⏱️ Punchcard
Time tracking and timesheet approval you own forever.
QuickBooks Time is $10+ per user per month plus a base fee — for 10 employees that is over $1,200 a year, forever, and your wage data lives in their cloud. Punchcard is the core of it self-hosted: clock in/out with breaks, a PIN kiosk, audited timesheets, an approval queue and payroll CSV export. $29, once.
Punchcard screenshot is being captured — the app is shipped and real.
Features
Clock in / out / break
One-click punch board per employee; daily hours computed from punch pairs with breaks deducted.
PIN kiosk mode
A big-button PIN pad at /kiosk for a shared tablet or front desk; one tap toggles in/out, no admin session, disable it in settings.
Weekly timesheets
Hours by day with punch-level detail; edits require an audit note recording who changed what and why, in integer cents.
Approval queue
Submit, then approve or reject with a comment (required on reject), bulk approve, full decision audit trail.
Overtime flagging
Configurable weekly threshold (default 40h) and multiplier (default 1.5x), highlighted everywhere OT appears.
Payroll CSV export
Employee, period, regular hours, OT hours and pay, formatted for common payroll imports.
Punchcard vs QuickBooks Time
QuickBooks Time at $10/user/mo runs roughly $1200/year — $2,400 over two years. Punchcard is $29, once.
| Punchcard | QuickBooks Time | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $29 once | $10/user/mo |
| 10 employees, 1 year | $29 | $1,200+ |
| Clock in/out + breaks | Yes | Yes |
| Kiosk PIN punch | Yes | Yes |
| Timesheet approval + audit | Yes | Yes |
| Overtime flagging | Yes | Yes |
| Payroll CSV export | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted, data stays yours | Yes | No |
Less than one month of QuickBooks Time for a 10-person crew pays for Punchcard forever.
Three steps, no subscription
Buy once on Whop
One payment of $29 gets you the packaged Windows installer with updates, or clone the MIT source at github.com/bensblueprints/timesheet-approval and run it free.
Run desktop or deploy
Run npm run desktop (great for a front-desk kiosk), or docker compose onto a $5 VPS when you need it public.
Start punching
Employees clock in from the punch board or the /kiosk PIN pad, and managers approve the weekly timesheets.
Honest answers
Is it really free on GitHub?
Yes — Punchcard is MIT-licensed at github.com/bensblueprints/timesheet-approval. The $29 buys the packaged Windows installer and updates; building from source is free.
Where does my wage data live?
In a SQLite file on your own server — wage and payroll data never leaves your box.
Is this a subscription in disguise?
No. $29 once, no renewal, no per-user monthly fee.
Own Punchcard forever
$29 once. Deploy on your own server — your data never leaves it. No renewal, no account with us, no meter. Or build it yourself from the MIT source — it's the same app.