Core Concepts

Tommy uses a small set of words to describe a workforce. This page is your cheat sheet — read it once and the rest of the docs make sense.

Team

A team is your workspace in Tommy. It has its own members, shifts, timesheets, locations, and integrations. Most businesses have one team. If you run multiple distinct businesses, you can create a team for each — your account can belong to as many teams as you need, and you switch between them from the menu.

When you sign up, Tommy walks you through creating your first team. See Onboarding.

Solution

A Solution is an industry preset you pick when you create a team. It bundles the roles, shift templates, compliance documents, and features that make sense for your industry — so an NDIS provider starts with "Support Worker" roles and visit-based shifts, while a hospitality team starts with "Barista" and "Chef" roles and split-shift templates.

Six Solutions ship with Tommy: General, NDIS & Care Services, Hospitality, Retail, Staffing Agency, and Construction & Trades. See Solutions.

Team member

A team member is a person who belongs to your team. Most are employees or contractors who work shifts; some are managers or admins. Each member has roles, optional location assignments, contact details, and (depending on your Solution) compliance documents.

Members are invited by email or mobile number. See Team Members.

Role

A role is a label that says what someone does — "Support Worker", "Barista", "Site Manager". Roles drive who can be scheduled into which shifts, what permissions they have, and how their pay is calculated.

Each Solution starts you with a sensible default set of roles. You can add your own from Settings → Roles & Positions.

Location

A location is a physical workplace, site, or service area. A location has an address, optional managers, and the team members who work there. Some teams have one location; others have dozens.

Locations matter for two reasons:

• Scheduling — shifts are tied to a location, so members see only what's relevant to them
• Time clock — Tommy can verify a member is at the right place when they clock in (geofencing)

See Locations.

Shift

A shift is a single block of scheduled work for one member on one date. It has a start time, end time, location, and a member assigned (or it's left open for someone to pick up).

Shifts are usually built from Shift Templates — reusable definitions like "Morning Shift 6am–2pm" — so you don't re-enter the same hours every week.

A shift goes through these states:

See Scheduling.

Attendance

An attendance is the actual record of someone clocking in and out. It captures the time, the GPS location, and (if required) a photo. Attendances feed into timesheets.

See Time Clock.

Timesheet

A timesheet is the pay-period record for one member — a roll-up of every shift they worked, every break they took, and the resulting pay. Tommy builds it for you from the shifts and attendances; the member just reviews and submits.

A timesheet moves through these states:

See Timesheets.

Integration

An integration is a connection to another tool — your accounting software, your POS, your payroll system. Connect Xero once, and approved timesheets flow there automatically.

See Integrations.

Pay template

A pay template is a reusable set of pay rules — a base rate, break rules, overtime multipliers, allowances. You assign a pay template to a member or a shift and Tommy uses it to calculate timesheet pay.

Pay templates live in Settings → Pay Templates.

Availability

Availability is when a member is willing to work. Members set their availability in the app — "I can't work Tuesdays" or "I'm away the first week of June" — and Tommy uses it to flag conflicts when you build the schedule.

Permissions

Permissions decide who can do what. Most permissions follow the role you assign — admins can do everything, location managers can manage shifts at their location, and members can only see their own data.

Tommy ships with sensible defaults. Customise them in Settings → Permissions if you need to.

Putting it together

Here's how the pieces connect on a typical day:

That loop — schedule, clock, approve, export — is the heart of Tommy. Everything else makes that loop fit your industry.