How Telephone Timekeeping Improves Response to Official Requests

Complying with official requests for payroll information can be very difficult with a paper-based timekeeping system. For example, if an employee files a complaint with a government agency about the way they are being paid, timecards must be gathered and copied at that agency's request. Using a telephone time card system with online access to records makes compliance much simpler.

You may not have yet experienced a request of this kind. Many companies, however, have felt the pain of responding to an official request for records for workers compensation reviews, wage and hour disputes or even an audit by the home office. Another reason an official request might be received is in the event of a lawsuit, when payroll records for a specific employee or group of employees are subpoenaed.

Firms with far-flung employees who bring in handwritten timecards are especially vulnerable when this type of request is received. Another possible obstacle is that those timecards might be sent to yet another location for storage. To determine your own exposure, why not take a quick look at how your payroll records are being collected, calculated and stored. Within your present system, would you be able to respond quickly to such a request?

Your payroll manager may reply with a terse, "I know where everything is stored, don't worry about it!" The problem is that filing systems tend to change when managers leave. Having the ability to retrieve records from a phone time card system does two things; it creates a backup to physical records being stored, and it counteracts the quirks (and failings) of individual employees.

Believe it or not, many companies that thought they had a system in place for quick retrieval of original time records have been stunned to find that records have been damaged or misfiled. In compliance situations, you must also be able to produce proof that records have been stored in a way that prevents tampering. A secure online database from which only specific employees are allowed to retrieve and print time records makes this much easier.

Simply put, a telephone-based time attendance tracking system is one in which an employee calls into a phone system and reports her stop and start times for each shift worked. From those phone calls, an online database of time records is created from which timecards can be printed and real-time payroll data managed.

None of us who own or manage a business wants to believe that we might be the subject of a regulatory audit or investigation. In today's highly-sensitized workplace, however, compliance with a whole host of payroll and benefits regulations is a formidable job. Knowing you have at your fingertips the records you need lessens the load significantly.

Why wait until you're unable to provide verifiable employee payroll data quickly? A phone time clock system with online storage of employee time records can easily keep you ahead of the curve.