Still Tracking Time Manually?
Believe it or not, hundreds of companies around the world still track employee time manually, relying on cumbersome paper and Excel records to track their time worked and assets. So if this is true of your enterprise, don’t be embarrassed. You’re not alone.
The fact of the matter is that using manual time tracking methods may be costing your enterprise more than you know. They make payroll and leave calculation unnecessarily complicated, place a massive administrative burden on your payroll and HR staff, and leave your enterprise open to inaccuracies and compliance issues. As if that’s not already enough, these manual timesheets are probably unpopular with your own employees!
So what should you do? Upgrade your time tracking system with automated timesheet software.
The Top 5 Benefits of Timesheet Software
You might be thinking, that’s easier said than done. After all, how are you supposed to automate your current, complicated paper or Excel based system? And even if you figure out how to automate, is it really worth training your entire staff in a new timesheet process?
The short answer: Yes, timesheet software is definitely worth it. But we don’t expect you to just take our word for it. Let’s take a look at the top five benefits of timesheet software.
1. Consolidate Data Entry, Processing & Storage
Good timesheet software systems will provide a number of data entry options. For example, here at Pacific Timesheet employees can clock in an enter time worked data through desktop and mobile interfaces, time clocks, and/or IVR phone time cards. This eliminates the need for your payroll staff to spend valuable time entering data from paper timesheets, as your employees can enter time worked directly into the timesheet system. With the right system, you can even automate things like entry approvals, leave requests, and leave accruals using pre-set accrual rules.
If you’ve ever had to retrieve past information from a manual time tracking system, you know that it is almost impossible to maintain well organized and easy to navigate paper records. Most timesheet software systems offer simple ways to digitally store and organize your employee and human resources records for easy access.
2. Increase Efficiency & Ease Administrative Burdens
When shopping for an automated timesheet system, make sure to consider all the other systems your enterprise uses, such as payroll and benefits software. Make sure the timesheet software you pick is compatible with these existing systems. If you can integrate all of your systems, then you can automate many of your payroll and human resources tasks, such as time off and leave requests, timesheet validations, and approvals. You can also send out automatic timesheet reminders and can collect and approve timesheets digitally.
By automating payroll and accounting tasks that might otherwise take up valuable time, you can increase efficiency and free up your payroll staff to work on more important projects.
3. Enhance Accuracy
Paper timesheets can be difficult to read and there is no way to track whether they have been altered prior to submission. Timesheet software systems will help enhance the accuracy of your timesheets in a couple of ways. Firstly, timesheet software eliminates potential data entry errors by allowing the employees to enter their time worked data directly into the system. Secondly and most importantly, good timesheet software systems provide some kind of audit trail that allows system administrators to view user activity. This way, if there is some doubt about the accuracy of a timesheet, a system administrator can check the employee’s user activity to verify time worked and see if they made any suspicious changes.
This audit feature will also prove invaluable should the accuracy of a payroll cycle be questioned or should your enterprise ever face an audit by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Think of this audit feature as your own personal trail of data breadcrumbs.
4. Maintain Compliance
The sheer number of federal, state, and local employment laws and regulations that payroll and human resources managers need to stay up to date on is astounding. Maintaining compliance is highly critical, as timesheet, leave management, and payroll processes that don’t comply with the newest legal standards leave your enterprise open to costly complaints, investigations, law suits, and penalties.
Payroll timesheet software can make it easier to keep up to date with changing regulations by making it easy to modify time and leave tracking practices quickly. Because validation rules and calculations can be automated, these regulation changes will automatically roll out through all your processes without creating any additional work for your payroll staff.
5. Easily Manage Scheduling, Jobs, Project, and Assets
Using automated timesheet software allows you to take advantage of real-time project, workforce, and asset management. Analyze employee performance by tracking attendance, hours worked, and both unscheduled and scheduled absences all in one system. Set and monitor schedules and plan ahead for future projects based on personnel and asset data from current and past projects.
Viewing all this data in one system will help you determine how effectively and efficiently your enterprise is using employee time, materials, and other assets. Then you can make changes accordingly, always with the goal of increasing productivity and efficiency in future jobs and projects.
The Right Software for Your Enterprise
The above mentioned benefits are the top five benefits of automated timesheet software based on our own experiences here at Pacific Timesheet. When shopping for timesheet software for your own enterprise, remember that the software should adapt to the needs of your business, not the other way around. The ideal timesheet software offers a varied timesheet interface that is easy to tailor to the specific needs of your enterprise.
At Pacific Timesheet, our aim is to provide the best user experience while increasing the efficiency and productivity of your enterprise. Our Payroll Timesheet Software offers a simple, easy to use interface with multiple customizable features to meet the needs of your enterprise as closely as possible. We maintain strong relationships with our customers and always are working to improve our product and services.
If you are looking to update your manual time tracking systems, consider taking our Product Tour to learn more about what Pacific Timesheet has to offer. Or, when you’re ready, sign up for a Free Trial.
