Keeping Time—Killing Wasted Hours & Errors

Integrated Timekeeping & Onboarding Management Delivers Tangible Benefits to HR and Payroll Management

Utilizing systems that track your employees daily and weekly time is imperative to saving time, cost, and to building good will with your employees. Not only will your company present itself professionally via a time tracking application but there’s a huge opportunity to save on labor costs and improve goodwill with your employees through more accurate payroll processing. In addition, deploying a fully integrated human resources and payroll platform further enhances the benefit.

Though some teams are not as open to change, most companies find rolling out a high-tech solution for tracking time cards and payroll hours an easy task. For hourly employees, time is money, so being able to see their hours captured accurately, and in real time, is a win for them.

Accurate & Timely Tracking is a Win for EE and ER

Implementing new software, and processes to go with it, can be intimidating. But the gains that can be achieved by implementing a time tracking system for payroll are well worth the investment. Fees associated with running corrected payrolls, the cost of employees rounding start and end times to bump up overtime pay, and paying additional payroll staff to handle the manual tasks are among the many areas that drive up costs.

A time tracking system not only delivers time savings for your payroll processing team, but also a dramatic reduction of costly corrections. Imagine saying goodbye to feverishly keying in timecard hours from spreadsheets and manual cards on Monday mornings—now that’s a win!

Systemic time tracking:

• Gives employees ownership over their time tracking.
• Records more accurate timestamps versus manual tracking.
• Gains employee trust—visibility to their actual time, live!
• Provides control with set scheduling and geofencing.
• Allows employees flexibility to request time adjustments.
• Attributes to higher potential for employee retention.

These benefits are heavy on the employee side, which is important. But you, and more specifically your payroll team, will experience significant advantages as well. There is potential for huge improvement in time spent on payroll by importing hours directly from the tracking system into your payroll software, but it also reduces keypunch and transcription errors. This is possibly the most important benefit from the employer’s perspective.

An article published by NAWBO in May 2024 quoted an IRS finding of 40 percent of small and medium businesses being fined for incorrect calculations and filings. Ouch! Even low penalties add up to high impact costs if these errors persist week after week.

Research shared by Alight, Inc. in March 2024 noted that 51 percent still use spreadsheets and 19 percent use manual or paper processes, creating a perfect environment for recurring errors and putting the organization at great risk for fines due to miscalculation and incorrect filings.

In addition to exposing the organization to penalties with tax agencies and the cost of reworking payroll, the largest potential cost to your business is turnover. When employees are paid incorrectly or late, they lose trust in their employer and look to join a company that will pay them correctly and on time. In a time when many families are living paycheck to paycheck, correct and on-time pay is more critical than ever.

Most systems even allow for set schedules by position or department, giving your supervisors and managers real time visibility to those who might be punching in early or out for the day before their scheduled time. The tracking systems generally provide convenient data reports to analyze labor hours and make it incredibly easy to scale when bringing on new departments and acquisitions as well.

Bring It All Together with Integrated Payroll & HR Systems

Tracking employee time for payroll online or through an app on a smartphone delivers clear benefits.  But many providers of time tracking are now offering fully integrated payroll and human resource management systems that allow you to streamline the process from hiring through payroll, creating a seamless rollout to your employee team.

Much like simple time-tracking software, an integrated HR system like WorkforceHub brings a ton of value to both the employer and the employee. For a new employee, an integrated system offers consistency in the onboarding process. The look and feel of the application is consistent from their new hire process all the way through their weekly payroll, benefits selection and time-off requests.

All your new hires see the same forms and disclosures, and the system captures all documents and signatures in one place. This is especially helpful for a company that has many locations or various hiring managers, ensuring compliance across all teams and live access to employee documents. Goodbye, interoffice envelopes!

Company image is critical for employee retention, and deploying these systems also gives the appearance that your company is operating with a high degree of professionalism and advanced technology. It also doesn’t hurt that less paper means you’re contributing to sustainability—an important factor for today’s workforce.

Finally, there’s a tangible time savings opportunity for your payroll and human resources teams. The time investment to set up the system is made upfront, so when a new employee is onboarded through the system, their data and information flows directly into the time, HR and payyroll modules. For many companies, a paper new hire file passes through multiple departments, and data is entered into two or even three systems.

Here are some additional statistics regarding the current usage of HR software among employers:

• 9 percent utilize two or more systems.
• 80 percent have only one insourced payroll technology
• 20 percent use two or more insourced payroll technologies.

Implement a Streamlined Solution

Utilizing a single system that integrates all these functions into one platform reduces redundant entry and potential for error while allowing for more efficient communication of employee information. This is especially important when teams work in various locations, or when you utilize a remote payroll management company like Valor Payroll Solutions. They would access the time and labor information live without the delay of your team preparing that tedious excel file every Monday!

Integrated systems offer:

• Consistency in processes
• Less paper
• Continuity in image
• Time savings
• An outstanding employee experience

Companies are moving away from manual and segregated payroll and HR management software and implementing streamlined, fully integrated platforms. These systems provide not only time tracking and payroll, but an employee experience that improves engagement and motivation.

The opportunity to limit exposure, streamline your process, save time and money, all while creating a more positive experience for your valuable employee teams.  Explore WorkforceHub to see how the expert, US-based team will make your implementation a breeze and have your payroll teams smiling on Mondays again!

Guest post written by Christina Hageny, CPP, PHR, SHRM-CP, president of Valor Payroll Solutions

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