9 Ways To Accelerate Time Card Tracking

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Liz Strikwerda

Content strategist and corporate blogger (2000+ posts). Her work has been featured on G2's Learning Hub, Human Resources Today, Better Buys and over 500 business websites. She plays bluegrass mandolin and enjoys sailing her catamaran and hiking in the red rock wilderness of southern Utah. Connect with me on LinkedIn

Time card deadlines are relentless. Managers have to approve their teams’ time cards every single pay period. This task can’t be put off or your employees won’t get their paychecks. Time card approvals can overwhelm managers without digital time card software. Inefficient processes hamstring managers and employees alike.

Are you serious about speeding up your time card tracking? Workforce management software is the ticket. Here is a step-by-step guide. Now is the time to accelerate time card approvals at your company. You will receive many collateral benefits in the process. And your managers and employees will thank you.

1. Automate Employee Timekeeping

First, upgrade your time and attendance system. If you use employee timesheets, I assume you have hourly employees. It’s impossible to manage an hourly workforce without digital time card tracking. Link it with a biometric time clock. The phrase “biometric time clock” may sound expensive. Don’t worry. You will quickly recoup the cost in lower labor expenses.

Automated timekeeping systems eliminate the need for paper time card tracking. When the system tallies a digital time card, you prevent common efficiency-killers. No more missed punches. No more sloppy writing. No more errors in arithmetic. These take time to investigate and correct. Increased accuracy speeds up time card approvals. But there is more to gain.

2. Automate Mobile Timekeeping, Also

Mobile employee timekeeping systems live in the cloud. All you need is a web browser to access the time and attendance system. This benefits both employees and managers. Employees can punch in with any web-enabled device. Your supervisors can monitor time cards on their cell phone or tablet. Mobile employees’ time cards will be as accurate as your onsite staff’s timesheets. Look for a mobile timekeeping system with GPS. This adds an extra layer of time card oversight. If you have offsite employees or techs that make service calls, mobile time tracking is a must. It also simplifies time card approvals for telecommuters.

3. Use WFM Schedule Enforcement

Schedule enforcement ensures that workers are clocking in and out when authorized. Out-of-schedule punches mess up the timecard process. When a payroll manager encounters a paper time card with out-of-schedule punches, they have to stop and research. Was this approved by a manager? Or was it simply a mistake? Customize your workforce management software with schedule rules. By omitting out-of-schedule punches, you will remove a barrier to speedy approvals. An added benefit is that it facilitates fair scheduling compliance.

4. Use PTO Tracking

Tracking Paid Time Off (PTO), vacation, and sick time accurately is crucial. Staff members who receive PTO must be able to monitor their accruals. Mistakes can cause employers to violate labor laws. They also cost money. And they bog down the time card approval process.

Manual PTO tracking is tedious and time-consuming. With your timekeeping systems in place (onsite and mobile), you are ready for the next step. Speed up time card approvals even more with automated PTO tracking.

5. Use Overtime Tracking

When an employee moves into overtime, your WFM time card tracking adapts automatically. The employee doesn’t need to add straight time and overtime on a paper timesheet. A manager won’t need to double-check the calculation. Automated employee timekeeping doesn’t skip a beat when a time card contains overtime. Remember the collateral benefits I mentioned earlier? Overtime management is one of them. Workforce management scheduling software lets managers limit overtime. This makes your employees happy. Plus, it lowers labor costs.

6. Multiple Pay Rate Settings

In some industries, it’s common for employees to have more than one job role. For example, a restaurant employee who works as a server and a hostess. When the positions have different pay rates, it complicates time card approvals. Workforce management software simplifies even complex wage structures. There are tools for tip pooling and commissions.

7. Approve Time Cards Online

Store employee time cards where managers can access them anywhere. Cloud-based WFM software allows managers to monitor time cards from their mobile device. They can approve them at their desk. Or when they are waiting in line at the bank. Or at the breakfast table before work. They don’t have to thumb through a stack of paper timesheets. They can see multiple digital time cards at a glance. Need to access a previous time card? Use advanced search tools to retrieve the information instantaneously. When time cards are stored digitally, managers never have to root through a filing cabinet to find a time card. (And then put them back in the right employee’s file.)

8. Use Job Tracking

If you bill your clients by the employee hour, track it with your time card software. When your employees clock in with a job code, your system assigns the hours to the appropriate client or project. If they switch between projects during the day, they track accordingly. Your digital time card tracking helps you pay your employees and bill your clients. This doesn’t need to be two separate processes.

9. Import to Payroll and Make it Home for Dinner

Are you approving time cards by hand? Then you are probably entering data manually into the payroll system. My sympathies to you. It’s a royal pain. Especially when you make the inevitable mistake. Approving time cards once each payroll is bad enough. Re-approving a time card after fixing a mistake is even worse. Duplicate work is especially bad when it wasn’t necessary in the first place. Simplify everything with workforce management software!

That’s it. Nine ways to accelerate time card tracking. It only requires one step to get started. Automate your employee time and attendance. SwipeClock has workforce management systems with all the tools described in this article. See SwipeClock TimeWorksPlus for more information.

Simplify HR management today.

Simplify HR management today.

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