When a business first starts off, manual timesheets are easy to deal with. However, as time goes by and those companies grow in size, timesheets can easily become an issue. Your business needs to have a timesheet software and related systems in place to make conducting payroll simpler. Your employees will thank you for it ultimately!
Start By Finding a System That Tracks Absences
It happens. People call off of work in Ireland for many reasons, including illnesses and personal emergencies. You need to effectively track their days off, whether they consist of paid or unpaid time off. The last thing you want is to not pay someone when they should have been. You’ll end up with angry workers. This is why you need the right timesheet management solutions to track absenteeism accurately.
If you try to do all of this manually – especially if you have hundreds of employees – you’ll end up wasting valuable time that could’ve been spent doing other tasks. You’ll have to go through the timecards, look up each employee on a master schedule, and then compare them to note whether or not that employee should be paid for the day that he or she missed. It’s not easy and eats up human resource’s time. This is why you need to use time tracking software.
The best timesheet software notes these things for you. All that you’ll need to do is place pre-selected codes in the appropriate places and run a report on payday. However, you still need to go through and update the software when the employee calls off of work. Otherwise, you might end up with quite a lot of timesheets to update at the last minute. This also makes it easier to follow up with the missing employee’s department to ensure that his or her shift is covered.
Track an Employee’s Entire Work History
A good timesheet software system will track your employee’s entire work history. You should be able to go in and pull up the hours that any employee worked during their first week at your company. Even if it doesn’t seem as though you’ll need this information, you might someday. This is why it’s good to have it available.
Employees need their payroll records for many different reasons, including applying for various types of benefits. Rather than manage timesheet records in their written forms, with the right software, you’ll just have to search for that employee’s name or unique code. All of their records will pop up, which can then be downloaded into a spreadsheet or even printed out.
Written records like this can take up quite a bit of space. Many companies simply do not have the storage space available to keep file cabinets full of timesheets. Not to mention the trouble that it would be to go through them all looking for a particular employee’s records! Electronic timesheet records, like the ones in a computer programme, take up less space – most even store older records in the cloud – and are simpler to search.
Don’t Mismanage Holiday Time
Most employers simply overlook tracking holiday time. Thankfully, there are programmes that can do this for you. As you already know, employees can be sneaky and might try to take an extra paid vacation day or two. Timesheet software can prevent this from happening.
Another issue that can occur involves tracking when an employee received additional holiday time. Some companies add on holidays for loyal workers who reach certain milestones, such as five or ten years. This requires tracking the start dates of all workers. Rather than do this by hand, you can use a manage timesheet programme to do it for you.
Once that employee clocks in for the first time, their start date will be recorded in your timesheet system. The programme will then automatically know when they reach those milestones and get extra days. It can also track the days each employee uses every year, thanks to a special preset vacation code.
Implement Self-Service Options
Self-service is the easiest method tracking an employee’s work hours. Rather than rely on an old punch-clock, implement a digital clock with swipeable badges. Make your employees clock in and clock out using this method. The digital clock is attached to your timesheet software, which automatically updates. You can also set it up so that the employees can review the hours that they worked. If there’s a discrepancy, they can alert a manager who can then fix the record.
In some cases, the machines can even allow employees to request a day off or log their desired vacation time. Since everything is electronic, you can then pull up the records to see if there are any issues with overlap.
As you can see, timesheet management doesn’t need to be a nightmare. Using the right timesheet software can drastically simplify the process for you.