Timekeeper software is used to consistently and accurately automate time and attendance functions for organizations. By applying and enforcing pay and work rules, organizations can make significant strides towards reducing errors, payroll inflation and unnecessary overtime.
Time card tracking is such a labor intensive practice that having a tool to simplify this task vitally needed. From entry to approval, the importance of timekeeping in the workplace cannot be overstated. Organizations will see improvements to administrative time previously dedicated to employee inquiries.
What Employers Want to Achieve from a Timekeeping System
If asked why is timekeeping so important, a majority of employers will give answered directly connected to the affect not having a good system will have on the business overall. Employees are one of the most valuable assets within any organization and managing operations around that fact directly impacts business success.
Essentially, employers look to improve four things when they consider investing in a timekeeping system: labor costs, productivity, oversight and compliance risk.
- Controlling labor costs. Employers want to reduce a significant portion of operation costs by controlling how much is spent on labor. This primary motivator for seeking technology tools demonstrates the importance of timekeeping in the workplace.No matter the industry, employers want to become more efficient by replacing manual paper-based time processing systems. This old way of tracking time is full of mistakes when calculating, recording and tracking employee time and attendance. An automated, less labor-intensive approach is preferred.
- Increasing productivity. Automating and standardizing time and attendance processes should yield the need to have dedicated administrative workers for the process. Additionally, the hope is that employers would see an increase in productivity from managers and supervisors. A timekeeping system will help them keep track of hours worked time off accruals, overtime hours and schedules.
- Improving oversight. Large employers in particular, desire to have a centralized workforce management process. This will help them maintain greater control and oversight of various HR functions across the organization. Payroll miscalculations and overpayments within decentralized systems created losses. The lack of integrate applications such as payroll and timekeeping led to errors. Uninformed business decisions were made based those errors.
- Minimizing compliance risk. A critical driving force to having an efficient timekeeping system is improving compliance with federal and state laws and regulations. An accurate, automated system can encourage employers to abandon manual processes. Complying with the Fair Labor Standards Act and other government laws regulating the amount of time employers must pay employees for breaks is difficult and time-consuming. Minimizing noncompliance that exposes organizations to stiff penalties and legal costs has become corporate mandate.
Advantages to Implementing a Timekeeper System
Organizations that value the importance of timekeeping in the workplace can expect a variety of benefits from implementation:
- Reduced payroll inflation. Increased control over clocking in and out practices. Buddy punching, “early in,” and “late outs” are significantly reduced.
- Reduced spending on overtime. Labor management reporting improves along with controllable overtime spending. Organizations can expect to save hundreds of thousands of dollars from a decrease in overtime hours.
- Reduced payroll errors. Data accuracy improves when manual entry is no longer a standard operating procedure.
- Non-quantified benefits. These are also achieved through improved labor analysis, and an ease to identifying workforce-related problems.
In addition, more time savings is achieved when employers are not constantly implementing union-mandated changes. This time-consuming activity is simplified through the integrated features of a timekeeping system.
Flexible Functionality Contributes Long-term Benefits
Flexibility in adding functionality to a solid timekeeping system helps businesses achieve current and future benefits. This helps organizations long-term because they are equipped to adapt to the changing business environment.
Additional timekeeping functions such as self-service and industry specific modules expands the software for more users. Once potential benefits continue to improve significantly, the quality of scalable workforce data follows.
Developing sophisticated applications that are data rich empowers HR professionals and others in management. Just having better data within the system is enough to strengthen organizations well into the future.
Why is Timekeeping So Important?
An employer who asks why is timekeeping so important has yet to grasp the reality of not having one. Whether the budget lacks a line item for capital purchases, employers must view implementing a timekeeping system is really an investment into the organization’s survival.
Accurate time keeping is one of the most crucial aspects of a successful business. Knowing how many hours each employee works, when they are scheduled off or if they are on sick leave can be achieved through one system.
Otherwise, organizations will have to account for wasted time and money. This is more difficult to accomplish when that data is collected from faulty systems and processes. Profitability is attainable with a good time tracking system in place.
