According to tech review site G2, one-third of companies make payroll mistakes, costing them billions yearly. Manual data entry errors account for 40% of these problems. Worse, almost half of U.S. employees consider finding a new job after experiencing two payroll errors.
Remember, hardworking employees and talents deserve to get their salaries on time without dealing with a payroll discrepancy. More than that, it’s the law (e.g., the Fair Labor Standards Act).
The good news is that adding time clock software to your business’s arsenal of payroll management tools can help prevent and reduce payroll errors.
To that end, we at TimeTrakGO created this guide to discuss how innovative software can help with employee time tracking. Read on to discover the benefits of an accurate timekeeping system that goes beyond minimizing payroll mistakes.
Provides Accurate Employee Time Tracking Technology
Manual data entry costs companies a lot of money because it’s prone to human error. Here are some examples of why and how employees commit manual data entry mistakes:
- Inattentiveness
- Distractions
- Fatigue
- Stress
- Personal problems
- Misreading or incorrect manual calculations
- Intentional tampering
Time clock software helps minimize those costly errors by using accurate web-based timers for employee clock-ins and clock-outs. Employees can rest easy knowing their working hours get recorded automatically with just a few clicks or taps. They no longer have to deal with physical punch cards or paper timesheets because the software records their hours on their behalf.
Accurate time tracking software records the number of hours and minutes employees render. Thanks to this accuracy, workers can worry less about payroll discrepancies that can cause them to get paid less than what they’ve worked. Business owners also benefit, as they can avoid overpayments or underpayments and stay compliant with salary-related laws.
Simplifies PTO Management
In addition to clock-ins and clock-outs, you must also track your employees’ breaks. There are also unpaid and paid time off (PTO) days, such as sick and vacation leaves.
With so many minutes and days to track and separate into paid and unpaid, it’s easy to see how manual timekeeping can lead to payroll discrepancies.
Fortunately, the most reliable automated timekeeping systems offer PTO automation features. An example is our web-based time clock software, TimeTrakGO. It helps simplify leave management by automatically updating vacation and sick leave balances.
Delivers Diverse Time Tracking Solutions
Payroll discrepancies are among the top challenges companies managing remote teams face, just like those with in-office teams.
If you don’t use accurate time-tracking technology, you’d have to trust your remote workers’ claims that they’ve timed in. You’d have to rely on their word that they are “really” working. Without a reliable time tracker, you must manually record your remote employees’ working hours.
All that can, once again, lead to payroll discrepancies.
Don’t leave things to chance. Instead, invest in time clock software that offers various solutions designed to satisfy the needs of your in-office team, remote workforce, or both.
At TimeTrakGO, we offer diverse time clock options, including:
- Web log-in, a browser-based solution ideal for remote and office teams
- Mobile app clock, GPS, and geofencing rolled into one
- Web kiosk clock that turns a single computer into a digital time-tracker for multiple employees
- PIN entry tablet app
- Facial recognition time clock
Helps Reduce Payroll Errors Involving Time Theft
According to SmallBizGenius.net, organizations lose around 5% of their revenue yearly due to employee fraud and occupational abuse. Time theft is a perfect example; it impacts about three in four businesses in the U.S. alone.
Time theft results in payroll discrepancies since employers end up paying more than the actual hours employees have rendered. Workers can commit such illicit acts by:
- Rounding off clock-in time to avoid being late (e.g., 8:01 a.m. rounded off to 8:00 a.m.)
- Rounding off clock-out time to leave early (e.g., 4:55 p.m. rounded off to 5:00 p.m.)
- Buddy punching
- Falsifying timesheets
Time clock software can help combat those issues by accurately recording employee clock-ins and clock-outs. Opting for facial recognition can also prevent buddy punching and falsified timesheets.
Thanks to those features, you can lower the risks of payroll discrepancies and protect your business from losses due to time theft.
Generates Real-Time Reports
Time clock software generates analytics and reports in real time. They give you precise, usable insights into:
- Your employees’ attendance patterns
- Late behaviors
- Anomalous activities, such as time theft
- Authorized and unauthorized overtime
Proactively tracking and managing the above can help you quickly address attendance issues and misuse of work time. You should also pay particular attention to unscheduled absenteeism. Investopedia notes that it costs many industries billions of dollars in lost productivity yearly.
Attending to those problems ASAP can help you cut payroll discrepancies and unnecessary labor costs. From there, you can improve the overall management of your workforce.
Seamlessly Integrates With Payroll Services
Another way that time clock software can help reduce payroll issues is through seamless integration with various payroll systems. Once integrated, the clock automatically transfers its recorded data to the payroll processing platform.
Such a seamless, automatic process makes processing payrolls more convenient. It also eliminates the need for manual data transfer. As a result, fewer issues can arise, helping ensure payroll calculations are precise and based on up-to-date data.
Improves Workforce Morale
If your organization often encounters payroll discrepancies, it risks losing hardworking employees and talents. When this happens, your business will suffer from productivity losses and lose more money on high worker turnover costs.
With the help of accurate and innovative time clock software, you can minimize the risk of such disastrous events. The fewer payroll problems your business experiences, the better the workforce morale and the happier your employees can be. They’ll look forward to being productive and working hard, knowing they’ll get paid right and on time.
Reduce Payroll Discrepancy With TimeTrakGO
Payroll discrepancy can cost you your best workers and result in financial losses. They can also put your business in legal jeopardy. So, before any of these happen, consider using our easy-to-use web-based time clock software, TimeTrakGO.
We, the team behind TimeTrakGO, are proud to have revolutionized time tracking for over forty years. Count on us and our expertise to provide your business with an accurate and innovative time tracker.
Try TimeTrakGO for free today and see how it works and how it can help you avoid payroll woes!