How do you choose the right time and attendance system for your company?

There are so many companies that still submit manual time and attendance evidence via Excel sheets, which they then use for payroll processes. If you are one of those companies, your accountants are probably not that happy about it. Also, consider that one simple mistake can cause a lot of trouble for an accounting department and to the whole company in general with regards to government controls. As a consequence of this, many firms end up paying very high penalties.

Modern attendance management systems that are used to track your employees’ time can help you avoid these kinds of problems.

Since not all companies need the same type of time and attendance tracking, what is the best solution for you?

Online Attendance Tracking – access anytime and anywhere

Do your employees work at remote offices, have home office or even live in different countries? Choose a time and attendance system that is cloud based (used online). With this solution, you don’t need to call on the phone or exchange lots of emails with your superior. When you get sick, you can ask for a day off from your bed with your phone/computer in a few clicks. Everything is automatically registered in the system for the payroll department that uses it for pay slip management.

There’s no need to emphasise how important cloud system is during pandemic times. In 2020, remote connection became suddenly the most required feature in IT systems.

Connection to payroll software

This should be a part of your new time and attendance management system. Online timesheets are one thing, but connection to the payroll software makes it so much easier for all the employees that work on a company’s payslips. Connection can be direct with API or as custom Excel export files which you can simply upload to your payroll software. The first solution is more comfortable, the second one is cheaper.

Entrance tracking cards

Some companies need detailed attendance tracking. Here are a few reasons why: too many employees, superiors don’t share an office with their subordinates, there has been some fraudulent behaviour with regards to employees’ attendance. If you have problems like those mentioned or you just want to avoid them, try to use entrance tracking cards. Every employee registers his/her arrival and departure time from the workplace. This is a very popular solution for factories, manufacturing workplaces or corporates with hundreds of employees. Most systems then evaluate the data and process them for the payslips. Many companies are attracted to biometric entrance systems, however, these can be used in specific cases in specific companies, so if your business doesn’t require special protection, we do not recommend proceeding with biometrics.

Negative and positive attendance registration

Before explaining expressions positive and negative attendance, we must state, that these are not official legally accepted terms. However, many use them to describe the type of time and attendance management they prefer. 

Negative attendance

Negative attendance is used mostly for basic office job positions (usually 8-hour shifts, part-time workers etc.). For Example: if an employee must be at work 8 hours a day/ 5 days a week, then the employer is counting on him/her being there and working. Therefore, the only thing they need to register is their absence – negative attendance. There’s no entrance tracking, breaks or leave tracking.

It is popular for “white collar” departments and companies.

Positive attendance

Positive attendance means exactly the opposite. An Employee registers every single working hour. Working hour registration is usually used for manufacturing or manual workers, so they can track overtime work, public holiday work, nightshift allowance, etc.

Positive attendance can be tracked to the maximum via entrance cards, but it’s sufficient enough to have cloud system where your employees track every detail of their attendance.

Through these criteria, you can choose the right attendance system for your company’s needs. There are so many of them.

TULIP is a cloud based platform that does not use entrance tracking cards, therefore we are the best solution for companies with so called “white collar” employees who do not need to be tracked by their every move and they prefer to register negative attendance. If you are interested in TULIP, please contact us.