The Technology Behind Phone Time Clocks

It's a wonderful thing when technology works in your favor, isn't it? One way managers can have that experience is with a phone time clock. Thanks to an old-school standard, the telephone, and modern-day Internet capability, telephone time clock systems are extremely simple and effective. Just in case you're wondering if phone-based time attendance tracking would work for your company, here's a quick review of the technology behind these innovative systems.

Telephone time clocks require, as we mentioned, only a telephone and access to the Internet. Here's where the telephone portion comes in:

* Employees at remote locations or seasonal employees call a toll-free number to start their shifts.
* They key in their employee and location codes to register their attendance.
* When their shift ends, they again call in and key in the same information and the hours worked are automatically calculated.

But how does the Internet come into play?

* Individual accounts are set up for every company implementing this type of time attendance tracking.
* The server which houses the phone time clock software also stores each employee's hours.
* Managers and payroll department staff for each company can log in twenty four hours a day, from any Internet-compatible computer, to check real-time employee attendance.
* Via the Internet, it's also possible to log in, print time cards and review historical data for all employees.
* In a top-quality phone time clock system, the central server synchronizes itself daily to ensure complete accuracy.

So, what does all that well-blended technology really mean for frustrated managers? For one thing, being web-based means being able to manage remote locations from a central office (or even from home!) It means not having to call in and verify with shift managers that a full crew has reported for duty.

It means saving your payroll department hours of time chasing time cards, recalculating inaccurate time records and waiting for manager signatures. It can also mean a gold star in some manager's file if she's the wise person who suggested this time-saving, budget-conscious innovation.

Thanks to the amazing flexibility of the Internet and almost universal access to telephones, phone time clocks work, period. Very large companies and small, single owner firms have benefited from the technology that makes this all possible. Do your homework and find the righttelephone time clock system for your firm. Technology just made your life a whole lot simpler.

A Day in the Life of a Payroll Manager

Tick, tick, tick...your time clock is counting down the time to your next payroll, and you're missing timecards AGAIN. Why didn't you listen when you heard about that new telephone time clock system last month? If you had, your life as a payroll manager could be so much different right now.

For one thing, you wouldn't be grinding your teeth chasing timecards, because your offsite employees would be calling in to a phone time clock system instead of punching in. They'd simply call in to a secure line (that lets you check where they're calling from) and record exactly when they arrived at work.

Imagine how much less-stressed you'd be right now, if only that phone-based time attendance tracking system was in place. No more calling employees and managers at remote locations, begging them to deliver the timecards that are holding up payroll.

No more driving around from store to store, hoping all the timecards you need are up-to-date and signed by a manager. And here's a really big difference -- you'd no longer be held captive by timecards that need corrections!

How, exactly, would a day in the life of a payroll manager look in a telephone time clock world? Imagine logging in to a secure website and seeing displayed, with a few clicks of the mouse, real-time payroll data for the current time period.

Picture printing every employee's time card, no matter where they work, on your own desktop printer. Allow yourself to feel how wonderful it would be to never have to track down a manager again in order to verify a timecard.

Right now, you may be saying, "Nothing is that simple. They just don't understand how difficult payroll processing is!" You're correct, in the old-school, mechanical time clock world, payroll processing can be a real pain. Chasing timecards, requiring manager signatures, manually calculating time worked and, finally, beginning to feed each employee's time into some sort of payroll system. With all that hassle, it's a wonder any company is able to hire someone to process payroll!

But that's definitely a thing of the past. Your life as a payroll manager can be transformed by the implementation of a phone time clock system. With a little initial training, every employee will learn to love not having to keep track of their timecard. Every manager will appreciate not having to calculate, verify and sign those timecards, too.

And you, my friend, will be free to actually manage the payroll process instead of chasing timecards. Your payroll clerks will no longer have to cower outside your door, afraid to tell you that payroll's going to be late, again. A click here, a report there, and this week's payroll's on its way to being finished. Now, isn't that a nicer sort of life to contemplate?