What to Look For in a Time and Attendance Software

Choosing the best time and attendance system can seem daunting. 

There are many things to consider, including cost, features, and integration capabilities with other systems in your company. 

The good news is that if you're looking for something affordable and efficient, there are plenty of options out there. 

In this blog post, we will discuss some of the most important factors that you should keep in mind when choosing attendance tracking software. 

This information can be used to calculate their pay, track productivity, create records for compliance purposes (like payroll), and analyse workforce trends.

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For starters, you’re getting rid of the headache of checking paper timesheets and keeping accurate records to ensure that you’re meeting all of Fair Work’s regulations. 

Improved Employee and Workforce Management

Companies that implement employee time and attendance systems can better track employee hours, monitor attendance management and track project progress. 

This information can be used to create reports about how much work has been completed and what needs more attention. 

Increased Productivity

Automation attendance tracking software allows both the HR department and employees to reduce the time spent manually tracking and recording attendance.

This system also allows employees to self-report their hours, eliminating the need for supervisors or managers to spend time checking records and creating reports.

Compliance with Australian Payroll Rules (Payroll Software Integration)

Employment guidelines contained in the various Modern Awards are often extremely complex and highly specific.

Many businesses struggle with interpreting modern awards, and this remains a major payroll compliance issue for many business owners who don’t dedicate time or resources to understanding their employer obligations. 

Beyond that, you need to comply with the National Employment Standards, Single Touch Payroll and payroll tax. 

So, ensuring compliance requires a lot of attention to detail regarding paying your employees overtime, penalty rates and specific allowances.

And while manual processes may get the job done, it’s time-consuming and, more often than not, inaccurate. 

By putting the attendance management process on autopilot using an automated time and attendance system in conjunction with cloud payroll software, you can avoid oversight and increase the efficiency of meeting compliance regulations. 

Record Keeping Made Easy

Many business owners don’t realise that you must keep employees’ time and attendance and pay records for a minimum of seven years. 

If your business is subject to an audit, these records must be readily accessible to a Fair Work Inspector, legible and in English. This includes payslips, employment agreements, rosters and timesheets. 

If a business is found not to have kept accurate records, you’ll have to pay pretty hefty fines. Record keeping is a laborious process if done manually and often leads to a range of inefficiencies and pitfalls that expose a business to payroll compliance troubles.

Time and attendance software that seamlessly syncs with your payroll software will eliminate the need to keep a paper trail and allow you to have all your time and attendance records in one place - making it easy to access in the event of a Fair Work Audit. 

• Easy-to-use interface: the last thing you want is for your staff to spend hours learning how to use the system and create data entries. The clocking-in and clocking out must be quick and easy to manage. 

• Flexibility: different businesses have varying needs, so your employee time clock system should be adaptable to those needs. For example, in the SCHADS industry, support workers often work at different locations. So, a SCHADS organisation would need software that allows for job-tracking while their support workers are on site.

• Ability to export reports: if you're looking at attendance systems, one of its main functions should be creating automated reports based on date ranges. This will make tracking employee attendance much easier, as well as simplifying payroll calculations.

• Employee and workforce management: it is essential to have an attendance system that can help employers manage their team by viewing their employees’ information in one place.

• Payroll integration support: having attendance systems integrate with your existing payroll system will further the efficiency of your time and attendance system.

• Cloud-based: having a cloud-based solution eliminates the need to constantly update the software when new versions are available and allows employers and employees to access the system from wherever, whenever. 

• Electronic timesheets: this allows employees to enter their hours from a computer, tablet or smartphone while on the go to manage and report time.

• Shift schedules: having an option to create shift schedules within the time and attendance software will make it easier for employees to manage their time accordingly.

• Overtime tracking: having an overtime tracking feature will make it easier to comply with overtime payment guidelines. 

• Biometrics: having a biometric access control feature helps monitor who is clocking in and out without the risk of buddy punching. 

• No-touch time clocking: besides having a biometric system, it’s beneficial to implement a system that doesn’t require fingerprints or touch sign in to reduce the spread of Covid-19 and other infectious diseases.

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While NoahFace can be implemented in a variety of workplaces, its features especially lends itself to organisations that employ shiftworkers in industries such as: 

• Manufacturing
• SCHADS
• Hospitality
• Healthcare
• Retail

This employee time and attendance system is widely known for its facial recognition features. When the iPad (mounted in our workplace entry points) sees a face, it compares it with known faces within its facial database. If there’s a match, it will acknowledge and register attendance onto NoahFace’s server. 

This essentially reduces the time taken for clocking in and eliminates fingerprint scanners and paper timesheets as a vector for spreading viruses and disease. 

The captured start and end of shift times are recorded and automatically synchronised with your payroll system, applying mandatory break times, rounding rules, and Modern Award rules.

Each time a clocking event occurs on NoahFace, photographs are automatically captured and stored, which creates an indisputable and accessible audit trail.

And if you have staff working from home or on the go, NoahFace offers a mobile time clock solution that allows your employees to run the time and attendance solution on their mobile phones. 

Other features include: 

• staff roster management, 
• electronic timesheets that can be reviewed and adjusted before your pay run, 
• break recording, and 
• real-time time and attendance monitoring.

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Combine this with the fact that most business owners and managers are time-poor, we’ve found that there’s a need for help with finding the most suitable solution.

But, by adopting a time and attendance system for your business, you can mitigate any non-compliance risk factors of paper timesheets and improve the productivity of the entire business' payroll process and workforce management. 

Using time and attendance software in conjunction with a cloud payroll solution, such as Employment Hero Payroll, allows employers to automate payroll compliance by setting up in-built rules for modern awards and record keeping.

We’ve given you a brief introduction to one of our time and attendance solutions, NoahFace; there are several other options that may be better suited to your business. 

So, book a free payroll review with the PayCat team today so that we can help you choose which solution will work best for your business. 

And if you’re interested in learning more about NoahFace and/or moving from a manual payroll system to an automated cloud payroll system, get in touch with us today for a free demo.