People

People is everybody who works for you, and everything that happens to them while they do. It opens on Today, and the list of your staff lives one tap away in a sheet you can paste into from Excel.

Today

Not a wall of numbers. Today lists what is waiting on you, each item with its decision on the row:

• Leave to approve — who, what kind, which days, how many, and why. Approve or Turn down with a reason. They are told either way.
• Time corrections — somebody says the attendance record is wrong. Accept it or turn it down.
• Shift swaps — who wants to swap, and who is covering.
• Probation ending — anybody whose probation ends within a fortnight, while there is still time to decide.
• Joining and leaving — the steps still open on somebody's checklist. Tick them off here.
• Away today — who is off, and when they are back.

Across the top: how many are on the books, in today, away, and not marked — the last one being the people nobody has recorded either way.

When nothing is waiting, the page says so instead of inventing work.

The people sheet

People in the strip opens the sheet: everybody, in a grid, one row each.

Getting your staff in

If your staff are in a spreadsheet — and they usually are — copy the block and paste it below the last row. The sheet matches your columns by their headings (name, phone, role, salary, department and the obvious variations), and adds everybody in one go.

Only two things are needed for each person: a name and their pay. Anybody missing a pay figure is skipped and named, so you know who to go back for.

Bring as much as your spreadsheet has: staff number, national ID (NIN), NSSF number, TIN, mobile money number, phone, role, department and start date (written 2026-03-01) are all picked up by their headings. Hundreds of rows go in one paste.

Pasting the same list twice does not put anybody on twice: somebody already on the sheet with the same staff number, the same NIN, or the same name and phone is skipped and named.

Working in it

Click a cell and type. It saves as you go.

Column	What it holds
Name, Code	Who they are, and your own staff number if you use one
NIN, NSSF, TIN	National ID, NSSF and tax numbers
Mobile money	The number their pay goes to
Role, Department, Reports to	What they do and who they answer to
Phone, Email	How to reach them
Started	The day they joined
Pay, How often	What they are paid, monthly, every two weeks or weekly
Standing	Probation, confirmed, extended or terminated
Works at	Which branch — shown here, changed on the person

Departments and managers are matched by name: type Operations in the department cell and it finds that department. If there is no department by that name, the cell says so rather than silently leaving it empty — add it in Structure first.

Works at is deliberately read-only. Moving somebody between branches moves their wage cost from one branch's profit and loss to another's, which is a decision, not a cell you tab through.

Finding people

Filters for Working, On probation, Leaving and All, a department picker, and a search box for name, code, role or phone. People on probation are tinted; anybody leaving or no longer active is dimmed.

Click the row number to open somebody's card: everything recorded about them, with what they are paid and when they were last paid. Open full file takes you to their file.

A person's file

Everything about one person, on one page, in tabs:

• Overview — job and pay; personal and statutory details (national ID number, NSSF number, TIN, date of birth, home address); emergency contact and next of kin; how they are paid (bank account or mobile money number); their sign-in to the employee app (invite, suspend, reactivate, revoke); and their joining checklist.
• Leave — what they have left of each kind this year, their requests, and Record leave.
• Licences — their licences and certificates, with Renew.
• Time — the last 30 days of attendance and the shifts coming up.
• Documents — upload contracts, licences and letters; see whether a document they must read has been acknowledged.
• Equipment — what has been issued to them and what came back: uniform, boots, radio, torch, baton, ID badge, vest, handcuffs, keys, a vehicle, a laptop or a phone. Issue and Returned keep the list honest, which matters most on their last day.
• Reviews — performance reviews and their ratings.
• Record — warnings, incidents and commendations, and their outcomes.
• Pay — every payroll run they were in: gross, deductions, take home.

Edit details changes any of it. Confirm probation, Start exit and Complete exit are at the top when they apply. Cancel exit undoes an exit that was started by mistake, or when somebody decides to stay.

If you have your own staff numbers (GRD-0457), type them in; SBB only makes one up when you leave it blank.

Hiring

Hiring is the pipeline: who applied, and where they have got to. Five columns — Applied, Screening, Interview, Offer, Hired — and a candidate moves forward or is turned down.

• Open a role for what you are trying to fill. One opening can take several people, and can carry a pay range.
• Add applicant as each person reaches you: a walk-in, a referral, a CV on WhatsApp, an agency.
• Drag somebody to another column, or use Move — which is how it works on a phone.
• Tap a name to open their card: their details, and everything that has happened. Add a note after an interview so the record explains itself later.
• Turn down asks for a reason and keeps them, so you can put somebody back when the next role opens.

Hiring somebody

Moving a card to Hired does not put them on the payroll by itself — hiring somebody starts their money, so it opens a form. That form already knows their name, phone, email and the role and department of the opening they applied for, so nobody is typed into SBB twice with a phone number that no longer matches the application.

You give their pay and start date, and they arrive on the people sheet, on probation, with their joining checklist already made.

Joining and leaving

Joining shows everybody settling in, with the steps each of them has left, and everybody on the way out.

Tick a step off and the progress bar moves. Nothing here is a separate to-do list — these are the same steps that show on Today when something is due.

Writing your checklist once

This is the point of the page. Under Your checklists, write the steps a new hire goes through — sign the contract, collect ID, set up how they are paid, show them round — and every person hired after that arrives with them, dated from the day they start.

• Put a number beside a step for how many days after starting it is due.
• Drag a step into place, or use the arrows, which work on a phone.
• A checklist can be for everybody or for one role, so a driver and a shop assistant can get different lists.
• Until you write one, new hires get a sensible built-in list rather than an empty page — and the page tells you that is what is happening.

Give somebody a checklist does the same for people already on your books, hired before you wrote one.

Sites and posts

For a business whose people work at other people's premises — a security company guarding client sites, cleaners serving buildings.

• A site is a client's premises. Tie it to the customer you invoice, and name a supervisor from your staff.
• A post is a position on the site: the main gate, the cash office, the patrol. Give it post orders — they appear on every shift for that post, so the person standing it sees them in the employee app.
• Each post has shifts and people needed: Day, 06:00–18:00, 2 people, every day; Night, 18:00–06:00, 1 person. A shift that ends at or before it starts runs past midnight. Choose the days of the week it runs.
• A post can be limited to only people holding a valid licence — a firearm licence for an armed post. Nobody without one, valid on the day, can be put on it.

Closing a post or a site keeps its history; past cover still points at it.

A site's location (GPS clock-in)

Give each site its location so the staff app can check a clock-in happened there. On the site's form, under Location, for clock-in:

• Use where I am now — standing at the site with your phone;
• search a place — suggestions appear as you type, nearest to what the map shows first; tick Only this map area to keep them inside it. Choosing one also fills an empty address;
• tap the map, or paste coordinates or a Google Maps link.

The circle is what counts as at the site (150 m unless you change it). Then choose what happens at clock-in:

• Record the location; flag anybody away (the default) — everybody can clock in; anybody away from the site is marked, with how far, on the Cover board and in Attendance.
• Must be at the site — a clock-in away from it, or with no location, is refused and the guard is told how far away they are. The phone's own accuracy is allowed for (up to 100 m), because GPS indoors and in basements is poor.
• Do not ask for the location.

Clocking out is never refused for being away — leaving is what clocking out is — but where it happened is recorded. The map is OpenStreetMap; nothing here is a paid service.

Cover

Cover is the board for the day (or seven days): every post, every shift, and who is standing it.

• Each shift shows Covered, Short or Nobody, with how many of the places are filled. Gaps only hides what is fine.
• Next to each person: whether they have clocked in, and anything wrong — on leave, booked on another shift at the same time, or without the licence the post needs. A person with a problem does not count toward cover.
• Add somebody opens a search over your staff. People who are free come first; people on leave or without the post's licence cannot be chosen, and people already working that day are marked. Choose several at once.
• × takes somebody off.
• Copy to tomorrow (or, on 7 days, Copy week forward) puts the same people on the same posts on the next day or week. Anybody on leave, without a valid licence, or already booked is left out and named.

Every place on the board is an ordinary shift, so it appears on the Roster, in the employee app, and in attendance and payroll.

Today's cover is also on Today, with how many posts have nobody.

Licences and certificates

Guard licences, firearm licences, first aid, fire safety, driving permits, medical fitness, police clearance and training certificates — each with its number, who issued it, and when it expires.

The page leads with what needs attention: what has expired, and what runs out within 7, 30 and 60 days. Renew sets the new expiry date on the same record. Remove is for a record entered by mistake.

Licences running out also show on Today, and on each person's file under Licences.

Discipline and incidents

Verbal, written and final warnings, suspensions, dismissals, complaints, incidents on site, and commendations.

Each record has a date, what happened, details, and optionally a site. It is closed with an outcome and never deleted — the record of earlier warnings is what a later decision rests on. An incident need not name anybody.

Open records are counted on Today; each person's are on their file under Record.

Leave

Leave shows what is waiting on you, the month, and what everybody has left.

Approving leave without looking at the month is how two people end up away on the same Thursday — so the calendar is on the same page as the decision, and a request that clashes with somebody else's approved leave says so on the row before you approve it.

• Approve or Turn down with a reason. They are told either way.
• Record leave puts somebody's time off in directly — for leave already agreed, or taken.
• What everybody has left is this year's entitlement plus carryover, less what is approved this year. It is worked out, never stored, so it cannot disagree with the requests it comes from.

Set how many days each kind of leave gives in Policies: days a year, how many carry over, whether it needs approval, and who approves — the owner, or the person's manager then the owner. Use Uganda's legal minimums fills in the Employment Act's 21 days' annual leave, 60 days' maternity and 4 days' paternity. Without a policy nobody has an entitlement to count against, and the page says so.

Roster

Roster is one week: people down the side, days across the top.

• Drag a shift onto another day or another person. It saves immediately.
• On a phone, Move does the same thing — dragging does not work on touch.
• + in any cell adds a shift there.
• A shaded cell means that person is on approved leave. Giving somebody a shift while they are away is the mistake a rota makes, so the roster tells you before you draw it, not on the day.
• Swaps waiting are staff asking to trade shifts. Approve them here.

Attendance

Attendance is a fortnight of days, one row per person. Tap a cell to mark it: blank → present → absent → blank. Switch to 7 or 30 days at the top.

Corrections waiting sit above the grid — somebody says the record is wrong. Accept it or turn it down.

Access

Access decides who can sign in to the staff app (clock in and out, shifts, leave, payslips, documents) and what they can do there. It has four views:

• Everyone — a switch per person. On uses the email or phone on their record and sends their login details; off stops them at their next tap, and keeps all their records. Tick several people (or everybody shown) to switch them on or off, send login details, or set an access level at once.
• Not signed in yet — invited, but never in. Usually a lost email or a new phone: send their details again.
• Permissions — one person's exact switches, or an access level to start from: Staff (self-service), Supervisor (approves their team's leave, sets shifts), Cashier (sells at the till), Store keeper (products and stock).
• Switched off — suspended or removed, to switch back on.

Actions on a person:

• Send login details — an email gets a link to choose their own password (it works for 72 hours); a phone gets a text saying to sign in with that number, and a code arrives when they do. Nobody is ever sent a password.
• Reset login — for a forgotten password or a lost phone: their password stops working, they are signed out everywhere, and they get a new link.
• Sign out of every device.
• Remove access.

Reset and sign-out only appear for an account that belongs to your business alone. If somebody also uses Smart Business Book for something else — their own shop, another employer — only they can reset their password, with Forgot password on the sign-in page. Switching their access off still works at once.

Departments and Roles

Departments are the parts of the business people belong to (Operations, Armed response, Control room). Roles are the jobs they hold (Security guard, Supervisor, Dog handler); a person's title comes from their role.

Each has its own tab. Add one with a name and a description, Edit to rename it, and click it to see who is in it. Retire hides it from the pickers without moving anybody — the people in it keep it until you move them — and Restore brings it back. Neither is ever deleted.

Org chart

Two views of how the business is put together:

• Who reports to whom — drag somebody onto a name to make that person their manager, or use Reports to. The chart is drawn from the employee record, so there is no second structure to drift out of date.
• Departments — drag people between them, or use Move. Anybody nobody has placed sits in their own box so they are not forgotten.

Benefits

Benefits is what you give staff beyond their pay: medical cover, a pension, transport. Each plan records what you pay and what they pay, and who is on it.

The monthly cost is totalled per currency — a plan priced in dollars and one priced in shillings do not add up, and one figure across both would be a number you might act on.

Recording a plan does not post anything to your books. Pay runs are in Pay.

What this connects to

• Pay — paying wages and running payroll, including PAYE, NSSF and Local Service Tax.

Everything HR needs is in People and Pay staff; nothing sends you to another part of SBB.

Staff, People and Team

People is who works for you. Team is who can get into your SBB books — an accountant, a partner, a manager — which is a different list and lives in Collaboration.