There are many types of time clocks and hours collection solutions so to keep things simple, time clock systems in and of themselves will not save you much time nor will protect you if you get audited. The key is the rules you build into them and the types of capture they conduct. As far as ensuring who is clocking, I am not even going to address paper time cards, badged or proximity systems because they all lend themselves to buddy punching and tailgating, both terms referring to cheating.

The only way to ensure secure time clocking is to use finger print or biometric (hand reading) equipment. Iris scanning is not practical for time collection simply because your employees will not take their contacts out to accomplish this.

Even between fingerprint and handreading, if you are in a particularly dusty, dry environment, or you have workers who have small fingers, stay away from fingerprint as it will become more of a headache over failed reads. Biometric Handers are a good, all-around solution.

For purely web or PC-based time clock systems, you can still utiltize a fingerprint or biometric handreading device for proper indentification of entries. Other than this, use a scheme for passwords that changes frequently or require that employees use their SS#s as they are less inclined to share that with another in an effort to cheat on time.

Cheating on hours is more prevalent than most think. It's best to ward against cheating up front.