By Jim Scharff, Managing Director, Access Management Systems Ltd.
SubscribeMany contract managers share the common pain of accurately tracking the time and attendance of their workforce.
One problem is the constant submission of “perfect” timecards – 40 hours with a few extra hours of overtime added on. Week after week. Payroll after payroll.
To make matters worse, many managers have experienced the situation of turning up at jobsites early in the morning or at the end of the working day to find that several of the workforce are not there. And sure enough – at the end of the week – the hand written timecards record perfect attendance – on time, every time.
These inaccuracies do not mean that members of the workforce are dishonest – but the practice of filling in timesheets at the end of the week, combined with bad memory and sloppy habits, takes a significant value from the bottom line of any project.
The solution requires a product that is versatile and rugged enough for a construction site – recording attendance time easily, accurately and reliably despite the inherent dust, grime, spray, mud and continuous impact knocks.
The solution winning tremendous recognition in providing a cost saving solution is the award-winning JobClock, brought to the UK and Irish markets exclusively by Access Management Systems (“AMS”).
So what exactly is JobClock, and what can it do for you?
Jim Scharff, the MD of AMS, says that the JobClock System was developed by an American contractor to help track and monitor the time spent by the workforce at every Jobsite.
The benefit has been experienced by Builders, Electricians, Plumbers and Landscapers – and is available to any business where people are paid for the time they work – particularly when working at remote and rugged environments with minimal supervision.
JobClock eliminates hand written timecards. Such timecards give a rough approximation of the labour hours spent at each Jobsite. Workers are supposed to fill in their hours daily when they arrive and leave a jobsite.
Ideally, they should be neatly filled in, subtotalled, and show overtime - if any. This sounds great in theory – but the reality is quite different, as every contractor knows. Timecards are simply inaccurate, inefficient and ineffective.
As if tracking the correct arrival and departure times wasn’t difficult enough, when the workforce travel to multiple jobsites and/or they need to track actual activities, precise recall is nearly impossible. At the end of the payroll period, another inaccurate timecard is ready for processing.
Back at the office, having been collected by the supervisor, the timecards are verified by an office manager or payroll clerk. Handwriting has to be deciphered. Totals need to be double checked and overtime must be calculated. Each step of this process is error prone.
In the last step of the process, the finalised hours need to be copied into a book-keeping program or payroll service, a task which increases in difficulty as the size of the workforce grows.
Computers have revolutionised the way most businesses operate. Spreadsheets, word processors, accounting applications and estimating programs have radically improved productivity and profitability.
So why have these electronic innovations not helped the contractor with the age-old problem of time and attendance, accurate job costing and overtime calculation? There are a number of reasons. Tracking time and attendance requires a Time-clock.
But jobsites are frequently hostile to electronics – exposed to weather and lacking any power. Solvents, sprays, dust and grime are enough to damage the toughest tools – let alone the electronic Timeclock.
In order to clock in and out, a “badge” is usually required – which can be bent or otherwise damaged. Biometric systems that rely on fingerprints are useless when the workers’ hands are stained with paint, putty, stain, grease or dirt.
What contractors have been waiting for a virtually indestructible battery-powered timeclock, together with a rugged and durable ID mechanism that workers can carry – together with simple and straightforward software designed to deliver quick and accurate numbers for payroll and job costing.
This is exactly what JobClock provides. Easily, simply and cost effectively.
The revolutionary and award winning JobClock System from Exaktime in the USA is the first and only solution that delivers accurate time and attendance for the Contractor. JobClocks are battery powered and can be secured anywhere – indoors or outside in any kind of weather. Workers use a pair of “keytabs” – one green and one red – to clock in and out for the workday and lunch. Other colours can assist in tracking travel time, special tasks etc (if needed).
At some point before payroll, the time and attendance records are collected from the JobClocks using a Palm Pilot – a small PC that communicates with the JobClock using infrared – making it as simple to use as a TV remote.
Back at the office, the office manager or payroll clerk uses the software on the desktop to generate more than a dozen customised informative reports. These reports show exactly how much time each worker spent at each Jobsite performing particular activities.
Jobsite reports help gain an understanding of the time spent at each Jobsite – dramatically improving the accuracy of job costing. Timecard reports summarise the work week for each worker – and include precise totals for overtime.
Does this technology truly benefit the contractor?
An established and authoritative payroll association calculates that switching to an automated payroll system results in an immediate 9% payroll saving. With just 10 workers earning an average of £8 per hour, this is an immediate saving of £1,150 per month – or nearly £14,000 a year.
And this is just the start of the savings. Office workers now only need spend a fraction of the time on payroll preparation since there are no more handwritten timecards to decipher and verify.
JobClock uses specially designed software called Account Linx to further reduce payroll preparation time by automatically transferring accurate time and attendance information to popular payroll packages like QuickBooks, Intuit Master Builder and others.
But what benefits do time and attendance solutions bring to the Contractor? What if the workers do not comply or they resist the system when it’s in place?
Make no mistake – implementing an electronic time and attendance system can bring tremendous benefits to a business – but it also requires commitment from the business.
The first step is to realise that the old ways of tracking time are inaccurate, ineffective and extremely costly. The next step is to select and purchase an appropriate solution.
And finally, management has to deploy the solution to the workforce. Most companies take at least two or three payroll periods to fully roll out a system.
After that – the return on investment is substantial. In surveys taken of JobClock customers, the typical return on investment is about five weeks.
JobClock can significantly reduce costs, improve job costing and simplify payroll processes.
Increased profits, increased competitiveness, improved resource deployment …. are all good reasons why over 175,000 workers clocked in with JobClock today. Find out why by visiting the AMS websites. It’s about time!