A Quick Thought ...

Time is the scarcest resource and unless it is managed, nothing else will be managed. – Peter F Drucker

AboutTime Technologies began as simply a time and attendance collection system.  10+ years have passed and their feature set has grown.   Over the years AboutTime has developed into an entire mobile resource management solution.    I spend a lot of  time focusing on all the great innovative feature sets that are available to use in the AboutTime solution.  Sometimes I forget that time and attendance was the first feature developed by AboutTime, and for a very good reason.   As Peter F Drucker said, “Time is the scarcest resource and unless it is managed, nothing else will be managed.”

The first step to managing any project effectively begins with collecting employee time and attendance. 

Time and Attendance Part 5: Integration

A study done by Aberdeen research group published in 2011, “Time and Attendance Strategies: Beyond Accuracy and Compliance,” found “organizations using automated time and attendance solutions integrated with payroll saw a 61%improvement in compliance audit scores over companies that did not automate time and attendance or integrate time and attendance with payroll."

Automating the collection of time and attendance is the first step to gather accurate information, but what happens to the data after it is collected?   If it is sent to the office and then entered by hand into accounting, all of the other steps to compliance are void.  Data entry is where the largest number of mistakes happen. 

 

Integrating your time and attendance system with your accounting system eliminates the need to re-enter information.  Data entry pollutes your data by allowing room for error.   Keep your data pure by using a time and attendance system that has the ability to push and pull critical information from job costing or accounting systems without using data entry.  

Time and Attendance Part 4: Verification

The fewer times information is touched by human hands, the less mistakes there will be.  However,

there comes a time when all of the data collected from employees must be verified, and any discrepancies addressed.  

No matter how automated a time system is there will always be mistakes.  People still have to clock IN and clock OUT and sometimes they forget.   A good time and attendance system will have some type of a verification process.  Prior to checks being cut,  discrepancies should be resolved. 

Systems such as AboutTime can send out automatic alerts whenever there is a discrepancy.   A final verification report highlights any issues in red, making them easily identifiable.  

After the office "ok's" time cards, each employee should verify their information.  Signatures from the employees could save you a lot of heartache later.   Touch screens, on smart phones and tablets, make verification of mobile field employee time cards easy.  They can simply review and sign their time card directly from a mobile device completing the process in mere minutes.   Any discrepancies can be addressed immediately, resolved and, at the end of the day, everyone is happy.

A Quick Thought... Employees Benefit from Time and Attendance Systems

If you are looking into purchasing a time and attendance system, I am sure you have discovered the many benefits it will bring to your business.  To name a few; a time and attendance system can eliminate buddy punching, increase productivity and save your business money.  However, will your employees squawk at the idea of implementing a time and attendance system?  The number one excuse for not implementing a system is “My guys will NEVER use it.”  

What your employees need to understand is that a time and attendance system doesn’t just benefit the business, it benefits the employee also.  In fact, companies with a time and attendance system in place have higher employee satisfaction than companies without one.  A time and attendance system can eliminate disputes regarding payroll, free up the foreman’s time, and provide easy to read accurate information for the accountant.    

When selling and promoting AboutTime I am often asked about ROI (Return on Investment). How much money will this save me?  While I can quote statistics and provide numbers based on company and industry experience, nothing really hits home like a personal success story.

Not too long ago I was working to get time keeping under control with the CFO of a small to mid-sizefinish contractor here in Colorado.  She regularly worked on Saturdays to manually input employee time into her payroll system.  The weekend was the only time she could focus on the data entry and get it right with no errors.  Try as she might to get it done during the week and there would be mistakes in payroll costing her more time to fix!

Her biggest payoff?  Once they implemented electronic mobile data collection with integration to accounting/payroll, the employee time is reviewed daily by the project managers and she no longer has to come in to the office on Saturday to input time records.  What a blessing for her to now have her weekends free!

Guest Blogger

Eric Hammersmark , Regional Vice President of Sales

AboutTIme Technologies

Eric serves as a senior executive at AboutTime Technologies connecting customers, product development, mobile solutions providers and services firms to deliver the benefits of technology to his customers. In his 13 years in construction-related software, Eric has personally trained and delivered technology solutions to well over a thousand construction companies – from tracking and billing tools and equipment with ToolWatch, to tracking and reporting on employee and equipment time with AboutTime. 

Having a prior varied work experience in the Coal Mining, Oil & Gas Exploration and Construction industries gives Eric a unique ability for understanding the needs of workers in these fields.  Eric’s passion is to help his customers realize the benefits of technology, sharpening their competitive edge and increasing the flow of profit to their bottom line. 

In his free time Eric loves being with family, riding dirt bikes on high mountain roads and trails, and climbing the occasional fourteener in his home state of Colorado.

Don't Miss Out!

After spending last week working the AboutTime booth at the World of Concrete, a corny joke came to my mind.  

Q: What did the fish say when he saw a Concrete wall?  

A: Dam!  

While it’s a silly joke, it brings to mind an important thought.  Many times we are so comfortable doing things the way we have always done them that when something new comes along, like the fish seeing the cement, we run into it and Damn!  We miss out. 

While working the AboutTime booth at the World of Concrete, I realized our biggest competition was not our competitors.  Our biggest competition was paper; paper time cards, paper forms, messy hard to read handwritten notes.  I asked myself  WHY?  Paper is not efficient.  Handwriting time cards, forms and notes, then entering the data into a computer doubles the work load.   Paper is not accurate.  Unreadable handwriting creates guess work.   Paper is not timely.   Gathering large amounts of paper sorting it. Waiting for employees to fill out time cards and forms can easily put a project behind schedule.   So why do we choose to stick with an inefficient, inaccurate and untimely solution?  Because it’s what we have always done. 

 

Isn’t it AboutTime to find a better solution?  

By simply automating the time and attendance process your business can achieve an11% increase in workforce utilization, meaning you will get more productivity out of the same workforce.  With higher productivity comes a higher profit that you won’t miss out on.

Would you like more information on Mobile Resource Management?  

Register for one of our upcoming web casts including topics such as "Risk Management,"  "Managing projects on time and under budget with a mobile resource solution," and "OnDemand Productivity."