You may think that your small business has its timecard situation under control. If you’re still relying on an old punch card time clock or, even worse, use handwritten time sheets, you most certainly do not have a handle on this. There are many reasons as to why you need to use timecard software, which we will go over here.
One less Thing to Manage
If you own a small business in Ireland, then you already know the headaches and large amounts of paperwork involved. You need to track accounts payable, account receivable, utilities, and many other things. You don’t need anything else on top of that. This is why you need to use a timecard software. These programmes can track your worker’s hours, taking one thing off your hands. Sure, you’ll need to go in and properly code things like vacation days, but that’s nothing compared to the time involved in tracking them by hand.
Report Your Workers’ Hours Accurately
In some cases, workers may be limited to a set number of hours worked in a row. Timecard software can track this, flagging an employee’s name in the system when they have reached their limit. You can then pull them off of their workstation and send them home. This would be tough to do without the use of these special programmes. You can also set the system to alert you when a worker has hit the maximum amount of hours that they can work in a week. Again, the software handles all of this for you.
Taking note of things like vacation days, paid days off, and the like is made easier with a special programme. Your employees will expect you to know how many paid days off that they have. They won’t appreciate waiting for days on end while you find the time to go through their records and make those calculations. With a good, fully updated timesheet tracking programme, you can have the needed information for them within minutes.
Updated Time Tracking Options
The days of using an old-fashioned time clock with punch cards are over. Handwritten time sheets are not fashionable anymore as well. If you really want to prove that your small business is full with it, then you’ll need a digital entry system. You can choose to use biometric systems, swipe cards, or even mobile phone entry methods. If you have several employees that use computer workstations, their time can start the moment they turn those computers on. These up to date methods aren’t extremely expensive and tend to pay for themselves in time saved.
Check for Absenteeism and Tardiness
Every workplace has that one employee who misses a lot of work. Whether he or she calls off for valid reasons or invalid ones, you do need to track their absences. While mistakes can be made on physical timesheets, digital ones are harder to falsify. This makes it easier for you to prove your point when confronting that employee about their issues.
Even better, timecard software allows you to pull that person’s entire work history with your company, giving you some reference when discussing their future with your company. You can look to see if a particular employee misses time during a certain season, the day of the week, or even day of the month. The patterns will become apparent when you look for them.
Track Billable Hours for Projects Worked
If your small business works on a per-project basis, then you might need to track the number of hours spent on a particular one. This means that you can code every hour that an employee works and pull up the amount of time that they spent working on a project. If you bill per hour, you simply need to input that information into your financial programme and it will be calculated accordingly.
Going beyond this, you can also track workloads, tasks, and see just how efficient your company really is. Evaluating time worked in this way can allow you to rearrange your time management methods and determine if you really are charging your clients properly.
As you can see, there are many reasons why a small business in Ireland needs a good timecard software system. Although there are fewer employees to manage, this goes both ways, since there are fewer workers to keep track of everything.
In order to keep your company running smoothly and to ensure that you paying everyone accurately, you need to upgrade to a computerized timesheet programme. You’ll have one less thing to worry about tracking since the system does it all for you.
In the end, you’ll be thankful that you decided to upgrade, and your employees will as well, since accurate time reporting means that they will get the pay that they deserve – on time at that.
