right-to-work verification and the site induction are completed with signatures and photo evidence, the system holds site admission until both are signed off, and once a worker is cleared their record travels with them to your next site instead of starting from zero.
What hardware do we need at the gate?
A tablet you already own, even an old one, running the kiosk in a case. There is no face scanner to buy, no engineer visit to install it, and nothing to take off the wall and refit when the site closes and the next one opens. Workers can also clock in from their own phones, and an optional tag at the gate is written from the app in seconds.
How is it priced across multiple sites?
It is one plan for your whole estate, billed by invoice. That covers the whole platform on as many devices as you like: the clock-in, the checks that hold people off site, live registers, plant and asset management, scheduling, HR, timesheets and payroll export. There is no hardware line and no charge per device. You pay for the people who use it and get more for it: the whole platform in one plan, set up around the way your sites already work, so nobody has to work a certain way to fit the system. Tell us how many sites and people you run and we will quote a single monthly figure.
Does clock-in work where there is no signal?
On phones, yes. In the staff app, offline punches save on the phone with the exact time they were made and sync automatically once signal returns, and the recorded time is the moment the person tapped, not the moment it synced. The tablet at the gate needs site wifi or a hotspot to record a punch.
Does it work out CIS deductions?
Yes. Subcontractors and labour companies carry their registration and its status, the deduction comes off the labour on an approved week and never off materials, and the monthly return figures and the statements are worked out for you. Filing the return stays with your payroll software or your accountant.
See it on one of your sites
Tell us how many sites and people you run, and we will build a package around them and show you the gate, the register and the plant list running on one of your own sites.