Online Time Clocks

Get the best information about online time clocks

Written by Steve Bryan

Long gone are the punch card based time clocks of old. These days, online time clocks are growing in popularity and replacing the traditional wall time clocks in employee entrances and break rooms.

Web-based time management

Switching to a virtual time clock means less work for the human resources staff that handles the payroll processing for your business. The companies that provide this service typically host all the software on their secure servers, upgrading the time clock software as needed. The time logged for individual employees is stored and backed up by the host company, which is less work for your IT staff to do.

Benefits of online time clocks

Some managers may still prefer the old way of handling employee hour tallying, but switching to online time clocks has many advantages:

• Less paperwork. Instead of stacks of time cards archived in cardboard boxes, time and payroll records are stored electronically. To stay compliant with government regulations, only authorized managers and HR personnel have access to these records.
• Curbs abuse. By authorizing log-ins to the online time clock only on certain computers, you can limit abuses such as "buddy punching," where one employee logs in and out for a coworker.
• Remote log-in. If you have employees or contractors who need to work remotely from home or a client site, you can give them authorization to log in from a remote computer. This lets your human resources staff keep an accurate record of hours worked while an employee is away from the office.
• Forecasting. The data collected by online time clocks can be downloaded, collated, and analyzed to help you and your managers project current and future human resource needs.

Questions to ask

There are several providers of online time clocks with excellent reputations, but it’s always a good idea to ask several direct questions to find the system that best meets your needs:

• How many employees can their software handle? Is it easy to add or delete an employee from the time clock database?
• How often is the software upgraded? Is there any expected downtime for the time clock?
• Can managers log in to the system from any terminal to check on time and attendance? Are managers limited to their own direct reports, or can they see all employee records?
• Does the online system take into account access from different time zones? Will an employee's time card accurately reflect the hours worked if they are, for instance, out of the country on assignment?

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