Correcting attendance

Things happen. Someone forgets to sign a child out, a time gets stamped at the wrong moment, or a day goes by with nobody at the screen. Meadow lets staff put it right after the fact — and it keeps the original on record, so your attendance stays honest and inspection-ready.

Check-in and check-out always stamp the current time, so this is where you go to change a time or fill in a day that was missed. If you just need the day-to-day basics, see Checking children in and out.

Note: Correcting attendance is staff only. Owners, managers, senior practitioners and practitioners can make corrections; parents and family cannot, even though they can sign their own children in and out.

Open the day you want to fix

You correct attendance from the Child attendance report.

1. Go to Reports and open Child attendance.
2. Find the child and the week you need.
3. Click the child's day cell for that day.

This opens Attendance on {date}, where everything for that one day lives — the recorded session, any absence, and the buttons to change them.

Fix a time

Use this when a sign-in or sign-out time is wrong, or when a child was never signed out.

1. In Attendance on {date}, click the pencil to edit the session.
2. Adjust the Sign-in time or Sign-out time.
3. To add a missing sign-out, type a Sign-out time that's after the sign-in.
4. Save. You'll see Attendance updated.

Note: You can't simply clear a sign-out time — Save stays disabled and you'll see "To remove a sign-out, remove the whole record instead." If a child shouldn't have a sign-out at all, remove the session and re-record it.

Remove a session

Use this when a session shouldn't be there — a duplicate, a wrong child, or a check-in that was never meant to happen.

1. In Attendance on {date}, click the trash icon next to the session.
2. A confirm appears: "Remove this attendance record? It stays in the audit trail."
3. Enter a Reason (this is required).
4. Click Remove. You'll see Attendance removed.

The session disappears from the day, but nothing is truly deleted — the original stays in the audit trail, along with your reason. Removing a session also clears its paired sign-out and any room moves that day.

Backfill a day with no session

If a day went by with no attendance recorded at all, you can add it after the fact.

1. Open the empty day cell to bring up Attendance on {date}.
2. At the bottom, click Sign in.
3. Choose the Room, set the Sign-in time, and add a Sign-out time if you have one.
4. Confirm. You'll see Attendance recorded.

Mark leave instead

If the child was off that day rather than present, mark it as leave instead of recording a session. At the bottom of Attendance on {date} you'll find Holiday, Sick day and Absence.

These are only available when there's no session recorded for that day. If a session exists, the buttons are disabled and show "Remove the attendance record first" — remove the session, then mark the leave.

What you can't do

A couple of guardrails keep your records clean:

• No future times. You can't set a sign-in or sign-out in the future. Meadow will stop you with "Attendance times cannot be in the future."
• One session per day for editing. If more than one check-in and check-out was recorded on the same day, Meadow shows a combined span and won't let you edit it as a single record yet: "Multiple sessions were recorded this day. Editing the combined record isn't supported yet." For those days, remove the record and re-record it instead.

Common questions

I forgot to sign a child out yesterday — can I fix it? Yes. Open Reports → Child attendance, click that day's cell, edit the session and add the missing Sign-out time. If the whole day was missed, use Sign in to record it from scratch.

I checked a child out at the wrong time. How do I change it? Click the day cell, click the pencil, adjust the Sign-out time and Save. Times can only be changed here — check-out itself always stamps the current time.

Why won't it let me edit a day — it mentions multiple sessions? That day has more than one check-in/out session, so Meadow shows a combined span that can't be edited as one record yet. Remove the record and re-record it instead.

I cleared the sign-out time but Save is greyed out. There's no way to remove just a sign-out. Use Remove to take the whole session off, then re-record it if you need to.

If I remove a session, is it gone for good? No. Removing a session asks for a reason and keeps the original on record — "It stays in the audit trail." Nothing is ever hard-deleted.

For the full set of attendance views and exports, see Reports.