GPS attendance app with an office geofence and fake-GPS flags

What is a GPS attendance app?

A GPS attendance app stamps every clock in and clock out with the phone’s location, then tests that position against a circle drawn around the workplace. AutoDial CRM brings this check to the punch in its staff attendance app, with the circle set separately for each branch.

The circle is called a geofence. In AutoDial CRM the owner gives every branch its own radius, so a large warehouse and a small shop front do not have to share one number. When someone punches, the phone reports where it is, and the punch is marked as inside or outside that branch’s circle. A second switch on the same branch decides what happens to an outside punch: accept it, which suits reps who start at a customer’s premises, or refuse it, which suits a reception desk. If the phone has no data at that moment, the punch is kept on the device with its time and uploaded later. For staff who also switch on live location, positions that come from a fake GPS app are flagged for the office. The location test sits next to a live selfie on the same punch, and the app runs on Android and iPhone. Each of these behaviours was checked against the product’s feature list on 14 October 2026.

GPS attendance app benefits

• One radius per branch

  Each office, store or depot gets a circle sized to its own building.

• Clear inside or outside result

  Every punch shows whether it was made within the branch circle.

• Choice for field teams

  Branches with visiting staff can accept punches made away from the office.

• No lost punches in dead zones

  A punch without data waits on the phone and syncs when signal returns.

• Spoofing made visible

  Fake GPS positions are flagged for the office instead of passing silently.

GPS attendance app geofence settings

Choosing the radius is the one setting that needs thought. Phones inside concrete buildings often report a position some distance from where the person sits, so a circle drawn tight around the walls will reject honest punches. Too wide, and the coffee shop across the road counts as the office. The table below is a starting point, not a rule from the product; test with two or three staff before rolling it out.

GPS attendance app: outside-office punches

Not every employee starts the day at the same door. A rep may begin at a customer’s shop, a technician at a job site. For those branches, turn outside punches on: the punch is still saved with its position, so the manager can see where the day began rather than receiving a refusal and a phone call. For a front desk, turn it off and a punch from the bus stop will not pass.

Because the rule sits on the branch, one company can run both styles at once. Put desk staff in one branch with outside punches refused, and field staff in another branch that accepts them, with the same working hours if you like.

Location based attendance app: fake GPS and offline punches

Two problems trouble every location based attendance app: people faking their position, and phones that lose signal at the wrong moment.

• Fake GPS: when an employee has live location on, readings that come from a location-faking app are flagged for the office and kept out of the day’s kilometres, along with jumps no vehicle could make. The full route side of this is on the employee location tracking app page.
• No signal: a punch made in a lift lobby or basement is held on the phone with the time it was made and sent once the phone is online again.

For the camera half of the same punch, see the selfie attendance app. A plain explanation of the wider term is on what is geotag attendance.

GPS attendance app setup

1. Get every employee onto AutoDial CRM, signed in under the company account.
2. Create a branch for each workplace and set its geofence radius.
3. Decide per branch whether punches from outside the circle are accepted.
4. Ask staff to keep the phone’s location service on and make a test punch at their desk.
5. Widen the radius if honest punches show as outside, then go live.

GPS attendance app limits

GPS on a phone is approximate, and the error grows indoors, underground and between tall buildings, so a geofence works best with some slack. AutoDial CRM flags fake GPS points for the office; it does not promise that every spoofing trick is caught, and it does not block a punch because of one. There is no Wi-Fi or beacon based attendance, and no payroll. If your site needs a punch tied to a fixed device at the gate, a biometric terminal suits better. The dialing half of the same app is covered on the auto dialer app page.

GPS attendance app example

An illustration, not a named customer. A furniture retailer in Mombasa, Kenya, runs a showroom in Nyali and a team of 8 sales reps who visit hotels and offices. The office manager creates two branches. “Nyali showroom” gets a 150-metre radius with outside punches off, for the 6 floor staff. “Coast field” accepts outside punches, so reps can clock in at their first client. In the first week, two showroom punches come in as outside the circle; both were made in the car park at the back, so the manager widens the radius to 200 metres. One rep punches in on a basement parking level with no signal; the punch waits on her phone and reaches the account about 20 minutes later, once she drives back up to street level.