How to Keep Track of Your Employee Hours Using Employee Time Tracking Software

You might be thinking that employee time tracking for hourly employees is a given—how are you supposed to pay your employees or contractors if you don’t know the number of hours they have logged? But asking your team to punch in and out versus implementing a dedicated employee timesheet software can be the difference between night and day.

Do you need a robust but user-friendly way to track employee time and make requests for basic payroll and attendance management? Are you upgrading to a comprehensive system with powerful project and resource management functionality?

Regardless of which solution is the best fit for your business, Journyx can guide you through understanding how to use employee time tracking software and make it a worthwhile investment for your business.

The Basics

An essential timesheet solution like Journyx WX can be used for employees regardless of how compensation is calculated. Hourly, project-by-project, or salaried employees can all track their hours—and so much more—right in the software. Upgrading your time tracking system can both simplify and enhance the tasks you’re already responsible for managing.

1. Streamline Payroll: Traditionally, the payroll process is full of manual data entry and human oversight, even if you’ve already evolved beyond manual time cards. When you use a time tracking software, you simply set up employees’ info, such as pay rate and withholdings, and you’re good to go. (See below for more detailed information about how data validation can reduce errors and maximize compliance.)
2. Calculate Attendance: With the ability to calculate PTO accrual and account for holidays right in the software, both HR and employees themselves can see real-time calculations of time worked as well as PTO earned.
3. Approve Time Off: Rather than set up a cumbersome system of requesting time off, employees can see their accrual and make the request right in the system. Managers will have access to the request immediately and can take action directly, even on the go.

Just these three basics will free up time and empower your team to boost efficiency.

Do More with Less

Whether you’re the HR manager or the CFO, you know that mistakes happen during shift change—or during data exchange. In an increasingly complex business world, tasks and data are less clear-cut than in previous generations, and you need a timesheet software that can keep up. The last thing you want is to have to wait on multiple independent programs or departments to communicate accurate information.

Today’s employee time tracking software is powerful enough to do the job of multiple systems, yet humble enough to integrate with existing ERPs so that you can have the full benefit of time-saving and accuracy-improving functions:

1. Smart Timesheets: Tracking time isn’t just in-and-out. It’s about knowing what your team is working on and how long they spend on it so that you can make informed decisions. By syncing with other critical business applications such as phone systems, project tools, Microsoft Outlook, and more, smart time tracking timesheets are built on a foundation of artificial intelligence so that your human intelligence can spend more time working and less time tracking their work without sacrificing robust data.
2. Data Validation: Not every employee is the same, and not every project is the same. Being able to set up automatic data validation and custom rules in your time tracking software means avoiding costly payroll and compliance errors, reducing time and frustration. Employees themselves can receive error messages when attempting to enter time that breaks a rule, increasing transparency and accountability.
3. Powerful Reporting: What good is data if you don’t see the big picture too? With robust yet easy-to-read reporting, you can evaluate your teams’ workflow, view task analytics, and reward top individual performers. Time is more valuable than ever, and if you’re aiming to accommodate your employees’ desire for flexibility, you must have a clear picture of productivity.
4. Resource Allocation: Unless you’re tracking your projects and resources in real time, your project managers and COOs might not have the most accurate picture of any given resource’s capacity. Simply asking team members how long tasks took is not always the path to the most accurate data, either. While writing a report might have taken them 45 minutes, how long did gathering data, brainstorming, and consulting with others take?

Aside from the in-house benefits, modernizing your employee timesheet can also improve the precision and speed of client invoicing by providing a more streamlined and accurate picture of your teams’ billable and nonbillable hours.

With increased data security and the ability to go mobile with our employee time tracking app, you are in good hands no matter which Journyx product you consider for your business.

To learn more about how Journyx can customize the best employee time tracking system for your business, contact us to speak with a representative or schedule a free custom demo online.