For any business to grow and remain profitable, some essential factors such as a professional team, top-notch customer service, and effective marketing come into play.

Sometimes business owners become so much focussed on their growth that they fail to notice the significant amount of money being leaked through their outdated methods of recording employees’ work hours.

Switching to employee time clock software to accurately record employees’ time and attendance can not only improve profitability but help to streamline business operations as well.

Choosing Amongst the Tools Available in The Market:

With a huge number of available time clock software and each of them claiming to be the best, it often becomes an uphill task for business owners to get the right employee time clock.

It’s true that almost any organization can benefit from time clock software developed by a top-tier company such as clockineasy.com. But it’s the actual needs of the business that make a particular tracking system simply perfect for it.

This post is intended to help all those business owners who are planning to deploy an employee time clock software but are hesitant due to the complexities associated with the selection process.

Insider tips to buy the right employee time clock software

Lots of factors come into play when it comes to selecting the best employee time clock software. Here are the essential aspects that business owners need to consider to make the most out of their investment.

• Key objectives: The first step is to evaluate the actual needs of using an employee time clock. For example, a business may need to track its third-party service providers’ billable hours. Or, it may need the software for calculating employee payroll. Tracking the time spent on certain tasks or on certain projects is also a key reason for which many businesses want to deploy an employee time clock. Since time tracking software programmes are developed to cater to different needs, identifying the actual needs would help a business owner buy the right one the first time around.
• Features: It’s important to figure out the features that the software programme needs to have to meet the objectives of the business in the best possible way. It’s also vital to note that all pieces of time tracking software are not created equal. Some can come with features that are not at all needed by business owners while some others may lack the features that owners actually need. However, there are some essential features that every business owner needs to focus on when buying the software.

The first thing to check is how many employees can be supported by the time clock. For example, a company may have fifty employees at present but it’s planning on expanding soon due to business growth.

The software should be able to support the increased number of employees
once the expansion is complete. The next feature to consider is the
efficiency of the software.

It may come with the ability to support thousands of employees but if hundreds of them simultaneously use the time clock, it shouldn’t create any chaos.

• Ease of use: This is another factor that heavily influences the willingness of the employees to adopt the time tracking system. If the system is not user-friendly or time-consuming to use, it will most likely run the risk of receiving a lower rate of adoption.
• Payroll integration: For any business, calculation of payroll is a must to compensate its employees, who work on an hourly basis for their contribution. Therefore, the time tracking software should be able to calculate payroll accurately with minimum input from the management’s or HR’s end.
• Notifications: While all types of employee time clock software come with some kind of notification system, business owners need to look for features that complement their actual business requirements. In general, the system should be able to send notifications to management/employees whenever it detects any time management concerns.
• Multi-device support: The tracking system should come with multi-device support. It means users should be able to access it using different devices and platforms including mobile devices and web-based platforms.
• Time-off reports: The software needs to be able to track time-off applications, leave applications, and validate them by checking with the recorded data to generate accurate reports.
• Technical support: The tracking software must come with the backup of a team of IT experts who will be responsible for making its operations flawless and secure. The team also needs to be available round the clock with a quick turnaround time. Though the availability of top-notch customer support is important for any business, it becomes mandatory for large ones where incorrect time tracking may impact profitability.
• Cost: The cost of deploying employee time clock software considerably varies from one vendor to the other and depends on the type of system and the features offered. In addition to these, when it comes to a software-based solution, businesses need to figure out if the system will be hosted on its own server or it’ll be remotely hosted. Since most time tracking system vendors charge on a per-user basis, the cost becomes directly proportional to the total number of users of the system.

Some vendors may also charge a minimum monthly fee. It means the business will have to pay a minimum fixed amount per month regardless of whether or not it has sufficient users to justify the payable amount. You can also check stub maker to keep track of salary information, taxes paid, overtime pay, and more.

Typically, installation and training fees also get added as one-time fees to the deployment costs. Fortunately, some top-tier vendors such as various such free software offer a trial period to help their clients thoroughly test the employee time clock software completely free of charge.

Some vendors also offer a completely free version of their software. However, free versions typically come with basic tracking functionalities and are ideal for individuals and freelancers.

Therefore, they may not be suitable for business settings where time tracking heavily impacts the profitability of the organization.