In most cases, labor costs are the largest percentage of overhead that a business experiences. Controlling labor costs might mean the difference between profit & loss on a particular job, or even whether the business itself maintains a healthy profit margin. Many businesses still use time sheets, where employees sign themselves ‘in & out’ for breaks, lunch, dinner, etc. or rely on the employee to write-in the number of hours they work in a day, on what job and which shift, including overtime. Well……. “Pencils can’t tell time!”. Further, the time it takes a manager to add-up everyone’s time for the pay period, decide how much overtime has been worked, who worked on which jobs or tasks, apply shift differentials and populate everyone’s fringe-benefit ‘buckets’ accurately takes quite a bit of time that could be better spent performing other duties. Not to mention the time spent auditing, correcting errors and getting the information to the payroll department on-time.
Boy-oh-Boy …. can we save you a bunch of money!
Electronic time & attendance systems allow your business to track and control labor costs automatically and according to your specific policies. No more guessing how much time was spent on a particular job, in a specific department or on another shift. ‘Punches’ are absolutely accurate as the ‘T&A’ system automatically applies the actual time inputs occur. Rounding rules, accurate lunch breaks, even shift differentials and overtime can be automatically applied. ‘Labor distribution’ and job-costing’ reports can be generated automatically and emailed to department heads and project managers, allowing them instant and accurate access to cost accounting. Even scheduling and ‘approaching overtime’ reports be generated automatically, allowing manager to predict and manage cost overruns and instantly change employees’ schedules to prevent overtime expense. Employee ‘benefit buckets’ can be updated automatically! ‘Time-Card’ exception reports can be automatically generated showing managers missing ‘punches’ so they can complete the pay period’s information immediately. Managers can then approve their entire department’s ‘end-of-period’ information and click a link to instantly send the completed information to the payroll department or export it to a third-party payroll service!
Electronic T&A systems typically use employee ID badges, PINs on keypads, biometric readers (fingerprint, hand geometry, retina scan and facial recognition) and even touch-tone on telephones to ‘clock in and out’. A system can be locally installed or cloud based. A system can be purchased outright and depreciated or expensed as a monthly subscription.
Implementing a properly designed electronic Time & Attendance system can lead to a 20-25% (or more) reduction in overall labor costs!
