What are the different methods of tracking an employee's time:
There are many different ways to track an employee's time.
Some of these methods include but are not limited to:
- Manual or handwritten timecards or on sheets of paper
- Manual timeclocks
- Timeclock using Proximity/Swipe badges or Biometric
- Webclock
- Mobile app
How is your organization currently tracking time?
Rules, Rules, Rules.....
Along with the multiple possibilities of tracking time, there are also a lot of rules that can apply to an employee's time. Employee's time can be subject to rounding rules. The employee can be locked out of the timekeeping system until a specified time frame prior to their scheduled start time. Employees may be paid overtime based on the number of hours they work. This can be calculated on a daily or weekly basis. Also lunches can be automatically deducted from the timesheet. Breaks can be paid or unpaid. Holidays and vacations can be paid or unpaid. An employee may work a 2nd or 3rd shift or weekends and they may receive a premium pay amount for working those shifts.
There are so many things to consider when calculating an employee's time. A company may have their own internal rules but they also need to abide by all state and federal rules as well.
Benefits of Electronic Timekeeping:
Timekeeping can be done electronically using a physical clock, webclock or mobile app. All of the time is then processed through software. The software will house the rules of the company and automatically apply and calculate the timesheets saving the company time and money.
Below are some of the benefits of electronic timekeeping:
- Prevent wasted time and money
- Collect job costing data
- Data for accurate payroll
- Data for billing/invoicing
- Less time spent on payroll
- Prevent buddy punching and time theft
- Prevent human error
- Accurate time calculations
Prevent Wasted Time and Money can be huge for an organization. A company can lose so much money with even just 5 minutes of lost time each day.
chart illustrates the amount of money that can be lost annually.
Companies are always looking at ways to cut costs and save time. Using an electronic timekeeping system will cover both of those. Not only does it save time and money for the person calculating the timesheets, it also saves money by eliminating some of the opportunities for the employees to cheat the system.