- How to Choose the Right Electronic Timesheet for your Employees
- How to Manage Timesheet for Multiple Employees
- How to Avoid Timesheet Manipulation
1. Choose the Right Electronic Timesheet for your Employees
If you are still using punch cards as a way to track time and attendance for your employees, you are way beyond the time to upgrade. Even if you have already converted to electronic time sheets, you may have found that the program you chose has not been a great match for your employees. Before you choose another timesheet program without knowing what you are looking for, use these tips to help you pick the right timesheet system.
Think Like Your Employees
Your employees are the ones that are going to be using the program to clock in and out. You should keep them in mind while you are looking for the right program to use. You want to make sure that the program is easy to learn and use on a daily basis. They will be the ones to use it so you may want to have some of them test out the programs before buying. they can give you insight that you may not have considered.
Find A Program That Is User Friendly
Not only do you want your employees to like the program, you also want to make sure it is easy to navigate. This is especially true if you are coming from a manual time punch system. Your employees may not necessarily have a lot of experience with technology. This makes is imperative to find an easy to use timesheet for employees.
Find A Program That Manages More Than Time Punches
If you find a program that can do even more than the basics, you are in luck. Our Mitrefinch product is a complete time management tool. It not only tracks your employees time punches, but it can also track things such as time off, vacations, sick time, and much more. It is a tool that both you and your employees can use to their advantage simply by having more access to the various services.
Look For Something Cloud Based
If you are going to convert to an electronic time clock system, you may as well find something that is as updated as possible. One of these ways is by finding a cloud based timesheet for employees. A cloud based system is beneficial for many reasons including eliminating the need for servers on site. You can have your servers hosted in the cloud, so you do not have to make room for the servers.
Reserve The Option For Servers If You Want Them
Of course, since this is a fairly advanced way to keep your timesheets, you may want to find a company that can also install the servers on site. This is a personal preference, but if you are going to want to have the servers on site, you should also consider a company that can switch you over to the cloud whenever you want. The technology is heading in the direction whether you are ready for it or not. You can get servers on site now, but it may not be that way for many years to come. Servers on site may not be the most advanced way to go about it, but Advance Systems can handle this task for you.
Look For Durability And Expandability
The program that you choose should have the ability to grow with your company over time. It should also be built to last. The last thing anyone wants to do is invest money in something just to have to turn around and do the same thing again later because the program was not big enough or durable enough. Most business owners expect their business to continue to grow. With that growth come more employees. All of your employees will need to have access to the timesheet system you choose for a number of reasons. If the system does not need to be large now, you should want the option for the future.
Save Your Company More Money Over Time
As a business owner, you are always looking for ways to save more money for the business. While you may have to spend money to get a system like this up and running, it is designed to save you more money in the long run in a variety of ways:
- Employees are less likely to cheat the system. Since employees have to clock in on the system with their own login, they cannot get their friends to manually punch their time clock when they are late.
- The systems track to the minute. When employees clock in and out, the system will accurately reflect the time. For example, if they clock in at 8:03, it will say 8:03 and not 8:00. This will save you money over time.
- You will not have to manually figure out time. With punch cards, you likely spend a lot of time manually figuring out hours. An automated system will do this for you.
2. How to Manage Timesheet for Multiple Employees
As businesses grow, it becomes increasingly difficult to manage the timesheet for multiple employees. Fortunately, this process can be simplified by following a few simple tips. This article is going to explore four ways to better manage the timesheets of multiple employees.
4 Ways To Better Manage The Timesheet For Multiple Employees
Track Absences Effectively
One of the most important ways you can better manage your employee timesheets is to track absences effectively. To do this, you should aim for checking records daily to catch any absences from the previous day clocking records.
You must compare all clocking records to your master schedule. Doing this manually is a very tedious process that can take quite some time. This is why many businesses opt for absence tracking software to simplify this process.
A good program will allow you to code absences multiple ways. This way you can remove approved absences and leaves from your reports to better identify employees who show unexcused absences.
The main reason reviewing absences on a daily basis is a benefit is that you can identify missed punches much more quickly this way. You can also follow up with employees that you have confirmed were absent to determine if and when they plan on returning to work so that you can make schedule adjustments as needed.
Maintain Historical Records
Any successful timesheet management system is going to have historical record keeping incorporated as part of it. The exact timeframe of payroll record keeping requirements varies from state to state. These payroll records are often used for a variety of things such as FMLA requests, unemployment benefit claims, and rental applications for employees.
Managing and maintaining a traditional time card historical record system can prove daunting. If you are still using this type of method, consider digitizing your payroll records to avoid fading and other issues. To free up space and improve efficiency, most businesses opt for electronic timesheet solutions.
These programs store a variety of timesheet data in the cloud. For instance, the Mitrefinch Time & Attendance system is capable of storing up to 98 years of clocking data for later use. You can also export these reports to Excel formats and more for easier review if the need arises.
Simplify Vacation Time
One area that is often overlooked when it comes to timesheet management is vacation time. To ensure effectiveness, it is important that you accurately monitor and record the hours worked of employees when calculating vacation hours based on your company policies.
To do this, most businesses use a system that awards vacation based on hours worked. Another popular system is to offer a set amount of vacation time each year based on the employment length of the employee.
Both of these methods require careful attention to specific dates like date of hire, probationary periods, and more. Tracking this information manually can prove to be quite daunting as an organization continues to grow their employee workforce.
In addition, tracking employee vacation time usage is increasingly difficult as businesses grow. This is why many companies opt for leave management systems. These types of programs allow business owners to quickly track and code leave requests. This way, they can be sure that all vacation time is adequately tracked and awarded appropriately. They can also record important dates like date of hire and more.
Consider Self-service Solutions
One of the best ways to effectively manage the timesheets of employees is to implement self-service solutions. Self-service options are the perfect way to allow employees to perform a variety of tasks relating to their payroll in a safe and efficient manner.
The most common reason businesses use self-service options is that they allow employees to review their own historical clocking records using a secure portal. As a general rule of thumb, it is recommended to remind employees to check their clockings each day. By doing this, they can identify missed punches and notify their supervisor immediately of any discrepancies.
Another reason self-service solutions are growing in popularity is that they allow employees to easily request time off and apply for FMLA as well. These requests are then sent to their supervisor for review electronically further simplifying the recordkeeping process.
Managing the timesheets of your employees doesn’t have to be a difficult process. By implementing some of these tips, you can effectively review payroll records, approve FMLA requests, and even manage vacation time with ease. With just a little pre-planning, you can be sure your timesheet management system will be a success.
3. Could Your Employees be Manipulating their Paper Timesheets?
Remember that school fellow who used to yell ‘Present!’ at the mention of his absent buddy during the attendance roll calls? We have all seen many such types and you too might have done a similar favor for your friend or peer at least once.
Like it is said, bad habits do not go away that easily, a loyal friend who used to serve as a proxy for his late or absent fellows might still be doing the favor today!
Where?
In your very own organization!
Compromised time records and manipulations in the timesheets and attendance logs are one of the core areas that eat away a significant chunk of the organizational budget. Each manipulated entry translates into a slam dunk cost and a futile expenditure that does not bring any actual return.
Timesheet manipulations and compromised entries often happen in organizations that still follow manual methods of time management and make time and attendance records through paper logs and spreadsheets.
With the evolution of smart and automated time and attendance systems, the paper sheets and manual handling of key management functions have long lost their efficacy. Since the basic spreadsheets and paper time sheets are handled manually, there exists a high probability of manual errors and alterations in the current or past records.
Since the wage and hour calculations as well as payroll mechanism solely depend on the accuracy of time entries and overtime records, compromised time and attendance entries might result in a slam dunk cost, making up a significant 5% of the total payroll budget.
How Your Employees Might be Manipulating the Time Sheets?
You might not even have an idea of how many ways your employees use to manipulate paper time sheets and attendance logs. Of the ample ways to manipulate, dupe and abuse the time sheets, here are some common tactics used to alter the organization’s time and attendance records;
- Buddy Punching
- Personal Biases or Favoritism
- False Time Offs
- Deceptive Data Entries
- Nepotism
TimeSheet Manipulation – What’s the Solution?
A smart, effective and efficient solution to prevent and eliminate the manipulation of time and attendance entries is to upgrade your time and attendance functions through automated systems and software.
This eliminates the scope of manual handling of entries, with the smart and intelligent system making it impossible to abuse time records and attendance logs though deceptive manual tactics. Here are some smart strategies for you to incorporate into your employee management designs to ensure the accuracy and sanctity of the essential time, attendance, work and overtime records to reduce costs and resource wastage;
- Use smart and automated systems to optimize efficiency and accuracy of your core workforce management functions.
- Maintain a system of smart vigilance for time entries.
- Devise an integrated working pattern. This makes it convenient to track late entries and absences.
- Maintain an instant feedback mechanism to deal with the queries, notifications and approval requests related to the time and attendance system in a timely and hassle-free way.
- Incorporate stringent rules and guidelines pertaining to the accuracy of time and attendance entries and also elaborate on the consequences if an employee is found compromising the entries.
