The Whole Picture

Say you’re considering automating a few time-intensive tasks. Good thinking. Such necessary operations as staff scheduling and timekeeping eat up hours and therefore dollars. Speaking of dollars, chances are your next consideration will be the cost of that automation, so you investigate. A cursory glance at your options will offer a choice: Do you go with a web-based application or client-server software? In other words, do you buy a packaged program you install and maintain locally, or do you subscribe to an online scheduling/timekeeping system? Your first reaction may be “Why should I take on the ongoing expense of any subscription service when I can make one purchase upfront, own the software, and be done with it?” For the answer, we suggest you assess your current operation (IT staff on hand, number of users you’ll have, potential for company growth or downsizing) and compare features of both options with that assessment in mind. The best choice for you will be the one that saves you the most in staff time and errors, requires the least staff intervention, and provides optimal automation of your selected tasks. Here are a couple of aids to help in your research:

Automated Timekeeping: Time to Choose

Automation Line by Line

Employee Scheduling and Timekeeping
Client-server Automation vs MyTimeCards.com (MTC)
	Client-server	MyTimeCards
Upfront Costs	Yes	No
License Purchase Required	Yes	No
Upgrades & Migrations	Customer’s responsibility	By MTC with no additional fee
Service Contract	Yes, up to 20% of cost/yr	No
IT Support	Reliant on customer’s staff	Unlimited at no charge
System Customization	Limited by product	Highly Customizable
Accessible by Multiple Users	With purchase of licenses	Unlimited # of Users
Accessible from Multiple Locations	Local network only	From anyplace w/ Internet
Record Storage	Limited by user server space	Unlimited
Server Speed	Depends on user system load	High speed hosted servers

Plumbing 103 for HR Managers

What about what I like to call the "fudge factor?" Do you have a means to verify and substantiate suspicions of employee abuse of your timekeeping policies – the early punch ins or the late punch outs – without human (and costly) supervision? Does your current system show employees' clocked hours compared to approved/scheduled hours, over one day or over one or many pay periods? Can you determine at a glance which employees may need a reminder of clocking policies, or would you need a supervisor to spend hours monitoring employees to substantiate the reminder?

The devil is indeed in the details, and the details you should be concerned about are irregular schedules, exceptions to policies, the need for staff intervention in timekeeping, and clocked vs. scheduled hours. So take a look at how closely your current tools and procedures actually match the reality of doing business the way it's done in your own company. If the fit isn't good enough to plug the hole, it's still a hole.

The minimum wage for covered nonexempt employees was raised on 7/24/09 to $7.25/hour. Remember, under FLSA, if time is clocked by a nonexempt employee, it must be paid, and if that time brings the total hours to over 40/week, it must be paid at time and a half. An accurate, automated timekeeping system that is customizable to match your policies and alerts managers to patterns of abuse is the best tool you can have to prevent the clocking of unauthorized hours.

Click below for useful information on potential cash “leaks”.

Coverage Under the Fair Labor Standards Act

Your HR Plumber's Helper

Plumbing 102 for HR Managers

Even if you have complete confidence in your employees, scheduling and time tracking equipment and monitoring procedures, you still could be losing considerable cash if the equipment doesn't adapt to all permutations of company policy. The permutations are the weak points just waiting to spring big leaks, and every business has them. For example:

Do your current equipment and monitoring procedures allow for pre-approved exceptions to the rules or varying work schedules without costly supervisor intervention?

How do you reschedule and track time lost due to closings, i.e. weather or outages?
Can your system automate these changes easily for you?

Remember, any time a human has to intervene to edit paper or tweak the automation, you've lost benefit of the automation and you've lost money.

The American Payroll Association estimates the average time spent on a correction to a timesheet to be 15 minutes. Using an automated timekeeping system, customized to reflect your company’s policies and anomalies, greatly decreases staff time required to produce accurate reporting of hours worked and leave earned and taken.

Plumbing 101 for HR Managers

Where are you losing money by overpaying non-exempt workers? Notice that I'm assuming you are losing money. EVERY employer has small, and often big- cash leaks in overpayments that can go unnoticed unless s/he looks carefully for them. These leaks don't have to be hard to find. Just spend a little time thinking about how your business operates-

What rules are prescribed for punching in and out?

How are these rules being monitored?

Are they being monitored at all?

If your answer to any of these questions is "I'm not sure," I'm willing to bet your plumbing is gushing dollars by paying for time not worked- and that's not fair to anyone.

To have your HR plumbing looked at, check out the following sources for help on how to stop and slow those leaks now- before you notice the flood.

Riding the Clock Tricks some employees may use to beat the timekeeping system, written by actual clock riders. How vulnerable to them are your policies and systems?

Time to Act
HR Management Magazine’s take on time and attendance automation.

Try MyTimeCards A chance to see automated timekeeping in action – for free.

There's No Business Like Your Business

Two businesses can appear identical on the outside - or even after you step in the door. Do most Subways or Dunkin Donuts stand out as unique? Well each is, because no two business owners do business the same way. They don't make identical policies or expect identical performance from their employees. That's why cookie-cutter time keeping systems are of practically no use to them. No system right out of the box will record time with each company's policies taken into account. Any business owner using such a product will wind up tweaking the records regularly, therefore losing any advantage automation could have afforded, or worse, changing their company policies to match the limited capabilities of the time keeping software.

With MyTimeCards, we change the tracking parameters to match your policies, at no charge to you. Our flexible program contains hundreds of variables easily selected and stored by you, to reflect how you record time worked and award time off. And that's not all. If you should have a policy not already reflected in MyTimeCards, we'll program it for you, so you get the maximum automation - and the maximum savings - from our software.

Take it from Phillip Whitford of Braswell Memorial Library, Rocky Mount NC: "Every time keeping package we looked at would have required us to change our HR polices to adapt to the software. MyTimeCards on the other hand adapted their program to meet our needs and our policies. For once the software changed to accommodate the people and not the other way around."

MyTimeCards...Getting it right around the clock!

The MyTimeCards Reputation, Case #4

What the MyTimeCards customer said..."Every time keeping package we looked at would have required us to change our HR polices to adapt to the software. MyTimeCards on the other hand adapted their program to meet our needs and our policies. For once the software changed to accommodate the people and not the other way around."

Why they said it...

Remember, any time a human has to intervene to edit paper or tweak the automation, you've lost benefit of the automation and you've lost money. The American Payroll Association estimates the average time spent on a correction to a timesheet to be 15 minutes. We take the time to learn how your office operates and customize MyTimeCards just for you, to reflect your company’s policies and anomalies, so we can greatly decrease your staff time required to produce accurate reporting of hours worked and leave earned and taken.

The MyTimeCards Reputation, Case #3

What the MyTimeCards customer said..."None of the time keeping programs on the market met our needs. MyTimeCards listened to what we wanted and in short order, custom designed a package that did exactly what we wanted it to. We got exactly what we wanted, at fair cost, and quickly. How often can you say that about anything?"

Why they said it...

With MyTimeCards, you'll get a system customized at no extra charge to your specifications, based on your company policies and operations. You'll get the power and convenience of sophisticated web technology and the individual attention of a neighborhood business owner. A wide variety of reports may be generated quickly in the MyTimeCards modules and just a couple of clicks produce records of actual clock in/out times for any or all employees, payable hours listed by employee to input for payroll, and much more. And remember, if you have a need we have not anticipated, customized reports may be created. Just tell us what you need to know. We'll work with you to put it at your fingertips.

The MyTimeCards Reputation, Case #2

What the MyTimeCards customer says... "A timekeeping program shouldn't require much thought or attention. It should do what it does without fuss or bother and be utterly reliable and accurate. MyTimeCards is the perfect program in this regard."

Why they say it...

Here’s one example…MyTimeCards automates the entire Paid Time Off accrual process. It is 100% accurate, easily editable and customizable, based on your unique policies, so that someone working, say, 63% of your defined work week receives 63% of the defined paid time off. MyTimeCards makes it effortless to reward employee longevity. And there's no arithmetic for you to do!

The MyTimeCards Reputation, Case #1

What the MyTimeCards customer said..."MyTimeCards is easily the most responsive software company I've ever dealt with. They treat our every question, comment, or concern as if it were their top priority."

Why they said it...

MyTimeCards always provides

Personal attention with 24 hour response guarantee

Free staff training

Free set up and badge encoding

Free unlimited tech support

Free software customization

Who Cares?

What would you expect from a company that boasts about their customer service? Prompt and careful attention to your needs as a customer? Thoughtful and complete product or service information? Some "give" and not just "take"? A sustained relationship rather than one that ends at the point of sale?

MyTimeCards is proud of our Customer Care. We take pride in responding personally and promptly to all our customers’ questions and suggestions, and we offer free technical support and training. Our customer support staff includes the MyTimeCards software developers and programmers, so you get expert assistance no matter what your question. We welcome input on our products and services, and work continually for and with you to maximize our product’s benefit to you, and reduce the time and money you now spend managing employee work time. Test us by signing up for a Free Trial. You'll get all of the above, at no charge!

Custom Info

Daniel Kehrer, Editor, Business.com & Work.com reports that "a time and attendance system can help you control employee absenteeism by helping you keep better and more accurate records." A good system lets you monitor attendance trends by employee, department, date or weekday so you can address problems early and with accurate documentation.

A wide variety of reports may be generated quickly in the MyTimeCards modules and just a couple of clicks produce records of actual clock in/out times for any or all employees, payable hours listed by employee to input for payroll, and much more. And remember, if you have a need we have not anticipated, customized reports may be created. Just tell us what you need to know. We'll work with you to put it at your fingertips.

Job Tracking

Need to know where staff hours are spent by project or by location or budget line? Experts at hrVillage.com say...

"Key features for enterprises which seek to track their employee's time include the following:

* Automated assignment of work
* Manager-level dashboards
* Executive-level dashboards
* Automatic timesheet data coordinated to project schedule updates
* employee scheduling
* Workforce analytics
* Automation of attendance policy rules
* Employee benefit tracking
* Easy export to external payroll systems"


MyTimeCards Jobs Module does it all. It gives you the ability to schedule or charge and track worked hours for an unlimited number of specific jobs you’ve predefined, or you can charge hours to clients, departments, projects, grants or just about any category you can think of. Various access levels allow selective viewing by employee, manager or administrator. See all the powerful features here!

Maximize the Power of People

According to Jason Agard, Senior Associate Editor, Business.com, "the right [employee scheduling] system can yield distinct benefits, including efficiency gains that go straight to the bottom line.

"Depending on the employee scheduling system you choose, it will enable you to:

• Confidently schedule appointments and meetings
• Coordinate multiple schedules among employees
• Keep accurate records on how prompt and reliable your best employees are, and which ones have a history of lateness and absenteeism
• Maximize use of your facilities and supply chain
• Efficiently handle vacation requests
• Anticipate and handle the challenges of seasonal changes and business growth"

The flexibility of the MyTimeCards scheduling module allows creation of very simple to very complex schedules viewable by all employees and editable by managers. It provides easy-to-identify alerts when an employee is scheduled for more hours than approved, or when an employee clocks more hours than approved. The MTC scheduling function features a simple, automated process for requesting time off, and one-click supervisor approval. One-click reports reflect trends in tardiness and absenteeism. Schedule a Free Trial today!

Why Automate Time and Attendance? V

HRMReport.com sites several best practices in time and attendance, for example: "...corrections or amendments to prior periods should be done in time and attendance and go through the same approval workflow and calculation process. Once users make corrections, the software should recalculate prior period time sheets in order to correct the errors and calculate the adjustments automatically. By relying on the software to do the calculations and adjustments you continue to comply with [best practices]."

With MyTimeCards, corrections are reflected automatically in all reports, time off accruals, payable hours and other calculations. Even if a company changes a policy and corrections need to be grandfathered, MyTimeCards handles all changes accurately based on whatever date a change should have taken effect.

Stay current and compliant with MyTimeCards!

Why Automate Time & Attendance? IV

According to HR Management Magazine, "Perhaps the first rule and best practice (for automated timekeeping systems)is that employees should enter data and the software should apply the HR/payroll rules and calculations. This is important to (a) ensure accuracy and consistency in your calculations and (b) eliminate subjectivity in the process of calculating employee pay. Often times pay rules are very complex and automating the calculations should be a key goal."

MyTimeCards Employee Information Screen makes it easy to record and update each employee's salary, hourly rates, exemptions and other vital information, in one location, so all HR rules are applied accurately and consistently.

Why Automate Time and Attendance? III

"The most common myth is that time and attendance systems are only for hourly (non-exempt) employees who need to use badge readers. In fact, modern systems today are deployed enterprise-wide to both hourly and salaried employees via a web-browser to give them the capability to report project hours, report absences, request time off, and perform self service inquiries among other things." * In addition, MyTimeCards accurately calculates paid time off.

Our customized accrual calculation automatically and accurately tracks earned time off for multiple employee types based on your company’s policies regarding hour type (sick, vacation, etc.), employee longevity, and more.

Why Automate Time and Attendance? II

"The Department of Labor recovered more than US$196 million in back wages in 2004 as a result of FLSA violations. Using a time and attendance system makes compliance with the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) much easier. Good time and attendance systems will automatically collect time worked, apply overtime rules consistently, and use advance calculations to handle the regular rate of pay calculations. These will all minimize the chance of a labor violation or lawsuit." *

The MyTimeCards virtual punch clock allows employees to key in with a unique ID from any Internet-connected device, or swipe badges at a conveniently located reader to clock in and out. Customized, automatic rounding of hours lets you decide whether to track time to the nearest second, nearest minute, 5 minutes or any increment you choose. Learn more!

Why Automate Time & Attendance? I

HR Management Magazine says: "Implementing a time and attendance system can save most employers between 2-5 percent of their total payroll in improved efficiencies and staff reductions...These savings stem from a variety of areas, including paper reduction, elimination of ‘time theft’ (hours paid but not worked), managing leave liability, controlling overtime, fewer errors due to automated calculations, eliminating duplicate data entry, and elimination of fines and lawsuits. Overall, a payback period of less than 12 months is typical and is easily justified in almost every organization."

Accessible 24/7 in a simple, traditional looking format, MyTimeCards Web-based timecards automatically track worked hours and maintain accrual and usage of earned time off. Timecard periods are customized for you – whether you track weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, bi-monthly, or otherwise. Each timecard allows one-click supervisor approval and easy entry of pertinent comments by employee or supervisor. Get a free trial now!

Tracking Volunteers

According to the US Dept of Labor, about 61.8 million people, or 26.4 percent of the American population, volunteered through or for an organization at least once between September 2007 and September 2008. Besides giving back to the community, volunteerism is part of court-ordered community service, college applications, tuition credit at private schools and more, and it can carry a lot of weight. These hours should tracked accurately, but simply. Managing volunteers should not create more work than the volunteers provide.

MyTimeCards is accessible from any Internet connected device, easy to use for all involved, and gives accurate, fast reports of hours worked with just a couple of clicks. Try it free!