Operations

Best Rota Software for Hospitality (2026)

Staff rota and scheduling software for UK pubs, restaurants, cafes and hotels, compared.

Updated: 2026

Rota software takes the weekly grid out of the spreadsheet and turns it into something staff can see on their phones, managers can build against a forecast, and payroll can read without retyping. For hospitality the test is narrower than for a call centre: can it handle split shifts and late finishes, does it work out holiday for zero-hours staff on the 12.07% rule, does it clock people in and out, and does it get the hours to payroll without a manager reconciling two systems on a Monday morning. We compared the leading options on those questions, on price for a single venue and a small group, and on whether the rota lives next to the compliance records or in a separate tool.

Last reviewed: September 2026

We compared each product on the questions a hospitality operator asks in the first ten minutes of a demo: rota building, holiday and accrual, clocking and timesheets, payroll export, forecasting and price at a fifteen-person venue. Paddl is our own product and is listed first; the strengths and weaknesses of every pick, including ours, are stated the same way.

How We Evaluated

Rota building and publishing

How fast a manager can build a week, copy a pattern, and publish it to staff phones with swaps and availability handled in the app.

Holiday and accrual

Statutory entitlement for fixed patterns and 12.07% accrual for irregular hours, with requests approved against the rota.

Time and attendance

Clocking in and out, timesheets that flow from actual shifts, and the difference between rostered and worked hours made visible.

Payroll and forecasting

Payroll export in a format a UK bureau accepts, and whether the rota can be built against a sales forecast rather than last week.

Value for a single venue

What one site with fifteen staff pays a month, and whether the price climbs per user or per module.

Our Picks

Paddl

Best for: Venues that want the rota next to the compliance records

Paddl added rota, hours and leave in 2026 to the same platform that holds the food safety, training and maintenance records. The rota is built against a Square sales forecast where it is connected, published to the staff app, clocked against on the tablet, and exported to payroll. Holiday entitlement and 12.07% accrual are calculated per person, and a request arrives with the balance attached. The distinctive part is the cross-check: it warns before you roster somebody whose food hygiene training has lapsed.

Strengths

✓Rota, timesheets, holiday and payroll export in the same system as compliance and training records

✓Statutory entitlement and 12.07% accrual worked out per person, shown on every request

✓Sales forecast from Square drives the build, with a staffing sweep that flags over and under cover

✓One price per location covering every feature, so the rota is not a paid add-on

✓Warns before rostering someone whose mandatory training has expired

Weaknesses

✗Newest rota product on this list, so fewer years of edge cases than the specialists

✗Sales forecasting needs Square; other tills are manual or CSV import

✗No workforce rules for union agreements or complex collective bargaining

Pricing:£69 per location per month, all features included, five staff included per location with extra users at £2.99 a month.

RotaCloud

Best for: Straightforward rotas for a single UK venue

RotaCloud is a UK product built around the weekly grid, with drag-and-drop shifts, a staff app for availability and swaps, clocking in, and holiday tracking. It does the core job cleanly and is widely used by independent pubs and cafes.

Strengths

✓Fast, familiar drag-and-drop rota building

✓UK-based support and UK holiday rules

✓Time and attendance and leave included

Weaknesses

✗Rota only: compliance, training records and maintenance live elsewhere

✗No sales forecasting to build against

✗Per-user pricing climbs as the team grows

Pricing:Per user per month, tiered by features; current prices on the RotaCloud site.

Deputy

Best for: Multi-site groups that need scheduling depth

Deputy is a global scheduling platform with demand forecasting, labour cost tracking, auto-scheduling and a mature time-and-attendance app. It suits groups with a head office building rotas across many sites.

Strengths

✓Demand-based scheduling and labour cost forecasting

✓Strong clocking, break compliance and timesheet approval

✓Integrations with most UK payroll providers

Weaknesses

✗Priced per user, so a fifteen-person venue pays for fifteen seats

✗Global product; UK holiday accrual rules need configuring

✗Scheduling only, separate from compliance

Pricing:Per user per month, with scheduling and time-and-attendance sold separately or bundled.

Planday

Best for: Hospitality groups already in the Xero ecosystem

Planday, owned by Xero, covers scheduling, communication, time tracking and payroll export with a strong hospitality customer base across Europe. Its Xero integration is the draw for groups that run finance there.

Strengths

✓Tight Xero payroll integration

✓Good staff communication and shift swap tools

✓Established hospitality references

Weaknesses

✗Per-user pricing

✗Less depth on UK-specific accrual for irregular hours

✗No compliance or training records

Pricing:Per user per month; current prices on the Planday site.

Bizimply

Best for: Hospitality operators who want scheduling plus HR

Bizimply combines scheduling, timesheets, HR records and a holiday entitlement calculator aimed squarely at UK and Irish hospitality. It is a good fit for operators who want people records in the same place as the rota.

Strengths

✓Built for hospitality, with an HR layer

✓Holiday calculator and entitlement tracking

✓Timesheets and payroll export

Weaknesses

✗Per-employee pricing

✗No food safety or maintenance records

✗Forecasting depends on till integrations

Pricing:Per employee per month; current prices on the Bizimply site.

7shifts

Best for: Restaurants that want tip pooling and labour cost tools

7shifts is a restaurant-focused scheduler from North America with labour cost management, tip pooling, team chat and a free tier for very small teams. UK coverage is growing but the product is US-first.

Strengths

✓Restaurant-specific features such as tip management

✓Free tier for small teams

✓Good labour cost reporting

Weaknesses

✗US-first: UK holiday and accrual rules are not the default

✗Payroll integrations centre on US providers

✗Scheduling only

Pricing:Free tier for small teams, then per location per month by plan.

Operations

Paddl is on this list for a reason

One platform for compliance, operations and protection, built for UK hospitality from a single cafe to a national chain. Try it free and compare it in your own kitchen.

Start free trial See Rota features

See how Paddl compares with Trail

Buying Guide

Per user or per location?

Most rota tools charge per user, which suits a five-person office and punishes a fifteen-person kitchen. Work out the real monthly cost at your headcount, including the casual staff who work one shift a fortnight but still need a login. Per-location pricing is the exception, and the reason it matters is that hospitality headcount is high and turnover is higher.

Ask how it handles zero-hours holiday

Since April 2024 irregular-hours workers accrue holiday at 12.07% of the hours they work. Any tool you shortlist should calculate that from the timesheet, show the balance on the request, and let you pay it as rolled-up holiday pay if your contract says so. If the demo skips it, ask.

Forecast first, rota second

A rota built against last week repeats last week's mistakes. Tools that read the till and forecast covers or sales let you staff to demand rather than habit, which is where the labour saving comes from. Check which tills the tool can read and how far ahead it forecasts.

Where do the compliance records live?

The person on the rota is the same person whose food hygiene certificate expires next month. If the rota and the training records are in different systems, nobody joins them up until an inspector does. It is worth asking whether one platform can hold both.

Related Resources

GuideHow to Write a Staff Rota GlossaryShift Handover Procedures FeatureRota FeatureTeam FeatureTraining

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best rota software for a small pub or restaurant?

For a single venue the choice is between a rota-only tool priced per user, such as RotaCloud, and a platform that includes the rota alongside compliance and training records at a per-location price, such as Paddl. Add up the monthly cost at your real headcount before deciding.

Does rota software calculate holiday entitlement?

The better ones do. Look for statutory 5.6-week entitlement for fixed patterns, 12.07% accrual for irregular hours, pro-rata for starters and a balance shown on each request. Our free holiday entitlement calculator does the same maths if you want to check a tool's answer.

Can rota software export to UK payroll?

Most export a CSV or connect directly to common UK payroll providers. Check the export includes worked hours from the timesheet rather than rostered hours from the plan, and that it separates holiday pay.

Is a free rota template good enough?

For a handful of staff on fixed patterns, a printed template works. It stops working when hours vary, holiday balances need tracking, or staff expect to see the rota on their phone. The free staff rota template on this site is a reasonable starting point and the same layout a digital rota uses.

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Paddl brings compliance, operations, and team management into one platform built specifically for UK hospitality. See how it compares.

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