At what point does attendance tracking stop being “casual” and start needing a real system?

I’ve worked in places where attendance was basically informal. People showed up, maybe someone kept a rough record, and it worked, until it didn’t.

Once the team grows, even slightly, things get fuzzy. Who actually worked which hours, who covered which shift, whether PTO was recorded properly, or if overtime was approved. None of it is a big issue alone, but together it creates constant small confusion.

That’s usually when teams realize memory and spreadsheets don’t scale. I’ve seen some switch to tools like Buddy Punch just to get clean clock in clock out data and avoid the daily back-and-forth.

Curious how others experienced this. Was there a specific moment where you realized attendance tracking needed to change?