Time & Attendance

As many of our longer-term clients are aware, we conduct annual reviews of the performance of our time and attendance systems to ensure that they are providing the best possible automation and accuracy. During a recent review, I asked a client whether there were any features they would like added to the system to enhance user experience or functionality. Jenny (the company accountant) mentioned a few reports that she would like customised, but her main concern was centred more around payroll than time and attendance. I asked Jenny to elaborate on those concerns, and she told me that their weekly payroll is a high-stress event where everything happens in a single day often requiring less experienced staff to assist in meeting the payroll deadline. As Jenny mentions, the actual process of producing the pays happens over just one day because, in most companies, the agreed payday is just a day or two after the payroll cycle finishes.  At the and of the pay cycle, and often in a rush, ...

Proximity Card Security In the Time & Attendance Industry. Proximity card security can be looked at in two ways. Firstly, there are the security issues from misuse by employees and secondly, from misuse by people outside the organisation. Your employees and card security Again, from a time and attendance perspective, the security of employee proximity card is about whether the employee can pass that card to another employee to @clock@ for them when they arrive late or depart early. This is called Time Theft, and it can account for higher labour costs to a business.  Time theft was an issue with older Bundy Clocks which used punch cards kept in a wall rack. It was very easy to punch in for other employees, and this was generally done based on an arrangement between coworkers. Proximity cards and key ring tags which are retained by employees make this considerably harder. This is particularly the case when you consider that the main reason why employees ar...

 Proximity Time Clocks - Which Card Format  Should You Use? There are dozens of proximity (RFID) cards available, and they are incompatible with each other and have their own pros and cons, so the answer to this question is best answered with a few more questions. Do you have an access control system?    If you do then it is best to select a time clock system that can use the same card format. This way, employees are not required to carry two different cards. If you don't have an access control system, is it possible you will invest in one?  If you answered yes to this question, it is possible that you can kill two birds with one stone depending on your access requirements.  If the access requirement is for a single door, then many time clocks will control an entry door with the addition of an electric lock. In any case, if access control is on the agenda, then it will be best to select a card format which is wel...

Attendance Recording for Small Business - Food Retailers Small business in the food retailing industry share some standard operating practices. Finding an employee attendance system which works well in this industry can be challenging but not if you know the right things to consider. Here are some typical characteristics of small retailers.  Typically, these businesses will employ between ten and fifty staff. Employees can work quite varied shifts. Employees are often paid overtime and penalty rates. They often employ casual employees. IT infrastructure on-site is often very basic  The payroll is usually calculated by an offsite bookkeeper or perhaps the partner of the proprietor. Employees are very interdependent, so it is usually very evident when a team member is late. In the case of larger employers, the rostering of staff for budgeting is required.  There can be issues with fingerprint time clocks because employees work with water and occasio...

The most important thing you need to know about employee time clock systems. You want a new employee time and attendance system because it promised to reduce the time and effort required to do the weekly payroll. That makes compete for sense and every company, regardless of size, should be striving to improve business processes. This is the core advantage of a modern time clock system. There are other clear benefits a modern employee time clock system can provide, such as a reduction in employee time theft (when using biometric time clocks) and the complete removal of paper attendance records. Integration with payroll is also a feature of these systems, and certainly, that can save the data entry. But what if I told you there was a single feature that almost certainly will offset the core advantage of a time clock system. Well, there is, and that is a thing called rounding. To understand rounding, you must first understand that an electronic time clock , unlike a ...

Do companies make bad buying decisions? Of course, they do and, the reasons are usually very clear. It most likely because they are not well enough informed. It comes down to the current skills of the individual or team and their ability and motivation to conduct the required research. Generally speaking, we pay more attention to our research and evaluation when the product costs more because clearly making a mistake has more serious financial consequences.  When the investment is less significant, the consequences will likely also be less significant. When considering new management information systems, small businesses usually have a smaller budget and fewer individuals who can contribute to the purchasing decision. Small businesses often do not have the luxury of an internal IT Manager, Accountant or an experienced Project Manager. Unfortunately,  it is often not possible to know what you don't know and, this can lead to overlooking some critical features that you requ...

Integrating Time & Attendance and Payroll  When companies consider implementing a time and attendance system, there are some common prerequisites in the buyer's checklist of features. Interestingly, many of the aspects of time and attendance that are most important to the end user are overlook, but that is the subject of another post. The three most common prerequisites of any time and attendance system under evaluation are A biometric reader on the time clock A simple system Integration with the current payroll system. Again, leaving the first two aside for other posts, we can explore the integration with payroll. Integration, at least as far as the end-user generally understands it, is an automatic process that transfers the time and attendance information into their payroll software without the cumbersome process of data entry of employees payroll hours. Here are the things that get in the way of this expectation. Direct integration with payroll ...

Time & Attendance and Return on Investment Working as an independent time and attendance consultant exposed me to a wide range of businesses and business owners. Different businesses can have different requirements, but there are some common objectives. Profit is, of course, the main objective of both privately and publicly owned business but in this regard, publicly owned businesses are somewhat conditioned by demands of the shareholders to focus on what is the best indicator of any investment - Return on Investment or ROI. It was this regard that John (a client of my earlier consulting business) struck an impasse. He looked at business systems simply based on cost rather than ROI, and it prevented him from implementing systems designed to save time and money. John had a contracting business that employed 200 staff. His employees were mostly remote workers, and wages were his major cost. He was concerned about employee time theft but also the cost of processing m...

  Time & Attendance Glossary Time and attendance , for the uninitiated, can be full of confusing jargon. When you are talking to time and attendance or payroll providers your understanding of the options and your supplier's proposal will be significantly enhanced if you are up to speed with the industry terminology. Here are the most comon terms you should know before discussing time clock or time and attendance systems.    The Time & Attendance Consultant