Employee Time Sheet

Written By: Steven Bryan

In the business world, the paper-based employee time sheet has gone the way of the manual typewriter and mimeograph machine: they were all once useful tools for the office, but their time has come and gone. Automated time and attendance tracking is now by far the best way to monitor employee hours.

Reasons to automate

There are many good reasons to eliminate the traditional employee time sheet, including:

Reducing inaccuracies: Your staff has to either write down their hours worked on a piece of paper or punch in and out using an employee time card. Each employee time sheet entry is then manually keyed into the payroll and accounting systems, which lets human error creep into the equation.

Save time: Handling employee time sheets is a time-consuming process for your HR or administrative staff. Automation can drastically cut the number of hours spent each week calculating payroll and paid time off (PTO).

Prevent abuse: It's all too easy for an employee to inaccurately report their hours on a time sheet. Unless someone is watching the door, it's hard to tell if someone is constantly coming in late or taking two-hour lunches several times a week. Traditional time clocks aren't immune to abuse, either. On occasion, one employee will punch in or out for a friend. Automation helps curb this kind of abuse and also tracks if an employee is chronically late arriving for work.

Archiving: An employee time sheet needs to be archived, and if you have lots of employees working across the country, this means a huge amount of bulky paper records. At tax time, this can be extremely frustrating when you are trying to reconcile employee information for their W-2s. In addition, no matter how carefully you store them, paper records don't last as long as digital data. Ink fades over time and a fire can wipe out years of archived employee attendance records in a matter of minutes.

Automating the employee time sheet

Though each program operates a little differently, some of the more common attendance management software features include:

• Paid time off (PTO): These programs calculate how much PTO an employee has accrued thus far; the staff also is able to enter vacation requests for manager approval.
• Scheduling: With this software, you set up schedules to make sure that a department or project is fully-staffed at the appropriate times.
• Calculating payroll: Attendance software packages help the HR staff calculate your weekly, monthly or semi-monthly payroll.

In-depth reporting

• Time and attendance software (calculates payroll and vacation time)
• Web-based attendance software (allows remote entry of hours worked)
• A centralized kiosk or terminal where employees can clock in and out.
• A keycard or ID system that tracks time and attendance.

With all the available computerized options, there's never been a better time to eliminate paper-based time sheets once and for all. Ready to get started? We can help. Describe your basic needs and we'll match you to multiple time and attendance providers – free. Get started now.