Benefits of automating with time card software
Hello again,
We would like to thank Samantha W. at TimeClick® for this guest blog post. This post is for businesses interested in saving time and increasing profitability with a time clock solution.
As noted by Scott Baird, the principal founder of Griffin Hill Integrity Sales System, no one can achieve a higher level of success than that of the system they employ. If this is true, we must examine all of the systems we use throughout our business processes.
The best place to begin this self-examination is at the fundamental level of business: timekeeping and payroll. While it’s true that many businesses are reaping the benefits of using automated systems for time tracking and payroll calculations, there are still many who don’t. Automated time tracking changes a business by saving time, improving accuracy, and enhancing more than the financial aspects.
Automated Timekeeping Saves Time
“What could you do with an extra 700 hours per year…?” Travis Snider asked in the article Business Owners: Put Time Back Into Your Day. While you may not save a full 700 hours of your personal time with just an automated timekeeping software, you will save many hours for yourself and for those who work with you on fairly compensating your employees.
What would you do with 600-700 collective hours in your business? How much would your production and profit grow if you could turn your focus from managing a small mountain of paper time cards, trying to decipher them, and performing elementary math for calculating them to more important matters?
Imagine this scenario: as a small business owner, you take it upon yourself to manage payroll for your employees. You’re on a semi-monthly pay period so you have to sit down at least twice a month to drum through time cards for 10 employees. Five minutes is spent on one, she had good handwriting. 7 minutes spent on another, their 5’s and 3’s looked too similar to read them quickly and accurately.
And then the next one… An hour and a half later you are through the time cards and while you put forth your best effort, there is not a 100 percent guarantee of no mistakes. The second time payroll swings around that month you discover an error on a time card so your calculating is halted to hunt down the employee to dig up a faint memory from three days ago of when they clocked in after lunch. Sounds like a stressful mess which it most certainly would become month after month.
Improving Accuracy with Automated Time Tracking
While errors in time cards are often small in the short run, they add up quickly. If deciding how much an employee will be compensated is greatly influenced by a factor like handwriting, eyesight, or smudges, employees will not always be fairly compensated. For example, if there is an employee who writes their fives and threes similarly or if their ones and sevens look the same on a time card, the payroll manager will likely make mistakes that, while unintentional, are harmful to the compensation and morale of that employee.
Writing on paper cards also leads to inaccurate times reported with employees rounding up or down around the time they start and end. Automating timekeeping eliminates these errors and provides administrators and payroll managers with neat, easy-to-read reports in seconds, which saves time and money.
More than Just Financial Cost Differences
Analyzing time theft with inaccurate times and tedious payroll hours is a motivator for using an automated system for timekeeping. However, there are more than financial benefits and improvements in your business when a process as fundamental and necessary as timekeeping is improved. When employees know they have a reliable, easy way to clock in and out, that eliminates that worry for them.
They no longer need to keep their own times on a sheet or look around for a clock or pull out their phone to make sure they are writing down an approximately correct time. If they are able to run a quick, clean report to see where they are at during the week, they can use the time tracking system for self-examination and improvement.
For administrators, automating your time tracking gives you a more accurate insight on your employees’ schedules and timing habits. Accuracy allows you to better reward or correct employees for their punctuality. An administrator having an accessible, painless method of viewing their employees’ hours gives you a view of the “big picture” in a couple clicks.
If automating the software improves time and employee management, it can also be used as a tool to improve company morale and cultivate a stronger culture of integrity and a stronger work ethic. When employees know that they can depend on fair compensation for their efforts, they will work harder throughout their shift knowing that padding and faded lines on a card no longer can compensate for time ill spent.
If the timekeeping software tracks projects and jobs, you will be better able to track your employees’ productivity. Having to-the-minute tracking on projects gives employees a sense of accountability leading to higher productivity and energy in the jobs they are assigned. You also could see how much each project is costing you in not only materials and supplies, but in labor as well.
This will help you decide the best areas to expend more labor and which areas need labor decreased. Tracking which employees fit best in projects becomes possible with seeing the amount of time spent by each person and the performance outcome.
Automated time tracking software changes businesses for the better. Saving time with and improving the accuracy of time tracking positively influences employee accountability and productivity. It leads to greater insight on where time and costs are spent and where they could improve. As the system you use advances, so does your company.
We hope you found this post helpful – Learn more about TimeClick.