It's about time(keeping)! The ins and outs of time and attendance software.

• Author: Burger, Patrice Sutton

Given the large sum of operating dollars that goes toward personnel costs, in any governmental entity, the old saying. "Time is Money" is very appropriate. The ability to manage employee time accurately and efficiently is a worthwhile and necessary goal of every organization that is accountable for managing public funds.

Until recently, the paper timesheet was the norm for most governments. Employees marked their "in" time and "out" time on a sheet of paper for each day in the pay period. A supervisor or manager approved those hours and signed the paper timesheet. A payroll clerk manually validated any non-productive time taken against accumulated leave amounts, usually kept in index card files or spreadsheets. This person also manually calculated any overtime or shift premiums. The information was then entered into the payroll system in order to generate paychecks.

The various steps involved in this manual process are time-intensive and prone to error. Time and attendance systems can streamline timekeeping by automating many of the manual calculations and interpretations. The diagrams in Exhibits 1 and 2 map the processes for both manual and automated time and attendance systems. These process flows illustrate the steps that can be eliminated with an automated system. What they don't show is the amount of time that can be saved on both the front and back ends of the process. The need to physically transfer timesheets along each point in the process consumes a lot of time, which is eliminated with an automated time and attendance system. And carefully configured hour and pay calculation rules built into the system dramatically ease the review and approval process.

Many governments face unique challenges when it comes to time and leave accounting, including multiple bargaining units, geographically dispersed workforces, multiple approval levels across departmental lines (e.g., supervisor, department head, project manager, central payroll), and local, state, and federal regulations that often overlap with one another. This complexity supports the need for a solution that can systematically apply pay rules consistently and accurately so that the correct data can be presented to payroll for payment. While automated time and attendance systems have been around for some time, recent advances in technology have increased their ability to add value to even the most distributed, decentralized, and complicated organizations. This article describes the functionality and benefits of time and attendance systems, as well as some of the factors to consider in the procurement of such a system.

THE FUNCTIONALITY

The basic functionality offered by automated timekeeping systems is to track and record hours worked and leave taken by employees. Time can be entered into the systems in a variety of ways--from the punch clocks that have been around for years to Web entry to biometric devices. Current systems can handle both "exact time" entry and direct time reporting. In exact time entry, employees enter the exact times they clock in and out throughout the course of the workday. In direct time reporting, employees enter the total number of hours worked at the end of the day or pay period. Some employees may report only exceptions to their normal work schedules, which is known as exception-based timekeeping.

Nearly all systems facilitate some process of approval, either through electronic workflow routing or internal notifications within the system itself. These approval processes facilitate communication back to the employee, making it possible to explain why time is not approved or to ask for further explanation of time worked.

Although functionality varies by product, automated time and attendance systems offer a variety of...