Why Tracking Your Time & Attendance Online Can Make or Break You in 2021
For many businesses, absence management and online time and attendance tracking is an afterthought. And yet, accurate time and attendance data can add up to millions of dollars on your business’s bottom line.
If you’re not yet using an enterprise time and attendance solution, or are using an outdated system, you could be basing your business decisions on inaccurate data and losing money to timesheet and payroll errors.
What Happens When You Don’t Track Time and Attendance Accurately
All businesses operate under the same basic structure: money in, money out. Every business wants to remain profitable. Most businesses think they have two options, increase income or decrease costs. But, there’s a third option. By streamlining employee productivity and management, you can make your business more efficient. When a business isn’t tracking or is inaccurately tracking the number of hours employees work or days worked, the profitability of the business is on the line.
Here’s what happens when a business doesn’t have the capability or resources to accurately track time and attendance. Spoiler alert: it’s not good.
Bad Decisions Based on Inaccurate Data
In real time, inaccurate time and attendance tracking can cost your business dollars by overpaying employees. But, it also has a long-term effect. The time and attendance data that your business collects is used to make future plans and decisions. When those decisions are based on false data, it can have long-lasting, negative effects on your business.
The more precise and closely monitored your time and attendance data, the more accurate your budget decisions. If you’re tracking time and attendance in real time, you can make budget decisions more efficiently and create a more agile business, which can pivot based on that real-time data.
Most businesses make decisions for the future of the business based on data from previous quarters. More accurate time and attendance data means you can make business decisions in real-time instead of retroactively. Real-time business decisions mean that you can avoid going over budget and ensure all projects are on target to meet deadlines. Without a spot-on time and attendance system, you won’t be able to identify issues until it’s too late.
Inaccurate Time Data Increases Labor and Payroll Costs
While minor timesheet errors might seem inconsequential at first glance, they can add up. Literally — those errors can add up to increased payroll costs in your budget. Whether it’s employees accidentally adding hours to their timesheet or an undercount on the number of hours spent on a project, that inaccurate data can cost your business money.
Timesheet Compliance Issues
Whether accidental or purposeful, timesheet inaccuracies can create a liability for your company. If employees incorrectly track overtime and meal breaks, it can end up with your company being fined. Enterprise time and attendance software makes it easier for management to review hours submitted by employees and avoid those critical errors and costly fines.
Employee Engagement and Productivity Suffers
For many businesses, it’s easy to see the benefit of using online time and attendance software when it’s translated into cents and dollars. Another benefit of time and attendance systems is better employee management. For most businesses, their highest cost is paying and managing their employees.
Without accurate time and attendance tracking, a business doesn’t have the right data to ensure that its employees are engaged and productive. Accurate time and attendance data ensures that you can track that your employees are taking sick days, mental health days, and vacation time. If employees aren’t using their time off, you will end up with burned-out, less productive employees.
Using time off software ensures that you and your employees know how much time off they have and that they use that time to keep themselves healthy and engaged in their job.
Lost Billable Hours Due to Complicated or Antiquated Time-Tracking Tools
For most employees, they work a mix of billable and nonbillable hours. Employees spend their time working on jobs, projects, in meetings, and completing administrative tasks. If you’re using antiquated or complicated time tracking tools, your employees might lose valuable, billable hours by spending time submitting hours, completing administrative tasks, or troubleshooting old software.
Updating your time tracking and attendance software is a simple and affordable solution to save your company time and money. And in today’s remote-heavy work environment, a solution that includes mobile and touchless time tracking can ensure a seamless process for your employees and managers. Not only will this work easily for your remote workers, but it also provides a safe, COVID-friendly way for office-bound employees to clock in and out and track their time.
How to Solve Time and Attendance Tracking Problems
The simplest solution for inaccurate time and attendance tracking is to invest in enterprise time and attendance software. Time tracking software ensures that your business has zero billing mistakes, doesn’t have to waste time troubleshooting hard-to-use software or spreadsheets, and can customize timesheets to fit your needs. To find out more, learn from the success stories of others who have used time and attendance software to manage their enterprise time.
