Choosing security guard management software is not really a software decision. It decides whether your control room can prove an officer was on site, whether an SIA licence lapse is caught before a shift, and whether payroll runs from evidence or from guesswork. If you are researching a Guardhouse alternative in the UK, this guide sets out how WF Ninja (Work Flow Ninja) and Guardhouse approach the same jobs, so you can judge both against your own operation.
Guardhouse is an established guard management platform used by security providers in several countries. WF Ninja was built in London specifically for UK security operations — from the rota to payroll. Where we describe Guardhouse, we keep to general, publicly known capabilities; always confirm current features and pricing directly with each vendor.
At a glance
A deep-dive, side-by-side view across eight operational areas. Guardhouse entries reflect general, publicly known approaches — confirm current details with the vendor.
1. Compliance, British Standards & ACS auditing
UK regulatory standard
Guardhouse
Multi-region platform localised for the UK
WF Ninja
Built in London around UK statutory rules and UK wall-clock time
SIA ACS Section 6 audit pack
Guardhouse
Evidence typically collated from reports and files
WF Ninja
One-click PDF pack of labour supply chain, SLA verifications and compliance proof
Live SIA register verification
Guardhouse
Licence details recorded and checked by staff
WF Ninja
Automated SIA verification with name-mismatch detection, batch checks and 90/60/30-day expiry escalation
BS 7858:2019 screening workflow
Guardhouse
Forms or uploads held against staff profiles
WF Ninja
Pre-employment document governance with 5/10-year gap detection, reference workflows and blocking gates — screening itself stays with your accredited provider
External screening bridges
Guardhouse
Records updated after screening completes
WF Ninja
Screening provider bridges (e.g. Deploi, TrustID) — Coming soon
Right to Work (RTW) tracking
Guardhouse
Expiry dates with reminder alerts
WF Ninja
Automated rota blocking — expired RTW or unapproved documents lock officers out of allocation
Door supervisor register
Guardhouse
Usually exported from shift records
WF Ninja
Live register derived from shifts, SIA licences and attendance photos, with tamper-evident premises sign-off
Working Time Regulations 1998
Guardhouse
Maximum-hours settings
WF Ninja
Server-side checks on 48h rolling average, 11h daily rest, 24h weekly rest and append-only opt-out agreements
2. Time, attendance & anti-fraud
Attendance verification
Guardhouse
Mobile clock-in with location
WF Ninja
Mandatory live camera photo + high-precision GPS on every Book On and Book Off
Geofence enforcement
Guardhouse
Location radius checks
WF Ninja
Hard geofence gate with polygon or radius boundaries and logged operator overrides
Pre-shift fit-to-work declarations
Guardhouse
General forms
WF Ninja
Mandatory scored pre-shift questions; failed or skipped declarations block Book On
First-shift site induction gate
Guardhouse
Site documents attached
WF Ninja
Hard Book On gate until the site health & safety induction is read and signed
Clock-in timing windows
Guardhouse
Fixed early/late allowances
WF Ninja
Configurable windows; early book-on (up to 3h) needs a recorded reason, early book-off is gated
Offline attendance capture
Guardhouse
Offline support — check with vendor
WF Ninja
Tamper-resistant offline queue with monotonic timestamps, sequential replay and conflict reconciliation
3. Subcontractors & labour supply
Subcontractor operations
Guardhouse
Partner staff often added to your own directory
WF Ninja
Dedicated subcontractor portal linked by secure partnership codes — partners keep their own officers
Cross-company shift mirroring
Guardhouse
Shifts re-keyed between companies
WF Ninja
Two-way mirroring: a partner officer's Book On updates your Control Room in real time
Anti-poaching protection
Guardhouse
Staff contact details visible to controllers
WF Ninja
Automatic contact masking keeps partner officers' phone and email private
Subcontractor staff approval
Guardhouse
Approvals handled by email
WF Ninja
Approval workflow with a 24h compliance SLA before allocation
Cross-company occurrence log
Guardhouse
Incidents held separately per company
WF Ninja
Selective occurrence book and incident mirroring up to the lead contractor
Sole-trader CIS self-billing
Guardhouse
Calculated outside the system
WF Ninja
CIS deductions (20%/30% labour-only, materials separated) with locked self-bill PDFs
4. Control room, welfare & live operations
Control room architecture
Guardhouse
Live dashboard
WF Ninja
Single-call load with real-time updates and sub-second exception feeds
Check-call scheduling
Guardhouse
Interval-based check calls
WF Ninja
Fixed schedule anchored to shift start with clear grace and missed thresholds
Missed check-call escalation
Guardhouse
Notifications
WF Ninja
Exception queue with operator collision locks and audible escalation
Operator welfare override
Guardhouse
Notes or manual dismissal
WF Ninja
Mandatory reason codes (CCTV, radio, phone, patrol) plus notes, logged to the audit trail and occurrence book
External SOC / monitoring API
Guardhouse
Webhooks
WF Ninja
Live operations API with officer GPS, welfare countdowns and vacancies
Lone worker GPS tracking
Guardhouse
Location tracking — check with vendor
WF Ninja
Tracking only during confirmed active shifts to protect privacy and battery life
5. Scheduling & rota operations
Candidate ranking
Guardhouse
Filters and staff lists
WF Ninja
Explainable scoring on familiarity, proximity, overtime impact, availability and rest
Candidate tiers
Guardhouse
Single staff list
WF Ninja
4-tier view: site regulars → qualified & available → warnings/rest overlaps → ineligible
Vacancy protection
Guardhouse
Unfilled shifts managed manually
WF Ninja
Demand kept separate from staffing; published vacancies stay until formally closed
Pattern rotations & copy week
Guardhouse
Copy rota forward
WF Ninja
Multi-week rolling rotations carrying default allowances and site bonuses
Shift confirmation & drops
Guardhouse
Push/SMS notifications
WF Ninja
Declines trigger instant ranked replacement suggestions
Student visa & restriction windows
Guardhouse
Notes or weekly caps
WF Ninja
Effective-dated rules for mid-week status changes, term-time limits and holiday exceptions
6. Accounting & invoicing
Accounting systems
Guardhouse
Accounting exports — check with vendor
WF Ninja
Xero, Sage and QuickBooks live, plus Sage 50 / Sage 200 layouts and CSV
Ledger code mapping
Guardhouse
Account code per client
WF Ninja
3-tier resolution: line service code → client code → system default
Department & stock tracking
Guardhouse
Check with vendor
WF Ninja
Department and stock codes per service type (e.g. STATIC-01, DOOR-01, KEYHOLD)
Export pre-flight validation
Guardhouse
Errors surface in the accounting system
WF Ninja
Validator catches missing customer refs, blank nominals and invalid dates before export
Export batch auditing
Guardhouse
Check with vendor
WF Ninja
Batch IDs and export history prevent duplicate exports
Direct cloud sync
Guardhouse
OAuth connection
WF Ninja
Encrypted per-tenant OAuth 2.0 with safe token refresh and direct ledger posting
7. Payroll & wage protection
Payroll outputs
Guardhouse
Timesheet / CSV exports
WF Ninja
Payroll-ready layouts for UK payroll software; MYOB coming soon. WF Ninja does not submit HMRC RTI
National Minimum Wage gate
Guardhouse
Rates checked by payroll teams
WF Ninja
Timesheets breaching NMW bands cannot be approved without an explicit signed waiver
Xero payroll hand-off
Guardhouse
Download and re-upload
WF Ninja
Direct push to Xero mapped by payroll number and pay item
Pay splitting & uplifts
Guardhouse
Pay rate settings
WF Ninja
Minute-exact splitting across standard, night, bank holiday, overtime and special windows
Allowances & chargeable extras
Guardhouse
Manual line additions
WF Ninja
Catalogue-driven categories split into officer pay and client billing
Recurring deductions & advances
Guardhouse
Tracked outside the system
WF Ninja
Append-only deduction ledger with automatic instalments
Holiday pay accrual
Guardhouse
Check with vendor
WF Ninja
52-week rolling average or 12.07% accrual, reflecting Harpur Trust v Brazel
8. Occurrence book, incidents & mobile
Digital occurrence book
Guardhouse
Daily activity reports
WF Ninja
Audited 24-hour UK daily cycle combining shift events, patrol scans and occurrences
Incident review governance
Guardhouse
Incident reports shared with clients
WF Ninja
Two-stage office review — incidents stay internal until approved and released
Custom incident templates
Guardhouse
Configurable forms
WF Ninja
Form builder with site/sector targeting, photos, GPS tags and signatures
NFC patrol verification
Guardhouse
QR / NFC checkpoints
WF Ninja
NFC, QR and GPS patrols with anti-replay protection and a missed-patrol queue
Mobile app
Guardhouse
Mobile app
WF Ninja
Native iOS and Android, offline-first, plus PWA, designed for one-handed use
Staff digital ID
Guardhouse
Staff profile
WF Ninja
Signed dynamic QR pass with SIA licence and live employment status
Rotas and guard allocation
Every security guard rota software can put names into shifts. The real test is how quickly a scheduler fills a gap at 6am with someone who is licensed, inducted and within their working-hour limits. Guardhouse offers calendar-style scheduling with shifts pushed to officers' phones.
WF Ninja combines a visual rota, shift templates and pattern rotations with explainable officer ranking — each suggestion shows why that officer fits — and safe auto-fill. Open Shifts, Shift Swaps and shift confirmations with ranked replacements reduce phone-chasing, while publishing stays separate from staffing so drafts never reach officers early.
Control room and proof of attendance
Buddy clocking and "I was there, honestly" disputes cost security firms contracts. Guardhouse supports mobile clock-in with location. WF Ninja requires a live photo plus GPS geofence check on every Book On and Book Off, logs blocked attempts, asks for a reason on early book-on and records scheduled, actual and approved time separately.
The WF Ninja Live Control Room brings a live map, geofences, exception alerts, coverage risk and site health dashboards and a Patrol Monitor into one screen. Welfare calls escalate automatically, and WhatsApp welfare and not-booked-on notifications reach officers on the channel they actually read.
SIA compliance and vetting
For UK providers, SIA licence tracking software is non-negotiable. WF Ninja tracks SIA licences and right-to-work documents with expiry alerts and can block unverified officers from being allocated. Documents are immutable and versioned, and a compliance centre, onboarding and training records sit alongside them, all backed by an immutable audit trail.
To be clear about scope: WF Ninja does not perform BS7858 screening or DBS checks. It keeps the evidence you need organised and enforced, while screening stays with your chosen provider.
Clients and subcontractors
Most UK guarding companies both buy and supply subcontracted hours. WF Ninja includes a dedicated subcontractor portal with their officers, charging and reports, so partner staff do not have to be loaded into your own directory as pseudo-employees. A scoped Client Portal gives customers property summaries, shared issues, request threads and SLA reporting — and only what they should see.
Timesheets, payroll and invoicing
WF Ninja connects verified attendance to finance: UK pay periods, effective-dated pay rates, night and bank-holiday premiums, minute-exact hours, pay statements, payroll batches, CSV export and invoicing. Xero, Sage Accounting and QuickBooks integrations are live today; MYOB and Microsoft Dynamics are coming soon. WF Ninja does not submit HMRC RTI — it hands your payroll provider clean, approved hours.
How to choose the right platform
Feature lists look similar. Instead, run both platforms through one real week of your operation:
- Fill a last-minute gap with a licensed, inducted officer within hour limits.
- Book an officer on at a real site and check what evidence you get.
- Let a welfare call go unanswered and watch how it escalates.
- Hand a shift to a subcontractor without exposing your client.
- Approve the week's timesheets and push them into your accounting system.
Count the clicks, phone calls and spreadsheets each one needs. That number — not the brochure — tells you which security workforce management platform fits your business.
Frequently asked questions
Is WF Ninja a Guardhouse alternative for UK security companies?+
Yes. WF Ninja is a UK security operations and workforce management platform covering guard rotas, live photo and GPS book-on, welfare checks, GPS/NFC/QR patrols, SIA licence and right-to-work tracking, client and subcontractor portals, timesheets, payroll batches and invoicing.
How do I compare WF Ninja and Guardhouse fairly?+
Run both against the same live week of your own rota: allocate shifts, book officers on at a real site, miss a welfare call, approve timesheets and export to payroll. Judge each platform on how many steps and spreadsheets the week needs.
Does WF Ninja integrate with Xero, Sage and QuickBooks?+
Yes. Xero, Sage Accounting and QuickBooks integrations are live. MYOB and Microsoft Dynamics are coming soon. WF Ninja does not submit HMRC RTI; it provides payroll-ready exports and batches.
Does WF Ninja perform BS7858 screening?+
No. WF Ninja tracks SIA licences and right-to-work documents with expiry alerts and can block unverified officers from shifts, but it does not perform BS7858 vetting or DBS checks.
Can we move our data from our current system to WF Ninja?+
Yes. During onboarding the team helps you bring across officers, sites, clients and rotas, and you can run WF Ninja alongside your current system until you are confident to switch.
Does the WF Ninja officer app work offline?+
Yes. The native iOS and Android apps are offline-first, so officers can keep working when signal drops and records sync when they reconnect.
Guardhouse is a trademark of its respective owner. This page is an independent comparison by WFNINJA TECH LTD based on publicly available information at the time of writing and may not reflect the latest product changes. Contact each vendor to confirm current features and pricing.