The Importance of Having Employee Time-Tracking Software

One of the hardest tasks any business owner has to deal with is employee management. From training and supervising to making sure all employees are paid on time, it can be time-consuming and frustrating. Employee time management is especially challenging because of all the effort spent collecting time sheets from employees and calculating payroll.

The right employee time-tracking software can help you increase the productivity and profitability of your business. Plus, it’s an excellent way to cut unnecessary expenses. Here are just a few of the benefits of having time-tracking software for your small business.

Pay Your Employees for Hours They’ve Worked

The Fair Labor Standard Act (FLSA) requires that most employees in the United States be paid at least the federal minimum wage for all hours worked. In addition, employers must pay employees overtime pay of time-and-one-half the employee’s regular pay rate for all hours that person worked over 40 hours each workweek.

To know if your employees have worked overtime, you need to keep accurate records of all the hours they’ve worked. Having time-tracking software in place will help you to know exactly how many hours your employees worked and if anybody worked any overtime. In addition, you’ll know ahead of time if your employees will end up working overtime if they continue working the same hours they’ve been putting in. This can help you mitigate that issue by redistributing the work in order to avoid paying unnecessary overtime.

Streamline Your Business Workflow

There are a lot of pieces that go into your business, including bookkeeping, scheduling, keeping customers happy, and buying inventory. And that’s just to name a few.

Additionally, you could spend hours keeping track of who worked on which day and how many hours they worked. Even then you might have issues if employees forget what time they came in or what time they left work.

With employee time-tracking software you or your office manager can view employee time sheets in real time. There will be no more guessing about how much your payroll bill will be for the week. That’s because you can view all of the hours your employees worked in real time. You won’t need to wait for the end of the day or week to collect the data.

Protect Your Business

Since 2000, FLSA collective action filings by employees have gone up by nearly 450%. These filings were for such things as employees who were denied overtime pay or required to work through unpaid breaks. There’s also higher scrutiny for misclassification of employees, especially as it applies to whether or not an employee is exempt from overtime pay.

As a business owner it’s important not only to keep your business safe from lawsuits but also to take care of your employees. Nothing can protect you better than logging records of the hours your employees worked. An employee could claim that he worked 50 hours per week for the past 2 years. The only way to know for sure is to keep a log of all of his time card punches. When you do, you will protect your business as well as your employee.

Time-tracker software will show when employees clock in and out every day, and a log of employee badge swipes can show the time they were at work. Whatever system you choose, make sure you keep accurate records. Having a system in place is not just to protect yourself but also your employees. They’ll have confidence that they work at an accountable workplace that follows the rules and pays them fairly for the hours they’ve worked.

Give Employees the Ability to Work from Anywhere

One of the challenges facing small business owners in landscaping, janitorial, and construction companies is whether they can trust that their remote employees showed up at the correct job site when they clock in. A business owner would need to be there physically or hire a supervisor to monitor those remote employees.

A good time attendance application can solve this issue by capturing the GPS of the employee’s location. Employees can clock in using their own iPhone or Android phone, and the time-tracking app would capture their GPS location so the business owner could verify they’re at the job site.

Evaluate the Benefits and Make Your Choice

With these benefits in mind, take the time to find the best time attendance software on the market. When evaluating the different time card software options, you may need to consider many factors. For example, think about the benefits, costs, ability to function on any device, and ease of use. Every employee in your organization may not be tech savvy, so you need to make sure it’s simple to use.

The time you spend picking the right time-tracking software will be well worth it in the end.