Time Clock System Planning Tips
If your company is starting to investigate a time collection system to compliment the existing payroll system here are a bunch of planning tips that should not be ignored:
Identify what your payroll system is. Many times third party vendors rename systems they resell. For instance, you may think you are using payroll from Payroll Solutions of California or Heartland Payroll because that's what the label reads and that is who you bought it from. In these cases what you really have is a resold product called PC Connection from Payroll Associates.
Identify if the payroll software is capable of entertaining imports from a time clock system. This is where you will save lots of time when using a time clock system. Identify which time clock import formats are accepted by your payroll software.
Be forewarned, many time clock systems vendors will swear that their time clock software can export to a variety of payroll formats. Make them prove it to you! Make the time clock vendor perform actual importing and manipulation of hours before you get excited over their offering. Due to varying revision levels of any given brand of payroll software, this doesn't always work AND you WILL get stuck with a system that isn't easy to use, [their claim being that] it does work [in their test environment] but you, the customer, couldn't verify what version you had of the payroll software. Wrong!! Then you will be in tizzy to upgrade your payroll software in the hopes that it compliments the time clock software they're offering. Wrong! This spells time, money and energy you are expending on something you haven't even bought yet.
Have the people who need to touch and use the system as a part of the investigating and planning team. Sounds easy but you'd be surprised how many people may not want to participate.
Have the investigating team devise a list of must-have functionality.
Have the investigating team devise a list of desired wants.
Have the investigating team create a list for the cool features that they discover during investigating. They'll want to compare between vendors and want to prove an ROI for this added functionality.
Have the team investigate dealers and manufacturers physically close to their location. List the offerings. It's handy if a vendor is local.
Ask your payroll company if they can recommend any time clock vendors. If so, see what their offerings are. Please note: most payroll companies don't want to deal with time clocks or time card software. They are unaware of importing any information other than for their own purposes of uploading employee lists. Even if the payroll company does offer a time clock solution, I can guarantee that your payroll rep won't know much about it and pass you off to someone else. If your hours calculations are difficult ones, beware, because, again payroll folks are more concerned with concentrating on processing your payroll than what it takes to collect the hours in the first place. They're only interested in the finished product. Your payroll company does not care how you capture and calculate the hours you send in to them.
Now go and research on the Internet. I can guarantee there's tons of info, companies and products out there, none of which will be recognizable. If you don't get sick of seeing the phrases 'easy to use' and 'buddy punching' and 'ROI' and 'simple' in the first few minutes, you're a trooper. Also note, the random system comparison matrices you'll run across are difficult at best to make any decisions by. They are usually a bunch of time clock systems from a bunch of relatively unknown companies all being compared with lists of comparable products (not best of class, just 'comparable' so they look competitive) and features which you don't even know if you need them (or understand what they do). Have no fear (yet). Read on.
Once you have a comprehensive list of what you think you are looking for, here are some questions vendors will have for you when you approach them for a quote:
How many employees are involved.
How many pay schedules.
What pay cycle you use.
Any shift differentials in use.
How many physical locations.
Any desktop employees? Remote/mobile employees? Local employees?
Punching preferences - local equipment, by PC, by Internet, by phone.
Connection preferences - local area network Ethernet, RS-485 direct connect, Internet, phone, others.
Union, non-union workers?
What payroll software do you use?
Have you ever been audited by the labor board?
How often do employees call payroll staff about time they have left to take for sick/vacation?
What type of computer do you intend to use to run the program(s) on?
Time Clock Vendors will also want exact specifications of an existing computer(s) including:
What operating system is has.
What version level of operating system.
Does it have Internet access?
Does it have network access?
Does it have a modem connection?
Who has permission to use it?
How old is it?
Have the Windows updates been maintained?
Does it have current antivirus s/w and what brand is it?
What kind of reports you must have.
What type of support you need.
If they don't ask you at least this many questions I would worry. Many times and with dealers you may not even get a response to an RFP (unbelievable, huh?) in which case I would cross them off the list because it screams of a bad experience.
Here's another good one - quiz the time clock system vendor about their competitors and ask them for comparative examples of similar features. This is where many of the vendors fall short. Because they are so busy pushing only what they know/offer, they have no clue what their competition is even doing. That's not good because then their offering may be outdated, how would they know, right??
Established dealers and manufacturers alike need to be able to handle a mixture of solutions for any environment to be well versed in the time and attendance industry.
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