Find a Time Clock Solution For Your Restaurant

No two restaurants are 100% alike. Even chains, franchises, and multi-location establishments that operate in the same town will have their own personality and style. Often, this is because of your specific location, the personalities of your staff members, and even the “regulars” who always sit in the same corner booth.

Similarly, every time clock solution handles the needs of restaurant businesses differently.

Time clock solutions for restaurants

In the restaurant industry, how well things run often comes down to scheduling. If you’re in charge of building the weekly schedule, you probably run through a bunch of questions before you start slotting names, days, and times:

• Are you staffing each shift correctly to handle anticipated demand?
• Is there a local conference that will affect the midweek lunch crowd?
• What big evening events are coming nearby?
• How many hands do you need in the kitchen during this weekend’s breakfast rush?

Figuring out these kinds of logistics might not be your favorite part of being in the restaurant business, but there’s no escaping them if you want things to go as smoothly as possible.

Beyond building the schedule, you also need front- and back-of-house staff to follow rules related to checking the schedule, swapping shifts, and requesting time off.

Ideally, your automated time clock provides the types of features that make it easy for everyone to manage time tracking and attendance needs.

Set alert preferences

Managing schedules, and giving employees the tools they need to do the same, can make a big difference when it comes to your restaurant’s environment, employee morale, and even your bottom line.

Restaurant owners and managers who want to track attendance often turn to automated time clock solutions, such as those from Icon Time.

Setting alerts can make a big difference with tracking time and managing payroll costs.

In the TotalPass Suite of products, each clock’s native software lets you access preferences and alert tabs from a web browser. Once there, you can set alerts for a variety of items that eventually point back to your bottom line:

1. The number of hours an employee can work per shift 

This information can help you avoid overtime. It can also ensure that full-time employees are working enough hours to continue to qualify for things like health insurance, and other perks and benefits.

• • You’ll receive an alert should an employee’s hours during a shift, or even during a payroll period, fall outside of your range. And, the simple web browser access makes it easy for you to update and/or disable these alerts whenever you have to.

2. Daily overtime alerts

Set alerts to trigger before an employee reaches overtime hours (daily, weekly, or monthly).

• • These alerts can help you avoid additional payroll costs that can eat up your profits, and make it difficult to invest in employee training, onboarding, and even recruiting new hires.

3. Track paid breaks, wages, and lunch time deductions.

Track paid breaks to make sure employees are clocking in and out at specific times, in step with federal labor laws. You can even specify each employee’s hourly wages, and easily update wages when necessary.

• • The automatic lunch deduction lets you enter the number of hours that a staff member needs to work before the lunch period automatically deducts from their shift. This is another way to help you avoid payroll costs related to overtime, especially if employees forget to clock out before they take lunch.

When it comes to clock-ins/outs, you shouldn’t get bogged down in spreadsheets, deciphering handwriting, or dealing with outdated machines. Nor should you get stuck paying overtime when an automated time clock solution can help you avoid it.

If you’re using a manual time and attendance system, or an outdated time clock, it’s easy to miss out on key data that helps you manage employee attendance issues, and even streamline payroll and accounting.

With advanced time clock solutions from Icon Time, you can rely on up-to-the-minute information about actual hours worked, attendance and more. This insight can help you simplify the way you manage your people, and create a more cohesive environment for everyone.