Tweet

Moving your employee time and attendance management online

Written by: Jason DeGraw

Article Overview: It seems very likely that networked time and attendance solutions will take over as the business's new paradigm in the next three to five years. It's an attractive option for many companies, and it might just suit your needs as well.

Moving your employee time and attendance management online

Should you move to a hosted attendance software model? Lots of companies are touting online solutions as the next thing, and it's looking very likely that networked, online time and attendance solutions will take over as the payroll tracking business's new paradigm in the next three to five years. It's an attractive option for many companies, and it might just suit your needs as well. Depending upon the size of your business, looking after the care and feeding of servers for your payroll software and time tracking peripherals has quite a few costs associated with it. But what may cost you thousands of dollars a year is much cheaper for companies like Kronos or Attendance on Demand, who are providing the same service for thousands of customers - the efficiencies they can find lowers their costs significantly, and by extension yours, too.

If you choose an online model you will still have some hardware to deal with: you'll have to purchase some punch-card or RFID readers, and these will have to be networked. Networked hardware is often pricier than standalone dataloggers or loggers that are wired into your building, but if they're networked, you can simply pick them up and take them with you - this makes it much easier to change, move, and replace your equipment. What you're saving in server licensing fees and IT maintenance will more than make up for any increased equipment costs (and prices will only go down.)

There are a few caveats, however. Make sure the company you're working with addresses security in their offering - privacy legislation might apply, and if you're accessing employee records over the Internet you'll want to make sure that the application is secure, and is hosted in your state or province (so that the data is subject to the same laws are your employees.)

The other consideration is licensing. Most traditional software is still buy-it-once. You can pay for support, but most mid-sized companies don't - they hire an IT staff who does that as part of their regular duties anyway. But once the data is on your computers and the software is installed, it is yours to use (or not use) however you like. But online attendance and HR software is licensed, usually on an annual basis, and this means that if you don't pay your license fees you could lose access to all of your employee attendance information in one fell swoop. On the other hand, you'll have to upgrade stand-your alone software too, as your computers age, and that won't be free either - so this consideration probably evens out in the end. (And stand-alone software isn't inherently secure, either, unless it's on a computer that isn't ever connected to a network, so you'll still need to think about it before you continue along that road, too.)

As with all software choices, be careful about tying yourself to a single vendor. The key is to make sure that your data can be exported in an industry-standard format, so that you can remove it and transfer it to another system. And make sure that all of the networked hardware you purchase adheres to ISO standards and, better yet, common communications protocls (like BACnet or DDE, for example.)

Related Articles
  Learn how to effectively utilize employee attendance incentives
  Ease the Hassle of Payroll with New Technologies
  Why use Timesheet to Track your employees’ performances?
  Dealing with Difficult Employees
  Help - How Do I Fire My Employee?

Article Tags: attendance software, attractive option, caveats, dataloggers, efficiencies, loggers, networked hardware, new paradigm, payroll software, peripherals, privacy legislation, punch card, rfid readers, servers, software model, thousands of dollars, time and attendance, time and attendance solutions, traditional software



Related Forum Posts
Re: Franchise of a popular call center - If you have knowledge in running a call center and know how to manage it effectively then it sounds like it’s a good business for you. Workforce management relates to employee matters like payroll, HR, and employee training. Knowledge management relates to research, strategies, innovations and the effective use of technology. In both cases your prime clients are corporate sectors especially those who want to reduce their cost and increase performance at all levels.
Re: What Do You Outsource Mostly? - Hello, I outsource some management fields like business management, time management etc.. I like outsourcing these fields..as I have done business management course.. Initially I don't liked it at all..but after sometime I started getting interest in it.. Now I am searching some interesting management courses... Regards, Nelson
Re: Increasing sales for online retailers - Hi, I am sure many people do use an inventory manager for marketing purposes. Most of our clients take advantage of this feature for inventory management purposes. Where it gets really tricky is when an online retailer needs an online inventory management system integrated with an offline inventory management system. If anyone knows any solutions please list.
Re: Free courses - [quote="OmnivoreInk":1hhfmful]Sounds great. Of course its in England and I'm in the States.... But this is the kind of course all entrepreneurs culd benefit from...[/quote:1hhfmful] I'm a presenter in an online conference that is being held in about a week. I'm interested to see how it goes - but with an online forum, chat rooms and a place to store files, much of this can be done online and opens up attendance for people anywhere. Shri
Document Your Processes - Make sure that when you do plan on hiring an employee that you document your processes for that employee to follow, even the common sense ones. I recently interviewed a Starbucks employee and was advised that everything including menial tasks were all documented by thier Manager in thier training manual. They very seldom have to ask for clarification. This is important if you plan on having an employee inhouse or even outsourcing. When outsourcing it is more advising about your minimal acceptable standards.


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Tweet

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Attracting Passionate Employees

The Pure FUN of Learning & Using NLP

Join Conversations Politely, Part 1

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.