ペンギンタイムカード is an attendance management app designed for small shops and businesses, including clinics, beauty salons, restaurants, and offices. Its key message is that it “doesn’t require IC cards or dedicated devices.” You can place an unused PC, tablet, or smartphone at the entrance, and employees simply tap their name to clock in or out. Data syncs in real time, and managers can review results via the web interface or email.
The product is built around low-barrier attendance automation. It supports automatic calculation of clock-ins, breaks, and overtime, with overtime split into pre-shift and post-shift categories. Rounding can be set to 1, 5, 10, 15, or 30 minutes, with round-up/round-down options and separate settings for clock-in and clock-out. Different employment types—such as full-time employees, part-time workers, and dispatched staff—can be assigned different closing dates, break rules, and standard working hours.
It also supports centralized management across multiple stores, employee logins, web reports, email delivery of attendance records, and PDF/Excel exports, making it easier to hand data over to a labor and social security attorney or accounting team. Some plans include facial recognition, while recent updates add features such as late-night premium hour tracking, 24-hour operation support, multiple breaks, and alcohol check record logs.
Pricing is tiered by employee count, starting from 1,210 JPY/month including tax for the 5-person Micro plan, up to 8,250 JPY/month for the 50-person Large plan. The main differences between tiers are the employee limit and the number of facial recognition registrations; core features such as web reports, email sending, multiple offices, and employee logins are available across plans.
A 1-month free trial is available after registration, with no credit card required. When the free period ends, you will not be charged automatically, but you will no longer be able to add new clock-in/out records. Payment supports credit cards and bank account transfer; credit card payments are processed via Stripe. In-app mobile payments are not supported, so payment must be completed on the web.
Its strengths are lightweight deployment, extremely simple operation, and no need to purchase dedicated hardware, making it friendly for small business owners and non-IT teams. The pricing structure is clear, and it is a good fit for teams with up to 50 employees that want to get started quickly.
The downsides are that public materials do not clarify whether it offers APIs, payroll/HR system integrations, fine-grained permissions, audit logs, or data compliance certifications, leaving its enterprise scalability unclear. Bank account transfers can take 2–3 months to set up, and the workflow is more oriented toward the Japanese domestic market.
The official materials do not disclose availability from mainland China, network stability, or payment usability, so these remain unknown. Given its language, JPY billing, and Japan-specific attendance context, Chinese companies without physical stores in Japan will usually be better served by first evaluating local attendance solutions such as DingTalk, WeCom, Feishu Attendance, or HR/attendance systems like 薪人薪事.
⚠ This review is compiled from public sources and does not constitute a purchase recommendation. Verify all facts on the vendor's official site. Verify on tc-timecard.com official site.
tc-timecard.com is an Japan SaaS Tools provider. TG4G tracks its product information, an overall rating of 6.0/10, and a China-accessibility score of Workable. Click "Visit Official Site" to reach tc-timecard.com directly.