When you need to know how 180 employees in your department are spending their time, it’s not quite as simple as sending out a mass email or walking to each person’s desk. To gain a solid understanding of how company resources are being allocated, and where those resources could be used more efficiently, it helps to have technology on your side.

This is the case at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia, where 180 IT professionals are using Web TimeSheet on a daily basis to track project time and optimize productivity.

Read this case study to see how La Trobe’s IT teams are using Replicon’s solutions to monitor their development of several key business applications.

The end of the year is coming quickly and it’s a busy time for all of us. As we reach the peak of the holiday season, tracking your employee vacation schedules can be a headache. If your company is still using a manual system for time-off management, then you’ll likely be grumbling “Bah humbug” all season long.

Are you still monitoring employee time and attendance with paper and spreadsheets? Do your employees bombard you with questions about their outstanding vacation balances? Do you lack visibility into vacation schedules and lose track of who is off when?

Now is the perfect time to streamline your time-off process and create more efficient policies for the new year.

Replicon’s Time & Attendance Software is a simple web-based solution that has helped companies like yours to:

• Automate time-off policies and vacation accruals
• Streamline time-off requests and approvals
• Obtain clear and real-time reporting on time-off balances and liabilities
• Centralize time off-management organization-wide

Check out this video to see how easy these tasks become with Replicon’s employee attendance tracking software:

Employees submit their time-off requests through a standard Web browser. Managers review and approve with just a few clicks. All schedules can be viewed in real-time via a simple calendar view. The software keeps track of everything and calculates time-off accruals automatically.

Don’t let all the time-off requests turn you into a Scrooge this season. Implement Replicon’s user-friendly solutions and automate the entire process for 2012 and beyond.

Happy holidays, everyone!

Note to businesses: If it’s taking you 24 clicks to approve one employee timesheet, then it’s probably time to switch to Web TimeSheet.

That’s exactly what JSR Micro did when they discovered their time-keeping system was an administrative hassle for employees, managers, and payroll alike. Now, with Web TimeSheet, JSR Micro has made its time-tracking and employee time off scheduling processes much easier and more efficient. Employees alone have saved hours a month by entering their time into Replicon’s web-based system. Manager’s approvals, which previously required up to 24 mouse clicks per timesheet, now only take three clicks for all timesheets combined. And, JSR Micro can easily view its attendance compliance with Replicon’s rich reporting capabilities.

To see more ways that this electronic materials supplier is benefiting from Web TimeSheet, read the full case study.

Throughout the year, we hear many stories of great businesses who are unnecessarily doubling or even tripling their time-entry processes. Such was the case at Contoural, a business consulting firm based in Mountain View, California, where employees were submitting their timesheets in two different formats: one for internal use and another for client billing. Additionally, that same billing data was then manually entered into Contoural’s accounting system. This slow, time-consuming process was neither efficient nor fun for any of Contoural’s 50+ staff.

To rectify this, Contoural swapped its outdated time-tracking methods for Web TimeSheet. The hassle-free solution has streamlined the company’s time keeping, simplified its billing process and eliminated the use of multiple spreadsheets.

Read this case study to see how Web TimeSheet has saved Contoural’s consultants 30% of their administrative time, resulting in more time for billable activities.

If you’re using Replicon’s timesheet software to track projects, then you’re probably already well-versed at dividing those projects into tasks and sub-tasks. In Web TimeSheet, these tasks are naturally linked to the parent project. But what happens when you need to link two or more entire projects together? How do you do it?

For some customers, the use of “Client Name” or “Department” is sufficient. However, there may be times when you need to create dependencies for the purposes of tracking, timelines and reporting. Imagine a case of three projects that are all part of one large project, such as product design. One project may focus on “Creating the Product.” One project may require a “Factory to be Built.” And one project may necessitate “Hiring Staff” to support the new product. In a lot of cases, these activities cannot be tasks of the same projects, so here is how we would treat those in the timesheet software.

The solution is to create a new Project-Level User-Defined Field (UDF) to use as a linking code between these projects. Here’s how:
Step 1: Create a new UDF at the Project level. Use text, numbers, or even drop-down as the “Type.”
Step 2: Go to each project that is part of this same “group” and add the same code to each one (i.e. ABC123).
Step 3: On any project report, add this new UDF field as a column. We recommend that you also group the report on this new column (in the “Rows Group By” section on the Grouping tab of the report settings).
Step 4: Run the report. Make sure to select any appropriate filters to narrow down your report range.

Each one of the groupings you create will be its own section. So, if you are looking for totals on hours, $ amounts, or anything else numerical, the sums will be provided.

If you are looking for an additional level of complexity, you can use the project link code nomenclature to perform some basic functions.
Example A) Sequence. Project groupings that naturally follow each other can be named ABC123, ABC124, ABC125, etc.
Example B) Phases. Projects that are essentially phases of a larger project can be named to reflect that: NEWPhase1, NEWPhase2, NEWPhase3, etc.
Example C) Dates. Dates can be factored into the code as well: ABC123-Dec2011, ABC123-Jan2012, ABC345-Jan2012, etc.

Lastly, if your project code field is not being used for anything, then you can perform the same functions as above but without having to create a new User-Defined Field.

The end result: greater visibility of the total time, money and work going into your projects – as a whole and broken up by its supporting projects. Once you’ve linked your projects with the time-tracking software, your employees can associate their hours with any of the linked projects – and their individual tasks – right on their online timesheets. Managers can tailor reports however they choose to track overall progress for in-house use, client billing, payroll or other needs.

The time has come for Punch Clocks and the time clock market to be innovated and disrupted.

The Replicon CloudClock is a revolutionary new time clock that is the only 100% cloud connected time clock in the market today. Built on cutting edge hardware and software, the CloudClock brings the power of cloud computing to the everyday time clock. The clocks feature large, full color, multi-touch displays, wireless networking, remote monitoring and real-time integration with the Replicon application cloud.

Why spend $$$ on complex biometric clocks to prevent buddy punching and time theft?

We understand that businesses should not have to make a trade-off between time theft and paying for expensive biometric hardware. So, we included photo-based audit trails and optional face recognition as part of our standard Clock. All employee clock-ins will be documented and easily reviewed and audited by supervisors and managers.

Why spend $$$ on expensive maintenance contracts, especially when you have to call for service?

We understand that you want to run your business and not worry about maintenance of clocks. The time clocks should just work. Our clocks do just that and more. Our clocks are monitored remotely by our administrators in our data centers so when problems come up, we know about it before you do. We can also fix the clocks remotely, eliminating down-time.

Businesses, big and small, deserve more than a “standard” clock with run-of-the-mill software and service. The Replicon CloudClock brings advanced technology, great user experience and simple pricing in one affordable package.

Check out the Replicon CloudClock today and let us know what you think.
http://www.replicon.com/cloudclock.aspx

Intuit’s announcement to discontinue support for its Time Tracker and Time & Billing products has taken a lot of organizations by surprise and has left them holding the bag. Thousands of organizations around the world are suddenly going to have to figure out how to maintain timely and accurate time tracking.

“We’re here to help. Customers can seamlessly transition their time tracking needs to our hassle-free time tracking solutions – which integrates with QuickBooks.” A true cloud solution, we promise that we can get you set up in minutes, transfer your data without having to conduct complex, expensive and time-consuming configuration.

Replicon provides an extremely easy cloud-based solution to collect and track billable hours from employees and contractors for billing, payroll, reporting and project analysis. Consolidating this information in an intuitive, hassle-free cloud platform gives managers the visibility they need to efficiently and optimally manage projects, resources and clients in real time.

Download a free trial of our hassle-free, time tracking solution at http://www.replicon.com/lp/lp_QB_time_tracker_replacement_offer.aspx to avert a potential billing and payroll crisis at your organization.

Time Clock

As consumers, we’ve been subjected to innovation at a break-neck pace in nearly every aspect of our lives: computers, phones, shopping, travel, entertainment. Today we don’t think twice about whipping out our phones to search and navigate to the nearest restaurant, while listening to music that is streamed live to our ears. Yet, there are some areas and products where innovation has not happened in any significant way: the Innovation Dead Zones. The humble time clock or punch clock is one such Innovation Dead Zone. The time clock has seen little innovation in the three or so decades that electronic devices were used to keep track of employee time.

Take a look at your punch clock. Now look at your iPhone. Look back at your punch clock.

I’m willing to bet that your time clock is ugly, hard to customize and a hassle to maintain yet your time clock cost 5 to 15 times more than your phone for a fraction of the functionality. The clock is treated like a household appliance. When it breaks (and it does), you have to call for service person and pay for maintenance. Why do you have to buy a new clock to get new features? Why do you have to get multiple clocks to track different employee types?

Innovation dead zones are often created by a combination of two factors: large profits for producers and lack of demand from consumers. In the case of punch clocks, the well established clock vendors today make a killing by charging high prices for simplistic hardware and primitive software. Businesses who use time clocks, and are the consumers in this case, don’t have the time to demand and push for better products from vendors. Therefore there is no incentive for vendors to innovate and bring creative solutions to the market.

At Replicon, we strongly believe our products, while sophisticated and technologically advanced, should be wrapped in elegant design. We want to create business solutions: hardware and software that combine ease of use, innovation and elegance in ways you commonly associate with products from Apple or Google.

We know our customers deserve more than the market provides today. Time Clocks and Time & Attendance software do not need to be in an innovation dead zone anymore.

We have a lot of exciting products coming to the market in the next few months. Stay Tuned.

We occasionally get questions about rounding off employee time entries, primarily for use in calculating attendance or payroll. Most inquiries come from customers who use either the locked in-out method or punch card module in our Web TimeSheets.

In most real-time systems, when users enter their start and stop times, the system captures the exact times and easily calculates a daily/weekly/monthly total. Rounding is largely unnecessary in time tracking software because no manual additions are performed offline, unlike with old paper punch cards.

If rounding is required, it is best to round up to the nearest time increment, in the employee’s favor.

This is a common Best Practice for employee time tracking. It can help protect your company. Here is additional information:

Rounding can also create extra work, instill uncertainty and doubt regarding employee time totals, and open companies to litigation. Here are some pitfalls to avoid:

1)     Historical inertia:  “We’ve always done it this way.”

2)     Unfair practice of rounding to save money.

3)     Potential auditing concerns.

When companies use manual methods or proprietary formulas for rounding the amount of time worked, it opens them up to up to potential litigation. See this article about what the U.S. Department of Labor expects in calculating work time.

Litigation usually revolves around interpretations of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), which states that nonexempt employees should be paid for every minute worked, as long as the rounding is non-biased in one direction or another. Here is an article about how this works.

And payroll processor ADP cites rounding as one of the three most common violations to avoid.

That being said, Replicon Software can support companies that have rounding policies.

In its annual Software 500 survey, Software Magazine has placed Replicon among the world’s top 500 software and service providers. That’s seven consecutive years, putting us in the company of household names such as Microsoft, Oracle, and Google.  It’s a nice validation of the work we do 24/7, providing time tracking software that delivers the industry’s most hassle-free experience for employee timesheet and expense management.

Our co-CEO, Raj Narayanaswamy, summed up our feeling nicely: “It is an honor to be ranked once again on the Software 500.  That would not be possible without the visionary approach of our team and the support of our customers worldwide.”

Read more about the Software 500 in the press release.