Built for this category
Not a generic HR tool with a checkbox for your industry. The workflows, terminology, and reports match how your operation actually runs — because the platform was designed for it from the start.
Security Companies
Operations & Payroll for African Security Companies
HR and payroll for African private security — geofenced clock-in, PSRA & licence expiry tracking, guard payroll and self-service. For rosters, QR patrols and client invoicing, SecureForce, our guard management platform, runs the operation.
12
capabilities
10+
African markets
USD
pricing · local currency view
Mobile · Web · WhatsApp
self-service
Geofenced clock-in at every post
Live attendance map
Patrol checkpoints, with SecureForce
SOS and incident reporting, with SecureForce
Occurrence Book (OB), with SecureForce
PSRA / CID / medical expiry tracking
Client contracts & invoicing, with SecureForce
Equipment issuance with return tracking
Shifts, and guard rosters with SecureForce
Tap any capability to see the detail · or scroll for the full picture
SecureForce · from Emeran Systems Ltd
Running a guarding company? SecureForce is our guard management platform.
SmartHR Africa runs HR, payroll, leave and certificate tracking for security companies across many countries. If you need the guarding operation itself (rosters, patrols, incidents and client billing), SecureForce, also from Emeran Systems, is built for that.
- Shift rosters across every site, with reliefs and swaps
- Geofenced guard clock-in that works offline
- QR patrol checkpoints with photo proof, incident reports and one-tap SOS
- Statutory guard payroll with payslips on the phone, plus client contracts and invoicing
Connected to payroll
Every event in this module — attendance, leave, timesheet, equipment, incident, performance — flows automatically into the next payroll cycle. No spreadsheet reconciliation, no double entry.
African by design
Statutory rules maintained for all 54 African countries, bank payment files in each country's format, WhatsApp delivery, multiple languages, offline-capable mobile app for field workers.
The problems we hear most
If any of this sounds familiar,
If any of this sounds familiar,
you're in the right place.
These are the recurring conversations with buyers in this category. We built the platform to retire each of them.
Clock-in happens on a paper register at the gate. By month-end, supervisors are re-typing 80 sites worth of attendance — and you still can't prove to the client that the guard was at the post.
Patrol rounds: did they actually happen? You only find out a guard skipped a route after the client complains about a break-in nobody logged.
PSRA, CID clearance, medical certificates, firearm competency — they all have expiry dates. You find out one has lapsed when an inspector or client audit catches it. That's a fine, sometimes a contract.
Each client wants their own invoice with hours by guard, by post, by shift, with supervisor sign-off. Finance rebuilds those by hand — 80 invoices, four days, every month-end.
Equipment goes out — radios, batons, uniforms, boots, sometimes a firearm. Months later half of it's missing. There's no link from "lost kit" to "deduct from payroll" so the loss just walks.
An SOS or incident at 02:00 reaches operations the next morning over WhatsApp, after the situation is over. The site supervisor and HQ never see the same picture in real time.
Overtime, public holiday rates, Sunday work, double-time thresholds — the labour law math differs per country and changes every gazette. Your spreadsheet has six tabs and one of them is always wrong.
What's built in
Features your team will actually use.
Specific tools for this category — not generic HR repackaged. Each card describes what the feature does and how it fits the way you work.
01
Geofenced clock-in at every post
Each site has a GPS pin and a radius (e.g. 100 m). The guard's phone is verified inside the geofence before clock-in is accepted. Out-of-radius attempts return the exact distance so the guard knows to move to the actual post.
02
Live attendance map
Green dots for on-time clock-ins, red for late, geofence circles overlaid on every active site. Operations sees who's on duty, where, in real time — filterable by date, site, supervisor.
03
Patrol checkpoints, with SecureForce
With SecureForce, our guard management platform, you build a patrol route with ordered checkpoints and guards scan a QR code at each, with optional photo proof. Missed rounds raise an alert — proof for the client, and an early warning when discipline slips.
04
SOS and incident reporting, with SecureForce
With SecureForce, guards report incidents with severity and location from their phone, and a one-tap SOS goes straight to the responsible site supervisor. Designed for real emergencies, not paperwork.
05
Occurrence Book (OB), with SecureForce
With SecureForce, guards file OB entries — patrols, visitors, handovers, hazards — from their phone. Each entry is timestamped server-side and immutable. Per-site export ready for clients on request, no more paper books going missing.
06
PSRA / CID / medical expiry tracking
Every guard's licence, clearance, medical, firearm competency, and training certificate is tracked with 90/60/30/7 day expiry alerts. The compliance dashboard shows everything expiring this month. Inspector visits stop being a surprise.
07
Client contracts & invoicing, with SecureForce
With SecureForce, you record each client's contract and billing rates, and draft invoices are generated every cycle from the same guard attendance that drives payroll — no double entry, no reconciliation.
08
Equipment issuance with return tracking
Issue a radio, baton, uniform, or PPE — system records who got what, when. On return, condition is logged. Lost or damaged kit links automatically to a guard loan deduction in next payroll. The loss loop closes.
09
Shifts, and guard rosters with SecureForce
Day, night, 12-hour, split — define shifts once in SmartHR, including shifts that cross midnight. For rostering hundreds of guards across many sites, with coverage gaps, reliefs and swaps, SecureForce builds the roster.
10
Auto-payroll from attendance
At cycle end: one click generates payroll entries from attendance hours, OT, allowances, equipment-loss deductions, and active loans. Country statutory deductions applied. Review, approve, payslips go live in ESS.
11
Guard self-service
Guards use SmartHR self-service on the web or the mobile app: clock in and out, apply for leave and download payslips. With SecureForce, the guard portal also carries the day's roster, OB filing, incident reporting and SOS.
12
Biometric devices at fixed posts
For guards without smartphones, a fingerprint device at the post captures clock-in and clock-out. Where there is no device, the supervisor records attendance for the guard with a note. No paper register.
Teams spread across many sites? See how GPS field workforce tracking handles geofence clock-in, site start and end times, and route history.
Why modules aren't enough
Every event is wired to the next.
Most HR systems sell modules as separate products — and then your team spends every month reconciling between them. SmartHR Africa is one system. Each event in this category flows automatically into the right downstream process.
Geofenced clock-in
Payroll hours
GPS-verified clock-ins at each post become attendance hours, computed automatically against the shift template — no paper register, no end-of-month re-typing of 80 sites.
Patrol checkpoint scans
Client proof-of-service
With SecureForce, QR scans on every route are timestamped server-side. The next time a client asks "was the guard patrolling at 02:00?" you have map pins and timestamps before you hang up.
Equipment issuance
Guard loan deduction
A radio or uniform issued and not returned at exit triggers an automatic loan deduction on the final payroll. The loss loop closes; nothing walks off the books.
PSRA / CID expiry
Compliance alerts
Each guard's licence, clearance, medical, and firearm competency is tracked with 90/60/30/7 day alerts. Inspector visits stop being a surprise.
SOS panic button
Operations dashboard
With SecureForce, one tap captures GPS, raises a high-severity incident in operations, and pings the duty officer. Real emergencies surface in seconds, not next-day WhatsApp.
Attendance hours
Per-client invoicing
With SecureForce, the same hours that drive payroll generate each client's invoice in their preferred format — hours-only, guard-name detail, or per-shift breakdown. No double entry.
Where this matters most
Live across 10 African markets.
Statutory compliance, local-currency payroll, and salary disbursement options in every market we support. Click through to your country page for in-region pricing, statutory rates, and a calculator.
GPS accuracy on consumer phones is typically 5–15 m outdoors, worse indoors or in dense urban areas. The default geofence is 100 m — wide enough to absorb that drift, tight enough to prove the guard is at the post and not at home. Each site's radius is configurable; operations can widen it for sites with bad signal.
Patrols run in SecureForce, our guard management platform. Each checkpoint scan captures GPS at scan time, and can require a photo. If the scan happens outside the checkpoint's geofence, the round flags as suspicious. Combined with the \"expected interval\" between checkpoints, you can spot rounds completed in 30 seconds when they should take 15 minutes.
They clock in on a fingerprint device at the post, or the supervisor or operations records their attendance for them with a note explaining why. For incident reporting or OB entries, the guard can dictate by phone to operations who logs on their behalf, or use a shared smartphone at the gate.
For devices that speak standard protocols (ZKTeco, Suprema, Anviz, Hikvision via ADMS / TCP-IP / SDK), we ingest clock-ins automatically. For older devices, the operator uploads the daily attendance CSV which the system processes. Biometric devices and GPS on the phone — you can mix both in the same fleet.
Yes. The admin panel has an \"override attendance\" form on every record with mandatory `clock_in_method = manual` flag and a required note explaining why. Manual entries are visually distinct in the attendance map and audit log, so the supervisor or auditor knows they were keyed in by hand.
Client invoicing is done in SecureForce, our guard management platform. Client contracts hold per-rate cards (guard hours, supervisor margin, public-holiday loading) and an invoice template. The same attendance data feeds payroll AND each client's invoice in their preferred format — hours-only, guard-name detail, or per-shift breakdown. Set up once, generates every cycle.
Equipment issuance is tracked with serial number, issue date, and assigned guard. On guard exit, the system flags any kit not returned. You can convert the loss to a guard loan (auto-deducted from final settlement) or write it off — with the audit trail for both choices.
The SOS button is part of SecureForce. It does both. One tap captures the GPS coordinates, raises a high-severity incident in operations, and (if you have alerts configured) sends an SMS/email/WhatsApp ping to the operations duty officer. The incident persists in the system, so post-event reviews have a clean chronological record.
Typical onboarding for a 500–1,000 guard fleet: 2–3 weeks. Week 1 — sites pinned with geofences, shift templates defined (and, if you also use SecureForce, client contracts loaded there). Week 2 — guards imported with PSRA / CID / medical data, supervisors trained. Week 3 — pilot at 5 sites, then phased rollout. First clean payroll cycle by week 4.
Operations creates a payroll period (e.g. 1–31 May), clicks Generate Entries. The system pulls attendance hours from clock-in/out logs, computes OT against shift thresholds, applies allowances and active loan/equipment-loss deductions, and applies country statutory deductions (PAYE, UIF, SDL in SA; PAYE, NSSF in Kenya; etc.). You spot-check, mark Approved, payslips go live in the guard ESS. The bank payment file is the next click.
Pricing
Simple USD pricing.
Pay per employee, monthly, from the starting prices below. Local-currency price on every country page — converted at our locked monthly rate.
Starter
Core HR for growing teams
From
$3.00
/employee/month
Starting price · no monthly base fee
- Employee records & profiles
- Leave management
- Web attendance with GPS
- Document management
- Employee self-service portal
- Mobile app access
- Email support
Most Popular
Professional
Full HR + payroll, statutory compliance built in
From
$5.00
/employee/month
Starting price · no monthly base fee
- Everything in Starter
- Full local-currency payroll
- Statutory compliance (PAYE / NSSF / NHIF / etc.)
- Performance management
- Recruitment & onboarding
- Expense claims & loans
- Training & certifications
- WhatsApp & SMS notifications
- Priority support
Business
Multi-country operations, full automation
From
$8.00
/employee/month
Starting price · no monthly base fee
- Everything in Professional
- Multi-country dashboard
- Projects & timesheets (NGO/donor reporting)
- Biometric device integration
- API access
- White-label option
- Dedicated account manager
- SLA-backed support
See pricing in your local currency on any country page →
See it work on your data.
30 minutes with our team. Bring your countries, your headcount, and the questions your finance and HR leads keep asking — we'll walk you through every module relevant to your operation.