Customizing Employee Time Cards

At the heart of all employee time clock software programs is the ability to access employee time and attendance information for payroll, labor costing, and even client billing. If gathering the information you need to effectively manage your business is a burden or the result of redundant processes, then you're less likely to experience the time and cost saving advantages of automating your time tracking process in the first place. A good time clock system will be backed by a powerful and efficient SQL database engine and built-in report writer that will make gathering and using your time and attendance data a breeze.

To see how Virtual TimeClock accomplishes this, check out our online article Customizing Employee Time Cards.

Jeff Morrow
Virtual TimeClock Product Manager
Redcort Software, Inc.

Are Your Employee Time Cards Accurate?

Time clock software programs are designed to accurately and impartially record employee hours and display those hours clearly and automatically for any given payroll period. There are few things more disconcerting to new time clock software users than to see an occasional employee time card that appears to have a one or two-minute difference between the daily hours worked and the total hours worked for the period.

Learn how Virtual TimeClock accurately reports every minute your employees work by reading our online article called Are Your Employee Time Cards Accurate? The Riddle of the Missing Dollar.

Approving Employee Time Cards

We're always thinking about ways to improve Virtual TimeClock. Sometimes those ideas come from internal sources like engineering and technical support team members. Sometimes those ideas come from customers who use our time clock software everyday. And sometimes those ideas come from people just checking us out or comparing us to the competition. One of the things we've been pondering lately is how to capture the payroll processing workflow of many of the businesses we speak with. The flow of events often goes something like this:

1. Employees print, verify, and sign off on time card hours
2. Employees submit time cards to manager for approval
3. Manager makes any necessary edits, approves or rejects time cards
4. Rejected time cards are returned to employee for clarification or further action
5. Approved time cards are submitted for payroll processing

Sometimes time cards go to an internal bookkeeper, sometimes they get sent to the accountant, and sometimes they go to an online payroll service. Other times, staff bookkeepers pull labor hours directly from the time clock but are still wanting to verify that the overtime and leave hours have been approved by a manager or supervisor before processing payroll.

So we're thinking of adding a time card approval process to a future release of Virtual TimeClock. This may include the ability to electronically sign time cards, the ability of managers to approve or reject time cards, reporting of approved and rejected time cards, and the ability to send time cards directly to a PDF or email. Would that be helpful for your business? Drop me a comment and let me know what we're missing or what we can do to make the payroll process even more efficient for your business.

Jeff Morrow

Virtual TimeClock Product Specialist

Redcort Software

Time Card Software Reviews - Can They Be Trusted?

I find reading reviews helpful when I'm researching something new. For example, if I'm looking for a new pair of running shoes, I always appreciate reading honest feedback from other consumers about things like comfort and fit. I'll also check side-by-side comparisons or reviews of different running shoes to see how they rate against one another in various categories. I expect these comparisons and reviews to be relatively objective and unbiased. Being raised on Consumer Reports, I'm still naive enough to believe that's how it works everywhere. Well, my eyes have been opened.

TopTenREVIEWS is a site that includes rankings, reviews, and side-by-side comparisons for products and services in categories such as software, electronics, web services, mobile, movies, music, and video games. All these categories, incidentally, represent $565 billion in consumer spending each year. No wonder TopTenREVIEWS wants a piece of the action. Their main goal is to send you to a site they're promoting and hope you buy the product. Because if you do, they get up to 60% of the sale!

They have a time card software review site that has changed little in the last 4 years. If you're willing to give them $1,500, then they'll review your product and reshuffle the listings based on the review results. For another $1,500 they'll make a short video of your time card software review as well. If that's not enough, when a consumer clicks on the affiliate link to buy your time card software then they'll take a 30% or higher commission on the sale!

What do you think that says about the time card software publishers who have to buy their reviews? I'm so glad Virtual TimeClock doesn't need gimmicks or spam-review sites to prove it's one of the best time card software products on the market. Our independent time clock software reviews support this. These are not 'pay for placement' sites, nor do they require you to become an 'affiliate partner' like TopTenREVIEWS.

Mac|Life Magazine - Review of Virtual TimeClock '10 Pro Edition

CPA Technology Advisor - Virtual TimeClock Simplifies Time Tracking

Macworld Magazine - Review of Virtual TimeClock '10 Network Edition

CNET - Review of Virtual TimeClock '10 Basic Edition

It's widely known that spam-review sites rank products that earn them more money higher, contain inaccurate and outdated information, and shouldn't be relied upon. The TopTenREVIEWS motto is "We Do the Research So You Don't Have To". I vote they change that to "We Sell Reviews So You Get Outdated and Biased Information".

Jeff Morrow

Virtual TimeClock Product Specialist

Redcort Software