When choosing:

1. Ease of use: The system should be simple to use and require little to no training. Complex or long training take away for company productivity and creates unnecessary demands on employees. Always try before you buy.

2. Flexibility: Employees are increasingly becoming mobile. This makes it a requirement for an employee to punch in or out from many locations. The phone and the browser can facilitate these options. Make sure your time and attendance solution contains these options.

3. Interoperability: Most, if not all, businesses require timecard and/or summary exports into their favorite accounting or payroll solution like quick books. The ability to export is key part of the value proposition for your system. This is mandatory.

Best use:

1. Distributed Labor: Labor has been decentralizing for decades. Small Office Home Office is becoming the standard. Not only should your time and attendance solution, track the time but allow employees to “punch” from home, office or field.

2. Multi-Site Multi-Time Zone: As the global economy expands, it is important the your time and attendance system supports different locations which may be in a different time zones. For example, you employee punch system should be able to support marketing in the United States, with engineering in Germany and manufacturing in China using one system for centralized control.

3. Who’s IN: One of the most import things to know about your business is a simple Who’s In, Who’s out, Who came in late and Who left early. Knowing this information at a glance will help you better run your business.

William Dale, PE
President/CEO
Labor Time Tracker