Servatto
Start free
Blog

From clock-in to payroll file: Servatto timecards and the CSV export

11 November 2026

Pay day for a café usually means one thing: getting from "who worked when" to a file your bookkeeper or payroll software can use. Servatto handles the first half of that trip and hands you a CSV for the second. This is what happens in between, and where it stops.

Where the hours come from

Staff clock in and out on the Register with their PIN. They can do it without signing in to the till, and a manager can clock people in or out from a list. If the internet drops, PIN clock-ins carry on and sync later.

Each clock-in opens a timecard. Clock-out closes it, and breaks add up along the way. Two clock-ins less than two minutes apart merge into one shift, so a double tap doesn't give someone two shifts.

When someone forgets

Everyone forgets sometimes. Servatto doesn't guess for you:

  • A shift left open for 16 hours is closed automatically at its clock-in time, so it counts as zero hours, and it's put up for a manager to check. It doesn't quietly pay someone 16 hours.
  • In the Back Office, Team → Timecards lists what needs you first. You set the real clock-out, add any unpaid break and save.

Any change to the times needs a note saying why. Servatto refuses the save without one, along with times that don't make sense, like a clock-out before the clock-in. The shift's timeline keeps who changed what.

How pay is worked out

Each person has one hourly rate in their Team record. Only the owner can see or change rates, and they stay hidden until the owner presses Show. When you change a rate you pick the date it applies from (today or earlier), so a pay rise from 3 October doesn't reprice the shift that started on 2 October.

Two settings under Settings → Team & pay → Pay & holidays matter here, and only the owner can change them:

  • Breaks paid or unpaid. With unpaid breaks, the break comes off the hours.
  • State or territory. Public holidays are loaded for the one you choose (any of VIC, NSW, QLD, SA, WA, TAS, ACT or NT). Local days, like a show day, you add by hand. You can also mark one as "don't observe".

Now the honest part. Servatto splits each shift into weekday, Saturday, Sunday and public holiday hours, and shows them separately. But it prices every hour at the person's one rate. It does not apply penalty rates, overtime, super or tax. If your awards need those, the split hours are there to help you do that in your payroll software, not to replace it.

The export

Pick a week, a fortnight (your pay cycle is set in the same settings) or your own dates, choose the shop, and fix anything under "Timecards need you" first. Then press Export for payroll. You get a file named like timecards-2026-11-02-to-2026-11-08.csv. The Manager app has the same export under Reports, or More → Timecards.

The file has two parts:

  1. Every timecard: name, location, clock-in, clock-out, break in minutes, hours worked, hours counted in this period, and the note. Times are on the shop's own clock, not UTC, so a 6 am start reads as 6 am.
  2. A summary per person: total hours, weekday, Saturday, Sunday and public holiday hours, and pay. If someone has no rate, the pay column says "rate not set" rather than showing zero.

A pay period starts and ends at 5 am, not midnight. A shift that runs across that 5 am edge is paid once: the part before goes in one period and the part after in the next, so the rows add up to the totals.

It's an export. Your bookkeeper or payroll software imports the file; Servatto isn't connected directly to it, and there's no Servatto fee for the export.

Rosters, briefly

The same Team section has a weekly roster grid. Add shifts with a start, end, unpaid break, role and note, or copy last week and adjust. The grid shows each day's rostered hours and cost against the same rates the timecards use, and tells you when someone has no rate.

Shifts stay drafts until you publish. Staff see them through the Servatto Crew phone app, which is rolling out and isn't in the app stores yet. Staff need an invitation from their employer. Until then, the roster is your planning tool and PIN clock-in on the Register is how hours are recorded.

What it doesn't do

  • It doesn't pay anyone, and it isn't a payroll connection.
  • It doesn't calculate penalty rates, overtime, super or tax.
  • A shift on a till that was never clocked out still needs a human to check it.

Try it

Rosters and timecards are in the Back Office at app.servatto.com. Setup help is at [email protected].

Servatto publishes this post and sells the software described in it.