What is ShiftComplete? A plain-English guide for Irish venues

ShiftComplete is a staff roster and daily operations app for hospitality: pubs, restaurants, cafés, bars and hotels. It builds a fair draft roster from your staff's availability, publishes it to every phone, and keeps the food safety records an EHO asks to see (temperature logs, checklists, allergens, incidents) in the same place. It runs in the browser on any phone, tablet or computer. In Ireland it costs €1.99 per active staff member per month, with every feature included and the first 60 days free.

This page explains, in plain English, what it does, what it doesn't do, what it costs and who it suits, so you can decide quickly whether it's worth a look.

ShiftComplete at a glance

Its line is "Built for hospitality, by hospitality". The team built it inside their own venues before offering it to anyone else.

What ShiftComplete does

Staff rosters

The roster is the heart of it. Each staff member sets their availability on their phone weeks ahead: available, partial or off, with a note. The manager adds events to the days that need extra cover (a county final, a wedding, a late licence), weights the people they want on, and ShiftComplete builds a draft roster in seconds, fair across the team. The manager drags shifts around, then publishes. The roster appears on every staff member's phone under My rota and can be emailed on publish.

The details that matter in hospitality are covered:

• Split shifts: up to four time blocks per person per day.
• Staff areas you name yourself: Bar, Lounge, Kitchen, Floor, Reception, Housekeeping, Night Desk. Each block shows where someone is working.
• Day notes on the roster ("Keg delivery 9am").
• Holidays recorded, so you don't roster someone who's off, and leave requests from the phone for a manager to approve (a setting you can switch on).
• Fixed weekly schedules for people who always work the same shifts.
• Staff across venues, for people who work at more than one site in a group.

Publishing early, to everyone at once, also helps with the Irish notice rule. Where a contract doesn't fix start and finish times, section 17 of the Organisation of Working Time Act 1997 says staff must be told them at least 24 hours before the first day of the week they're rostered.

Clocking in and out

A setting you switch on. Staff clock in and out on their phone or a shared tablet. Managers see hours worked against the roster and can download hours as a spreadsheet with a total per person. That gives you real start and finish times, which are among the records the WRC can ask for. There's no GPS tracking and no facial recognition.

Temperature logs

Every fridge, freezer, hot-hold and ambient point is set up with its own minimum and maximum. Staff log readings in seconds on a phone or the tablet behind the bar. Readings outside the range are flagged on the dashboard. Photo evidence is optional, every reading is named and timestamped, and a 7-day rolling view is ready for an EHO visit. You set the limits to match FSAI guidance, such as chilled food at 5°C or below and hot holding above 63°C.

Allergens

Every menu item is mapped to the 14 allergens, grouped by course and searchable by front-of-house staff from the floor. Only managers can edit. In Ireland, S.I. No. 489 of 2014 requires allergen information for non-prepacked food to be given in writing before the customer orders. The app helps staff answer accurately; the written information on your menu, board or folder is still yours to provide.

Checklists and the daily routine

Opening, closing, cleaning and due-diligence checks that differ by weekday, plus one-off priority tasks. Every tick is named and timestamped, with optional or required photo evidence. A 2am close still counts as "today", which matters for late bars.

Incidents and maintenance

Logged in seconds with a photo, a severity, a status (open or resolved) and resolution notes, and visible on the dashboard until they're closed.

Risk assessments

Create, keep and print risk assessments in the app.

Team announcements and messages

Updates go to the team in the app, so they don't get lost in a WhatsApp group.

Reports and audit log

A weekly rollup of task completion, temperature breaches, incidents and the maintenance backlog, and a full audit log you can export as CSV.

Multi-site

Switch between venues, see a group dashboard, give area managers their own role, and add unlimited managers.

What it doesn't do

It's important to be clear about the limits, especially in Ireland:

• No payroll. There are no payslips, no PRSI or USC calculations and no link to Revenue, ROS or PAYE reporting. You can download hours worked and give them to whoever runs your payroll.
• No tips feature. There's no feature for sharing out tips or service charge. The Payment of Wages (Amendment) (Tips and Gratuities) Act 2022 rules are yours to run.
• No automatic Sunday premium or public holiday pay. The roster shows who worked the Sunday or the public holiday; working out what they're owed stays with you.
• No app in the app stores yet. It runs in the browser, which means nothing to install.
• No till, POS or accounting connections, and no text-message alerts.
• No GPS or facial recognition on clocking in.
• Not a certificate of compliance. It helps you keep the records an inspector asks to see. It's never approved or endorsed by any regulator, and the legal duties stay with you.

How it fits the Irish rules

ShiftComplete doesn't change the law, but it makes some Irish duties easier to show:

Every food business has to notify the HSE before it starts trading, and HSE EHOs carry out inspections. The app is built so that when one calls, the records are on a screen rather than in a box file.

Who uses it

ShiftComplete suits owner-operators and managers who write the roster themselves:

• Pubs, especially those with a big Sunday trade and a mix of full-timers and students.
• Restaurants running lunch and dinner with split shifts.
• Cafés with early opens and young staff.
• Hotels with several departments, weddings and night porters.
• Late bars with Special Exemption Orders and late closes.
• Small groups that want one login across sites.

It's built for hospitality only. If you have more than 100 staff, talk to the team.

A week with ShiftComplete (an example)

Here's how a 20-person food pub might use it:

• Monday: staff have their availability in for the week after next. The manager adds Saturday's match and Sunday's christening as events, weights the head chef onto the weekend, builds the draft and publishes it.
• Tuesday to Sunday: the first person in logs the fridges on the kitchen tablet and works through the opening checklist. The closing checklist is ticked at the end of each night, including the late Saturday close.
• Wednesday: the dishwasher leaks. It's logged as a maintenance job with a photo and stays on the dashboard until it's fixed.
• Thursday: the chef changes the soup. The manager updates its allergens once and every phone has the new list.
• Friday: an EHO from the HSE calls. The manager opens the 7-day temperature view and the checklist history.
• Sunday: the manager reads the weekly report: task completion, any temperature breaches, open incidents and maintenance.

Our own hospitality group

ShiftComplete was built inside our own hospitality group, Kirkham Hospitality, which runs The Lounge in Oswestry and Knock & Snitch. Owner Graeme Kirkham:

"The rota stopped being a Sunday-night argument the week we switched over. The chef stopped being the only person who knows what's in the kitchen. And the EHO turn up to a screen, not a box file." Graeme Kirkham, Owner, The Lounge Oswestry & Knock & Snitch

How much ShiftComplete costs

€1.99 per active staff member per month. Every feature is included: rosters, clocking in and out, temperature logs, allergens, checklists, incidents and maintenance, risk assessments, announcements, reports and multi-site. There's no per-site fee and no contract, and you can remove staff at any time.

More than 100 staff: talk to the team.

How to start

1. Start the free trial. It's free for 60 days and you don't need a card.
2. Add your venue, your staff areas and your team. Set-up takes about five minutes.
3. Ask staff to set their availability, then build and publish your first roster.
4. Add your fridges, freezers and hot-hold points, your checklists and your menu's allergens.

If you'd like a hand, book a free 15-minute set-up call. For the rules behind the roster, read our guide to the Organisation of Working Time Act in hospitality, and before an inspection, work through our EHO inspection checklist.