Gym staff management: permissions, attendance and payroll

Staff costs are usually the biggest line in a gym's expenses, and the hardest to keep track of. Who came late this week? How much did the morning receptionist take as an advance? Does the coach who sold six memberships get a bonus this month? In many gyms the answers live in the owner's head and a notebook, and payday is a long evening with a calculator.

GymLeb brings staff into the same system as your members and money. This guide covers the three layers: accounts and permissions, attendance, and payroll with commissions.

Staff accounts and permissions

Every person who uses the dashboard gets their own login under Staff management, then Staff, with Add Staff. Shared logins are the first thing to stop: when everyone logs in as "reception", nobody is responsible for anything.

Permissions are a grid grouped by area (members and sales, member details, classes and training, finance, reports, gym and team), with view, add, edit and delete for each. To save time there are ready presets:

• Front desk: the daily work at the desk, with no reports.
• Accountant: the money side, with the financial reports (overview, profit and loss, revenue, cash flow and breakdowns).
• Manager: a wider set that includes every report.
• Full access.

Presets are a starting point: tick or untick any box afterwards.

You can also limit a staff member to certain expense categories, so the person who records cleaning supplies does not see salaries. Personal trainers have a fixed ceiling of permissions they can never be given, whatever the preset.

Other everyday tools on the staff list: shift times per person, Archive for someone who left (their history stays), and Move members to hand a departing coach's members, sessions and packages to someone else, with an undo if you change your mind.

Staff attendance from the door

If your gym uses Hikvision access control, staff can be enrolled on the terminal with their face, fingerprint or card, just like members. Every granted scan becomes a punch. With the Payroll add-on, managers can also enter punches by hand, for example when the terminal was down.

Staff management, then Staff Attendance, turns those punches into a daily record for each person: present, late, absent, incomplete, on leave, holiday or day off, with worked minutes, late minutes, early leave and overtime. Days close automatically every night. When something is wrong, a manager can Correct a day (a reason is required, so changes are traceable), Add punch or Close a day.

A few settings make it match how your gym works: how punches are paired (first and last of the day, or in and out alternately), how close two scans must be to count as one, and how many minutes of lateness you tolerate before a day counts as late.

Staff do not clock themselves in from a phone or the dashboard. Punches come from the terminal or from a manager, which is what makes them worth trusting. Staff attendance needs either the access control add-on or the Payroll add-on.

Payroll without the calculator

The Payroll add-on adds a Payroll page with tabs for runs, pay profiles, recurring items, leaves and holidays, and advances.

Pay profiles

Each staff member gets a pay type: monthly salary, hourly, daily or commission only. You can choose whether their PT pay and sales commission go on the payslip. Recurring allowances (transport, for example) and recurring deductions are set once and repeat every month.

Leaves, holidays and advances

Annual, sick, unpaid and other leaves are entered by the owner or a manager, along with public holidays, so a holiday is not counted as an absence. Salary advances are recorded with the number of months to repay, and each payslip takes its instalment automatically. That alone ends a lot of awkward conversations.

Running the month

1. Generate payroll creates a draft payslip for each staff member, using their pay profile, attendance, leaves, commissions and advances. A draft for last month is also prepared automatically on the 1st.
2. Review the drafts. Recalculate if you fixed attendance or added something.
3. Approve all, then Pay all approved. Paying records the salaries and commissions as expenses, so your profit and loss is right without entering them twice.

If you paid by mistake, Undo payment reverses it. Payslips can be printed for staff who want a copy. Late penalties, absence deductions and overtime (at a rate of at least 1.5) are configurable. Tax and social security are not calculated for you; add them as deductions if you need them.

Commissions and PT pay

The Staff Performance add-on adds pay and commission plans:

• Sales commission plans: choose which sales count (memberships, PT packages, single PT sessions, and optionally products), set targets and tiers, and add a bonus for reaching a target. Rates can differ for new and existing clients.
• PT pay plans: pay trainers a percent of the session value or a flat amount per completed session, with tiers and rules for no-shows and late cancellations. Our personal training guide explains how sessions are counted.

Staff see their own numbers on My earnings, My payslips and the My month card on their dashboard. The Staff Performance report shows the same picture for the owner.

A simple routine for the owner

• First week of the month: check last month's drafts, approve and pay.
• Every Monday: open Staff Attendance and fix incomplete days while people still remember.
• When someone leaves: move their members, then archive them. Never delete; you lose the history.
• When you change a policy: update the setting (late grace, overtime) before the month starts, not halfway through.

Staff accounts and permissions are included in every plan. Payroll, Staff Performance and Staff Follow-ups are add-ons, also sold as a staff bundle; see the pricing page. If you want help mapping your current salary rules into pay profiles, talk to us.