Pain Point

The True Cost of Buddy-Punching (And How to Stop It in 2026)

The American Payroll Association reports that 75% of US businesses lose money to buddy-punching. The average cost: $373M industry-wide, or 1.5–4.5% of payroll per company depending on industry. Here's why it's so common and how to actually stop it.

What is buddy-punching?

One employee clocks in or out for another. Common forms:

• Sharing a punch card or PIN
• Logging in to a coworker's web timecard from your own device
• Texting a manager "please mark me in" without showing up
• Trading punches at shift change so one person can leave early

Why it spreads

Once one team member gets away with it, others notice. The unwritten rule becomes: "if you're 10 minutes late, just text me — I got you." Within a quarter, what started as a one-off favor becomes the team norm.

Why traditional fixes don't work

PIN codes

Shared in 5 minutes. Workers literally write them on the wall next to the clock.

Magnetic badges

Handed off pocket-to-pocket. Lost badges become "borrowed."

Fingerprint scanners

Most consumer-grade fingerprint readers can be fooled by a high-resolution photo. Workers also resist them because of hygiene concerns.

Manager spot checks

Only works if you have a manager on every shift at every location. Most SMBs don't.

What actually works: face-scan + GPS

MyCo's face-scan attendance requires the worker to be physically present at the approved location with their own phone, looking at the camera. There's no way to delegate it without physically handing over both a phone and a face. We've yet to see a customer report a successful buddy-punch under this system.

Real customer numbers

One MyCo customer — a 120-person commercial cleaning company in Florida — found that after switching from web-based timecards to face-scan:

• Average billable hours per worker per week: dropped by 3.2 hours (these were buddy-punched ghost hours)
• Weekly payroll: reduced by $7,400
• Annual savings: $385,000 — on a platform that cost them $36,000/year

The cultural side

Buddy-punching isn't always about laziness. Sometimes it's because workers feel that asking for time off is harder than just "covering" each other. The fix isn't just technology — it's also making leave requests, schedule swaps, and absences easy and stigma-free.

MyCo includes a one-tap leave request flow and shift-swap marketplace inside the same app. When asking for legitimate time off is as easy as buddy-punching, workers stop buddy-punching.

How to roll it out without team backlash

1. Be transparent. Tell the team you're upgrading to face-scan attendance and why.
2. Run a 2-week pilot alongside the old system so workers get comfortable.
3. Sell the upside — instant clock-in, accurate paychecks, no more punch line at shift change.
4. Address privacy — explain that face data stays on the phone, not in the cloud.
5. Make leave requests easy in the same rollout — gives workers the legitimate alternative.

Try it on your team

If you suspect buddy-punching is happening — and statistics say it almost certainly is — book a 20-minute MyCo demo and we'll show you the face-scan flow in action.