Essential is the compliance toolkit for contractors who need to manage site access, attendance, and inductions. Replace your sign-in book, your paper inductions, and your manual timesheets with one system that keeps a full audit trail.
Essential is for principal contractors and contractors running active sites who need more than competency tracking. You need to know who's on site right now, whether they've been inducted, whether their right to work is valid, and whether their timesheets are ready for payroll without manual re-entry.
If I get a call saying someone's been hurt on site, I can't immediately tell you exactly who was there and whether they'd been inducted. That terrifies me.
Inability to prove duty of care in the event of an incident
My site manager is running the sign-in book and doing everything else. The book is mostly illegible and half the subcontractors never sign out.
Manual sign-in books produce unreliable, legally useless records
We do paper inductions at the start of every project. I have no way of knowing whether the subcontractor workers coming on later actually got it.
Induction gaps that only become visible after an incident
My payroll admin spends most of Monday re-entering last week's timesheets from the site manager's notes into our accounts software. It's slow and the errors are constant.
Manual timesheet processing every week without fail
Getting this wrong is expensive
A RIDDOR-reportable incident on a site where you can't demonstrate who was inducted, when, and what their competency status was puts you in an extremely difficult legal position. HSE investigations are thorough. Paper records rarely survive them. A digital audit trail in AttendIQ is timestamped, tamper-proof, and exportable in seconds.
Best suited for
Three types of contractor who move to Essential
The principal contractor running 1–5 sites
You have your own direct labour and subcontractors on the same sites. You need to know who is on site, that they've been inducted to your standard, that their competencies are valid, and that timesheets are accurate for payroll at the end of the week.
The contractor just had an HSE visit
You've had a visit, an improvement notice, or a near-miss that made it very clear your current documentation isn't good enough. You need something that produces an auditable record automatically, not retroactively.
The contractor winning larger packages
You're moving into larger PC-led projects. The PC requires their digital induction process. They want to see clock-in records. They want proof of right to work on every worker on their site. You need to meet that bar or you don't get the contract.
What's included
The full site compliance toolkit
Essential includes everything in Foundation, plus the tools you need to run a compliant active site: attendance, inductions, access rules, and timesheet management.
Includes everything in Foundation — competency library, job roles, skills matrix, expiry alerts, compliance reports, CSV and Excel export.
Attendance and site access
✓
Biometric clock-in with GPS tagging
Workers clock in on their phone using Face ID. The clock-in is GPS-tagged to confirm they're physically on site. The record is timestamped, linked to their worker record, and immediately visible to the site manager. No sign-in book. No guessing.
✓
Competency check at every clock-in
Every time a worker clocks in, the system checks their competency status automatically. If a card has expired since their last clock-in, the site manager is alerted immediately and the worker can be flagged before they start work.
✓
Site access rules
Define exactly what a worker needs to access each site: induction complete, CSCS card valid, right to work checked. Access rules are enforced automatically at clock-in. Workers who don't meet the requirements are flagged and the site manager is notified.
✓
Emergency muster with live headcount
In an emergency, send a push notification to every worker on site from the app. Workers acknowledge on their phone. You have a live headcount against who clocked in. No paper muster list, no counting heads in a car park.
✓
Geofencing
Define a site boundary by radius. Clock-ins outside the boundary are automatically flagged. Useful for multi-building sites and preventing ghost clock-ins from the road outside.
Digital inductions
✓
Custom digital inductions, project-specific
Build your site induction in AttendIQ: video, images, text, questions. Workers complete it on their phone before they arrive on site, or at the site entrance. Completion is timestamped and logged against their worker record permanently.
✓
Right to work verification
Workers submit their right to work documents through the app. Admins review and approve. The system tracks expiry dates (e.g. visa expiry) and alerts you before they lapse. You have a digital record of every check performed and when.
Timesheets and payroll
✓
Payroll-ready timesheet export
Clock-in and clock-out records generate timesheets automatically. Review and approve them in the admin portal. Export payroll-ready data at the end of the week. No manual data re-entry. No timesheet disputes.
Mobile and forms
✓
Offline-capable mobile app (iOS and Android)
Workers and supervisors get a mobile app that works even without signal. Clock-ins, forms, and inspections queue up and sync when connectivity returns. Designed for construction sites, not office buildings.
✓
15 pre-built digital forms
Toolbox talks, near-miss reports, site inspections, visitor logs, permit to work, and more — all available as digital forms on the mobile app. Completed forms are timestamped, linked to the worker and site, and exportable. No paper forms lost in a site hut drawer.
✓
Subcontractor portal
Invite your supply chain into AttendIQ. They manage their own workers' data. You see their compliance status. No chasing SC admins for spreadsheets. No version control problems. Their workers are included in your licence — no extra charge to them.
The value case
At £4.50 per worker per month
For a site with 50 workers, Essential costs £225/month. Here is what that typically replaces.
8hrs
Per week eliminated in manual timesheet processing and payroll data re-entry, for a site of 40–60 workers
100%
Induction records available for every worker, timestamped and exportable, from day one on the platform
30sec
To produce a complete site attendance record for any date, for any HSE request, client audit, or insurance claim
For context: a single payroll error that requires manual correction takes 30–90 minutes. Essential pays for itself if it prevents two errors a month.
Common questions
Essential FAQ
Yes. You invite your supply chain companies into your platform at no cost to them. They get their own portal to manage their workers' data. Their workers count against your licence — not theirs. The subcontractor pays nothing.
Workers download the AttendIQ app. They clock in using Face ID on their phone. The clock-in is GPS-tagged, timestamped, and linked to their worker record. The site manager sees it in real time on the dashboard. If a worker doesn't have a smartphone, supervisors can clock them in using the supervisor view in the app.
Yes. All your worker records, competency data, job roles, and compliance history carry over. There is nothing to reconfigure. You will be on the Essential plan from the date you upgrade, billed pro-rata.
There is a minimum of 25 worker licences on Essential and Complete. If you have fewer than 25 workers, Foundation remains free with no worker limit on competency management. For paid plans, the 25-worker minimum applies.
No setup fee on annual plans. Monthly plans carry a one-off £1,000 setup fee. Every Essential customer gets a 30-minute onboarding session with the AttendIQ team.
KNOW WHO'S ON SITE. ALWAYS.
Get started today. Onboarding takes 60 minutes. Your first induction is live the same day.
From £4.50/worker/month on annual billing. Minimum 25 workers. No setup fee on annual plans.
Need RAMS, custom forms, delivery management, or payroll integrations?
Complete adds everything: custom form builder, RAMS with digital sign-off, delivery management, fatigue monitoring, Xero and QuickBooks integrations, and supply chain compliance scoring.