Security guard payroll and billing
begin with hours you can prove
Payroll and invoicing both consume the same thing: a defensible record of who worked which post, for how long, and whether anybody can dispute it afterwards. That record is what CGuardPro produces — clock-ins tied to a geofence and a selfie, stamped by the server, reconciled against the shift that was scheduled, and totalled by officer, post and client for the period. With the Payslips add-on those hours become each period's payroll sheet and a payslip per worker — base pay, overtime, night, Sunday and holiday premiums, statutory deductions, bonuses, fines and loans — using your country's template adjusted to your company. Paying the wages stays with your bank and filing stays with your accountant.
Real product screenshots
Short answer
Security guard payroll and billing depend on a defensible record of who worked which post and for how long. CGuardPro produces that record: clock-ins with a selfie, a geofence check and server time, reconciled against the scheduled shift and totaled by officer, post and client for the period. With the Payslips add-on, CGuardPro also calculates each period's payroll sheet and every worker's payslip, as PDF and Excel. It does not pay wages, connect to banks or file with tax authorities: the documents and the export go to whoever runs your payroll.
At a glance
- Punch evidence
- Selfie, geofence check and server time
- Reconciliation
- Worked versus scheduled hours, shift by shift
- Totals
- By officer, post and client per period
- Export
- CSV, Excel or PDF
- Payslips
- Payslips add-on: payroll sheet and payslip as PDF and Excel, USD 200 one-time
- Payments
- Not processed; wages are still paid from your bank
Where the money quietly leaks
The hour dispute you cannot win
An officer says they started at six; the sheet at the post says quarter past. There is no evidence either way, so you pay the fifteen minutes — and you pay it again next month, at every post where the same argument is available.
Overtime discovered on the register
A guard picks up coverage at a second client, crosses the threshold, and nobody sees it until the period closes. By then the spread between what you paid and what you can bill has already happened and there is nothing left to decide.
The invoice line the client will not pay
You bill twelve hours at a post the client believes was covered for ten. Rebuilding the week from paper sheets takes an afternoon, the invoice sits in receivables while you do it, and the relationship pays interest on the delay.
How the hours are built
The shift is planned before it is worked
The rotation for each post produces the schedule, blocks double-booking at the source and respects rest days, so the hours you are about to owe were a decision rather than an accident.
The punch puts the officer at the post
Clock-in takes a selfie, checks the position against the post's geofence and takes its time from the server rather than the phone, which is what makes the punch worth quoting back to somebody weeks later.
Exceptions surface inside the period
Late arrivals, no-shows, absences and early departures that need a supervisor's approval are visible while the period is open. A shift running long is a decision you make that night, not a number you read afterwards.
Totals come out by officer, post and client
Actual hours reconcile against scheduled hours and consolidate for the period, exportable for the run. The same record answers the payroll question and backs the billable hours on the invoice.
One record, two jobs
- Every punch carries a selfie, a geofence check and the server's clock, never the phone's
- Scheduled hours reconciled against worked hours, shift by shift
- Late arrivals, no-shows and early departures visible while you can still act on them
- Early departures that require a supervisor's approval before the officer leaves
- Period totals by officer, post and client, ready to export for the payroll run
- Payslips add-on: payroll sheet and numbered payslips as PDF and Excel, with official item codes where the country has them
- Wages are still paid from your bank, and filings stay with your accountant
Guides on this topic
Bill Rate vs. Pay Rate: The Spread That Runs Your Company
Bill rate vs pay rate: what actually has to live inside the spread, which costs owners forget, and why a small pay increase reshapes an entire contract.
Security Guard Timesheets: From Paper to Payroll
Security guard timesheets go wrong in predictable places: rounding, missed punches, unapproved overtime. Here is what a clean period close looks like.
Guard Software Payroll Integrations, Explained
Security guard software QuickBooks integration usually syncs hours and job codes, but pay rates, overtime and deductions often still need manual review.
Bridging Weekly Payroll and Net-30 Client Pay
Security guard payroll funding cash flow gap: why guards get paid weekly while clients settle net-30, and the levers to close the timing gap.
Frequently asked questions
Does CGuardPro run payroll? +
It calculates it; it does not pay it. With the Payslips add-on (USD 200, one-time) CGuardPro turns the period's verified hours into a payroll sheet and a payslip per worker, with overtime, premiums, statutory deductions, bonuses, fines and loan installments, as PDF and Excel. It does not cut cheques, move money, connect to banks or file anything with a tax authority, and US federal and state withholding should be checked by your payroll provider. If you need wages paid and taxes filed inside the same product as guard operations, that points at a different kind of vendor.
Does it generate client invoices? +
No. CGuardPro is operations software and does not issue invoices; the invoice is produced in your accounting system. What it gives you is what the invoice rests on. What makes an invoice stick is the half the argument actually turns on: hours by post and by client for the period, with the service evidence behind them — verified tours, activity reports and incidents at that site on those dates. Export it by client and post for the period, and the billable record your accounting system invoices from is the same one your officers produced.
An officer disputes two hours from last Tuesday. What do we show them? +
The punch itself. Time from the server, the selfie taken at that moment, the position checked against the post's geofence, and the scheduled shift it was reconciled against. A conversation that used to be one memory against another becomes a record both people are reading at the same time, which is usually the end of it.
How do we see overtime before it becomes a cost? +
By watching it while the period is open rather than closed. The scheduler will not double-book an officer or ignore rest days, coverage gaps and absences raise alerts the same day, and and worked hours accumulate against the schedule as the period runs, with overtime recorded per shift rather than discovered at the close. Ask during the evaluation how the threshold that matters in your jurisdiction is configured — that answer varies by market and it is the one to get in writing.
Half our sites are basements with no signal. What happens to those hours? +
Ask this of every vendor and make them show it in airplane mode, because the answers differ more than the brochures suggest. On CGuardPro the clock-in itself needs a connection at the moment of the punch — so for a post with no coverage at the door, the practical answer is to establish where the signal actually reaches and clock in there, which is what most operations end up doing anyway. Incidents and their photos do queue on the device and upload later carrying the time they happened. The honest version of this answer is worth more to you than a confident one: get it demonstrated, at your worst post, before you sign.
The client says we billed for a post that went uncovered. How is that settled? +
By reading the site's own record for those dates: the punches at that post, the tours completed on it and the reports filed from it. Where a post genuinely went uncovered, the alert for it already exists in your history, which is an uncomfortable but far cheaper conversation than a credit note argued from nothing.
What can we get out of it at the end of the period, and in what format? +
Attendance and hours consolidate by officer, post and client for the range you ask for, and export for the payroll run as CSV, Excel or PDF, so nobody keys sheets into a spreadsheet. Ask for a sample export during the evaluation and hand it to whoever runs your payroll before you sign — the column layout is the detail that decides whether this saves them a day a month or costs them one.
Do our clients see pay rates in their portal? +
No. The client portal is built around proof of service at their own sites: tours, reports, incidents, visitor activity and notices when the officer at their site clocks in and out. What you pay an officer and what you charge for the post are your commercial business and do not belong in a customer-facing view.
Run one payroll week through it
Book a demo and bring a week you argued about: we walk it from the geofenced punch to the exported totals, and you decide whether it would have settled the dispute.