Mobile app · Web portal · WhatsApp — one employee record
Mobile HR
for African Teams.
Even With No Signal.
A mobile app that keeps working when the signal drops. A web portal for anyone at a computer. WhatsApp for the payslip your driver actually opens. Three channels, one source of truth — built for how Africa really works.
Built for boardrooms, not for the people who actually need them.
Not everyone has a smartphone
Security guards, drivers, factory floor staff, casuals. An app-only system leaves them out, so attendance has to work another way: a fingerprint device at the site, or a supervisor recording it for them.
The app needs constant internet
Field staff lose signal. The app crashes. They give up and start phoning HR for everything again. You've paid for software nobody uses.
It chews data
A 50 MB ESS app on a 1 GB monthly bundle is not a feature, it's a tax. Employees disable it after one month.
Payslips printed and hand-delivered
Once a month, HR prints 800 payslips, sorts them by branch, and hands them to a driver. Some get lost. Some get opened by the wrong person.
The three-channel strategy
Reach employees where they already are.
One employee record, three ways to reach it — pick what fits each person.
Smartphone app
iOS & Android · 17 MB · offline-capable
Full payslip viewer with PDF download
Apply & track leave, see balance
GPS-verified clock-in / clock-out
Submit timesheets & expense claims
Push notifications for approvals
Fingerprint or face unlock to open the app
Best for: field staff, supervisors, office staff
Web self-service portal
Any browser · no install · same record
View and download payslips
Apply for leave and see the balance
Web check-in for desk staff
Submit timesheets & expense claims
Update personal details, with HR approval where needed
Works on a phone browser too
Best for: desk staff, and anyone using a shared computer
WhatsApp delivery
Payslips · letters · alerts
Monthly payslip auto-delivered as PDF
Employment letter on request (reply "letter")
Payday confirmation alerts
Employee asks "balance" → auto-reply
Loan repayment reminders
Distribution that actually reaches everyone
Best for: 90% of employees — they all already have it
Running technicians, guards or sales reps across many sites? The same app handles
GPS field workforce tracking:
geofence clock-in, site start and end times, and route history.
Works offline
No signal? The app keeps working.
Field staff lose signal at rural sites, on the road and in basements. The app saves what they do on the phone and sends it when the network comes back, so nobody has to remember to do it again later.
GPS clock-ins, timesheets, expense claims and leave requests are saved on the phone.
Syncs by itself when the phone finds a network — no duplicates, nothing lost.
Mobile-network agnostic — Safaricom, Airtel, MTN, Orange, etc.
WiFi-only sync option for staff on small data bundles.
14:07 No network
3 items saved on this phone
Clock-in
08:02 · GPS saved
Waiting
Timesheet
8 hours · Tuesday
Waiting
Expense claim
Receipt photo attached
Waiting
Sends automatically when the network returns
SH
SmartHR
verified business
SmartHR · 9:42 AM
Hi Mary, your May 2026 payslip is ready 📄
PDF
Mary-K-payslip-may-2026.pdf
147 KB
balance
You have 12 leave days remaining for 2026. 🌴
WhatsApp business integration
The most reliable distribution channel in Africa.
90%+ of African employees use WhatsApp daily. They check it before email, before SMS, before the company portal. So that's where we put the payslip.
Payslips delivered automatically each payday — no app required.
Employees reply "balance", "leave", "letter" — auto-replies use the same data as the app.
Verified business profile — employees know it's really HR.
Privacy: only the employee's registered number receives their data.
Built for African phones, networks, and employees.
Three things most ESS apps overlook: data cost, language, and what to do when the phone is lost.
Yes. The mobile app captures everything offline — timesheets, expense claims, leave requests, GPS clock-ins — and syncs the moment the device is back online. Critical for field staff in rural areas, on travel, or in low-coverage sites.
They can sign in to the web self-service portal from any browser, for example on a shared computer at the office or site. For attendance, they can clock in on a fingerprint device at the site, or a supervisor or HR can record attendance for them.
Yes. Each payroll run can deliver payslips automatically as PDFs to employees' WhatsApp numbers. WhatsApp has 90%+ penetration across most African countries — it's the most reliable distribution channel. Employees can also request a re-send by replying.
Designed for African data costs. The app uses around 1-2 MB per typical month for an active employee. Initial install is around 17 MB. Image-heavy actions (e.g. expense receipt photos) are compressed before sync.
English, French, Portuguese, Arabic, Swahili, and Amharic out of the box. Each employee picks their preferred language; payslips, leave forms, and notifications all respect that setting.
Configurable per role and per location. Office staff usually don't need it. Field staff, drivers, security guards, and site workers typically do. The app verifies the employee is within a configurable radius of an approved site before allowing clock-in.
No PII is stored on the device after logout. Active sessions use encrypted local storage. Lost or stolen devices can be force-logged out from the admin panel. Fingerprint or face unlock can be used to open the app on phones that have it.
Yes — for fields HR allows employees to manage themselves (next of kin, emergency contact, address). Fields like salary, role, or bank account require HR approval before they take effect, with a full audit trail.
See it on a real phone.
Book a 30-minute demo. We'll show you the app working with no signal, the web portal, and send a test payslip to your WhatsApp.