Employee credentialing is changing. The first phase was manual reporting with a timesheet, then came punch cards. Swipe cards and badges were the first phase of automating the collection of employee attendance data. They are still great alternatives to manual time collection.
However, employee time tracking moved to more advanced technology. For example biometric-based readers that identify employees at the time clock. Biometric technology has been around for decades, but only in the past few years has the technology become cost-effective and sufficiently reliable to be deployed widely in companies to identify and credential employees.
As an alternative to employee time clock swipe cards, it’s worth exploring how a biometric-based clock performs compared to physical card options
Why the Biometric Time Clock is the Most Accurate Employee Time Tracker
Collecting accurate employee time tracking data is the starting point for any comparison. All automated employee time collection options go a long way to ensuring payroll accuracy. Yet biometric-based time collection supplies additional layers of security over traditional swipe card readers that improve payroll accuracy.
Biometric-based employee credentialing requires the physical presence of the employee at the time clock. This physical requirement practically eliminates the ability of employees to punch for each at the time clock. Called “buddy punching,” this form of time theft costs employers millions of dollars every year. With a biometric time clock, employers ensure they’re only paying for time actually worked.
Frees Employees from Having to Carry ID Card or Badge
Being human, employees can easily lose, forget, or damage their ID cards or badges. Every time an employee shows up at the time clock without their card or badge, someone has to manually record that attendance data record. It then has to be delivered to someone else to enter the date and work hours manually into the system.
That’s three new points of potential error or failure in the time tracking process. Avoiding this type of risk of corrupting attendance data and running inaccurate payroll is exactly the reason your customers bring in an automated employee time tracking solution.
With a biometric-based time clock collection system, employees never lose their credentials. No manual back-up process for collecting attendance data is necessary. Your customers can be confident that all employee work hours are collected at the time clock and automatically delivered via integration into the back-end systems, ensuring they’re working with accurate attendance data. The biometric attendance system protects integrity of attendance data since collection is always automated.
Further Advantages of Biometric Time Clocks Over Card Readers
Besides a more accurate payroll, your customers can gain from these additional economic benefits.
Biometric Readers Lower the Costs of Managing Employee Credentials
Companies carry significant costs to manage physical credentials like proximity cards and badges. The first expense cut is the cost of the cards and badges themselves. The volume of employee cards and badges needed is the major driver of costs since in a non-biometric system, every employee must have a badge. With all employees using cards or badges, the incidences where those credentials must be replaced with a new card or badge is also high.
Beyond the inventory expense, companies also pay a cost in time and resources. HR personnel must spend time managing, tracking, deactivating, and replacing cards and badges. There’s also security costs to ensure that badges and cards don’t get stolen.
A sound biometric-based time tracking system will include a sophisticated middleware layer that handles credential management automatically. There’s no concern that the IT support time needed to manage biometric templates will supersede the time saved by HR staff no longer having to manage card credentials. The middleware should be able to distribute and remove templates from employee clocks easily, including as part of automated processes that don’t require extra steps by IT or HR personnel. For example, when an employee leaves the company. The process to remove that employee’s biometric template from any time clocks where it’s stored should be just one automated step triggered by a separation process that removes the employee’s access to company networks.
It’s a best practice of biometric employee time tracking to have employees affirmatively opt-in to using the system, which means employees can opt-out. In some jurisdictions, companies are legally barred from requiring employees to use a biometric system. Consequently, your customers using biometric-based time collection should have an alternative means to ID employees at the time clock. This secondary method doesn’t need to be a badge or card. It could be entering their employee ID on a time clock keypad. Still, some companies may select to have cards or badges on hand for those employees who opt-out. Even under these circumstances, the overall cost to maintain card or badge credentials is reduced considerably due to the availability of the biometric reader.
Improve Employee Productivity through Biometric Attendance Tracking
Managers can improve attendance management and productivity with a biometric system since it relies on employees being physically present. Employees can’t cover up tardiness, leaving a shift early, or not showing up at all by punching in for each other. That means there’s no gap between work hours tracked and expected team productivity. Employee absences or unapproved shortened shifts are recorded by the time tracking system and can be addressed by managers
Reselling Biometric Time Clocks is Easier than You Think
Despite these advantages, some resellers are hesitant to get into biometric attendance tracking because they assume it’s complicated and costly. It doesn’t have to be, and it’s not with the right biometric solution and vendor support.
Introducing our AccuCloud
AccuCloud is our cloud-based employee time and attendance data collection system. It operates with our stride®80 time clock. The stride80 has a facial recognition option available for any customer who wants the extra benefits of biometric time clocks.
In addition to the stride80 clock, the AccuCloud system also includes these elements:
· A middleware layer that manages all the biometric templates for your IT teams, as well as managing all the configuration, security, software, and operating system updates that need to get pushed out to your customers’ time clocks. AccuCloud’s advanced middleware layer is the key to enabling your company to scale its deployment and support of AccuCloud, including its biometric component, without increasing its costs.
· A web-based management portal that gives your IT team direct visibility into the operational and integration status of every ATS time clock deployed. With each time clock online and its status visible, potential connectivity issues can be addressed immediately for maximum clock up-time.Introducing the PeoplePoint Premium Time Clock
Our wide touchscreen PeoplePoint Premium is a full multi-media, web-enabled time clock with a rich display, camera, and speakers. It’s an excellent option for companies that want their time clock to function as an employee self-service terminal too. It supports a number of reader options, including an optional fingerprint scanner.
ATS handles all the heavy lifting for our reseller partners
Perhaps the biggest concern of software vendors regarding getting into reselling biometric time systems is the thought of having to handle the hardware. At ATS, we always handle all the time clock hardware for our partners. Our support teams configure and ship them directly to your customers. Your company doesn’t have to worry about inventory management, storage or security. Your IT teams don’t have responsibility for configuring time clocks to your customers’ different specifications. Thus, our resale partners incur no added expenses when reselling any type of ATS time clock, including our biometric-based time clock.
Bring the Benefits of Biometric Time Tracking to Your Customers
Any company reselling AccuCloud can easily offer customers the most advanced employee attendance tracking technology on the market: biometric time clocks. Set up a call with our expert team of engineers who can walk you through a demonstration of AccuCloud and the FRS biometric software.