Why no-install matters more than it sounds
For permanent staff, installing a time-clock app is a one-off annoyance. For everyone else it is the thing that kills the rollout. A crew that changes every week, volunteers who turn up twice a year, contractors whose phones are managed by someone else, agency staff on a three-day placement: the install is a bigger obstacle than the task.
Account creation is worse than the install. An account means an email address, a password, a verification step and a record you are now responsible for deleting afterwards. For a fortnight of casual work, nobody involved wants any of that.
The four options, honestly compared
Paper sign-in sheet
Costs nothing, works everywhere, never breaks. It is also unreadable by the fourth week, impossible to total without retyping, and trivially filled in on someone else's behalf. It remains the correct answer for very small or very occasional groups, and there is no shame in it.
Google Form behind a printed QR code
Free, no install, no account if you allow anonymous responses, and the data lands in a spreadsheet ready to pivot. The limits are real: there is no camera scanner, so each person types their name; a submission with no signal is lost rather than queued; and the URL works from anywhere, so it does not evidence presence at the site.
Shared kiosk device
One tablet or spare phone at the entrance, left on the scanner page. Each person presents a printed badge and it is read in about a second. Nobody touches their own phone, nobody installs anything, and there is exactly one device to charge and look after. For a large crew this is both the cheapest and the fastest option.
Scanner link on the worker's own phone
Each person opens a URL in their existing browser and scans a station code. No install and no account, but every phone that scans becomes a registered device, so this is the expensive shape for a large team. It suits situations where people arrive at different places rather than filing past one entrance.
| Capability | Google Form + printed QR (free) | QR to Sheets |
|---|---|---|
| Install required | None | None |
| Account required | None, if anonymous responses are on | None |
| Camera scanner | No, the person types their name | Yes, reads a printed badge in the browser |
| Speed at a shift change | Slow, a queue forms | About a second per person |
| Consistent values | No, names arrive with spelling variants | Yes, the badge encodes one exact value |
| No signal | The response is lost | Queued on the device, syncs later |
| Cost for a 30-person crew on one shared tablet | Free | 7 USD per month, because it is one device |
| Proves who presented the code | No | No |
Written by QR to Sheets. The Google Forms column is not a straw man: it is free and we would rather you used it than paid for capability you do not need. The scanner earns its money at a queue, in a dead zone, or when typed names stop being reliable.
What no-account does not mean
Removing the account removes the identity check along with it. This is the honest trade and it should be stated before anyone buys, not after.
- A scan proves a code was presented to a camera at a time. It does not prove who was holding it, and a printed code can be photographed or passed along.
- Device registration narrows this usefully, because scans then come from a known allow-listed device rather than any phone in the world, but it binds a device rather than a person.
- If you genuinely need to prove identity, you need something the person cannot hand over, which means a per-person credential or a biometric system, and each of those brings back the account, the privacy questions and in several jurisdictions a legal obligation to offer an alternative.
- None of this produces a payroll-grade record. It records presence.
For volunteer hours, site sign-in, event crew and school presence, that trade is usually the right one: the value is a reliable headcount and a timestamped record in a spreadsheet you own, not proof of identity. For wage payment in a jurisdiction with real record-keeping duties, it is the wrong trade and a purpose-built system is the correct purchase.
Setting it up
Connect your Google account, create a scanner link and pick the spreadsheet it writes to, then share the URL or print its QR code. For arrival and departure both, create two links named Clock in and Clock out pointed at the same spreadsheet, which is covered in the companion guide. Set the workspace timezone in Settings first, or timestamps default to UTC and land on the wrong day for anyone working nights.
Step by step
- 1
Work out who is refusing to install what, and why
The answer differs. Temporary and rotating staff will not install anything for a two-week job. Volunteers should not be asked to. Personal-phone objections are often about privacy or storage rather than effort. Contractors may be barred by their own employer's device policy.
- 2
Start with paper or a Google Form
A clipboard needs nothing. A Google Form behind a printed QR code needs nothing installed either, and puts the data straight into a spreadsheet. If your team is small and honest and has signal, this is genuinely sufficient and costs nothing.
- 3
Move to a browser scanner when typing becomes the bottleneck
The moment a queue forms at a shift change, or names start arriving misspelled three different ways, the typing is the problem. A camera scanner reads a printed badge in about a second and writes a consistent value every time.
- 4
Choose the shared-device shape if you can
One tablet or old phone at the entrance, scanning each person's badge, is one registered device. That is dramatically cheaper here than every worker scanning on their own phone, because billing counts devices rather than people.
- 5
Post the link, do not distribute an install
A scanner link is a URL. Send it by WhatsApp or email, or print its QR code and tape it up. There is nothing to roll out, no app store, no shared login to manage and nobody to deprovision when the job ends.
Frequently asked questions
Do staff really not need to install anything?+
Correct. A scanner link is a URL that opens the camera inside the phone's existing browser. There is no app store step, no download and no profile to create. The person scanning never has an account of any kind, which is also why there is nothing to deprovision when they leave.
Does it work on both iPhone and Android?+
Yes, in the phone's own browser. The requirement is a reasonably current browser: Safari 16.4 or later on iPhone, Chrome 111 or later on Android. Older devices are shown a notice explaining the page will not work rather than failing silently.
Can one tablet serve the whole team?+
Yes, and it is the cheapest and fastest arrangement. Leave one tablet or spare phone on the scanner page at the entrance and scan each person's printed badge. That is one registered device at 7 USD per month regardless of how many people file past it.
What stops someone scanning a colleague's badge?+
Nothing technical, and no honest vendor should claim otherwise. A badge is a token, so the controls that work are physical and procedural: put the scanning station where a supervisor can see it, or have a supervisor operate it. Device registration limits which devices can submit scans at all, which is a real control, but it binds a device rather than a person.
Is it free?+
There is a free plan covering 300 lifetime scans, one scanner link, one Sheet connection and one registered device, which is enough to test the whole flow. Beyond that it is 7 USD per registered device per month. Note that clock in and clock out together need two links, which is a paid configuration.