A shift on the day after expiry
The compliance administrator keeps a spreadsheet of every guard's licence: number, type, expiry date. Once a month, when there is time, she sorts by expiry and emails the guards whose licences expire soon. Some renew early. Some say they have applied and the new card is on the way. One does not reply.
The rota for the following month is built by the scheduler from a different spreadsheet. Nobody links the two. A guard whose licence expired on Tuesday is rostered on Wednesday night at a retail site. It is noticed on Friday when the client's contract manager asks for licence details for the guards on site that week. The guard had renewed on time, as it happens, but the office had not recorded the new card, and for three days nobody could be sure.
Why licence tracking goes wrong
The licence record and the rota are separate, and checks happen on a calendar that suits the office, not the dates that matter. Guards renew on their own timetable and do not always tell you. When a new licence is issued, the details have to be updated by hand, and that step is easy to miss.
- Expiry dates are in a spreadsheet separate from the rota.
- Reminders depend on someone sorting the sheet.
- Guards renew and forget to send the new details.
- The rota has no way to know a licence has expired.
- Subcontracted guards' licences are tracked even less closely, if at all.
The legal requirements around licensing are for your company and its advisers. What we build makes the dates you already track impossible to overlook.
What a lapse costs
Rostering a guard whose licence has expired is a serious matter for a guarding company, with consequences your advisers can explain better than we can. Even a paperwork gap, where the licence was renewed but not recorded, causes a scramble when a client asks. Clients who audit licence records expect an answer quickly and accurately. And the compliance administrator spends time chasing and checking that could be automated.
Licence records linked to the rota
- Each guard's record holds licence type, number, issue date and expiry date, with an image of the card.
- Existing spreadsheet data is imported and checked, and anything incomplete is flagged.
- Reminders go to the guard at intervals you set before expiry, by text or email, and the office sees a list of licences expiring in the next few months.
- When a guard renews, they upload a photo of the new card through a link, and the office confirms the details.
- The office can record that a licence has been checked on the public register, with the date and who checked it, as your process requires.
- The rota and cover tools read the expiry date, so a guard cannot be offered a shift after their licence expires without the details being updated.
- Subcontracted guards are held in the same way, so their licences are checked before they are rostered.
| Report | Who uses it |
|---|---|
| Licences expiring in the next few months | Compliance administrator |
| Guards rostered after their licence expiry | Scheduler, before the rota is published |
| Licence details for guards on a site | Account manager, for client requests |
| Licence checks recorded, with dates | Office, for your own audits |
Month to month, with the records in place
Guards get reminders well before expiry and upload their new cards when they arrive. The compliance administrator works through a short list rather than a spreadsheet. When the scheduler builds a rota, any guard whose licence expires during the period is flagged before publishing. When a client asks for licence details, the account manager exports a list for that site in a few minutes.
If a guard's renewal is delayed, the record shows the expiry and the rota does not offer them shifts until the new licence is recorded, which is the conversation you want to have early rather than on the night.
Is your licence tracking like this?
- Expiry dates are in a spreadsheet the rota does not see.
- Reminders are sent when someone remembers.
- New licence details are not always recorded.
- Client requests for licence details take hours.
- Subcontractors' licences are not tracked the same way.