Make Sure Your Time Clock Plays Nice With Payroll

With so many business systems synced up these days, the idea of software integration is almost a given. If one solution doesn’t “play nice” with another—especially in your HR software suite—then chances are, another will. After all, as businesses attempt to break down silos across their operations, why would they tolerate silos in their software?

Software Integration and Time Clocks

Software integration happens when one application’s features allow it to sync up with others. That way, when you bring applications together, they can readily transfer essential data back and forth.

Most modern time and attendance solutions are designed to integrate seamlessly with payroll. However, the promise of technology falls apart when companies require employees to track time and attendance on paper, or to use a spreadsheet that’s saved to a local computer.

Tracking time and attendance in a manual fashion can create a number of issues.

For instance:

• Employees wind up handing in their time sheets late.
• Or, they don’t track their time in the moment, and fudge their numbers.
• Meanwhile, managers and administrators can have a hard time reading handwriting.

What’s more, if you’re using a manual time and attendance system, you’re also leaving yourself susceptible to things like time theft, buddy punching, and other forms of time clock fraud.

And we haven’t even gotten into what this means for payroll.

On the payroll side, imagine getting bombarded with a slew of handwritten time sheets right before the end of the pay period—or even after the pay period ends. This creates stress, extra work, and redundant data entry that can all be solved with an integrated time and attendance solution, such as those from Icon Time.

Payroll Integration With Icon Time

Maybe your employees are spread out across a corporate campus, clock in from different cities, or are scattered among multiple job or construction sites. Or maybe they’re all nestled under one business roof. Whatever the case may be, you want them to have an easy time clocking in and out as they go. And, you want to provide features that help make life a little easier for your payroll department.

As you review time and attendance options, especially with an eye toward things like integration and ease-of-use, you can find a time clock solution that makes time and attendance, and payroll integration, as automated as possible.

When you cut down on how much manual input is needed, you can protect your business from issues related to fraud, misreporting, and other wage and hour compliance risks. You can also gain a new view into your actual labor costs.

Like all of Icon Time’s automated time clocks, the TotalPass B600 integrates with most major types of payroll software.

With a few clicks, hours and pay rates automatically export into your payroll software.

1. Access reports menu

The B600 offers insightful reports that make it easy for your payroll department to pull the information they need. In addition, payroll can run custom filters for specific punch times, dates, employees, and departments using the create report option.

• • Reports are intuitive to read and edit, adding another layer of ease to payroll administration.

2. Utilize the payroll menu

From the payroll menu, your payroll staff can create exports of your time clock data. And, they can import this information into their payroll program, thereby streamlining their process.

• • What’s more, options let them email timecards to individual employees, or submit them as one report to a manager.
  • Via the payroll page, administrators and managers can download exported files to PCs, or email timecard reports to multiple recipients.

3. Add a time clock that plays nice with a number of payroll programs

The Payroll export option creates a payroll file for the following platforms:

• • Paychex Flex
  • SurePayroll
  • Paychex Preview
  • Paycom
  • Paylocity
  • ADP Workforce Now
  • QuickBooks Online

4. Take advantage of other next-gen features

The B600 offers a number of next-gen features that help support payroll, and also create new levels of security for your clock in/out process.

For instance, administrators can set the software to automatically send reports and/or system alerts to multiple supervisors when:

• • an employee has a photo punch that needs verification;
  • employees are about to accumulate overtime hours; or
  • if they leave early, or clock in late.

The process of upgrading or investing in new time and attendance software can be tricky. As you research and consider different options and partners, make sure that the system works well with other Human Capital Management (HCM) systems and solutions, especially payroll.