Software Time Clock

Weary of the pitfalls of payroll? Tired of calculating employee wages? A payroll software program will save thousands in fines (and time)!

Paying an employee on salary? Wouldn’t it be nice to really know how many hours s/he was investing in your business? Finally, you can leave your office and know that everyone is accountable for their hours. Honesty is the best policy and a software time clock keeps everyone honest. No longer do you have to inquire whether they were late coming to work or left early. The record is clearly displayed on your monitor.

Better yet, did you know that after 40 hours, you as an employer most likely are required to pay time and one-half? This may apply even when the employee is on a salary! Are you aware the US Department of Labor requires that you preserve all the time work records for a period of two years? Don’t have the old time sheets? How’s a ten thousand dollar fine sound? These problems can now all be alleviated with ease by using a software time clock program. This could be the first time that you, the business owner, can take control of payroll and write the checks without having to be beholden to anyone.

$6,000 X 30 years = $180,000 in savings by doing your own payroll

Over the life of your practice, doing your own payroll with a software program, rather than using a payroll service, can save thousands of dollars.

Not only will you save the cost of having an employee figure out the hours your employees worked, but you will have added savings of not having a “service” write your paychecks if you’re presently paying for that service. Take control and run your own business.

There is a new software time clock program created especially for the small business user and can accommodate businesses with up to 99 employees. Typically the business that would find this program most useful will be one of under thirty employees. The program will work on most DOS-based computers and can be used on network systems. It is a stand-alone program and will not disturb or interact with any other program on your system. The program was created to alleviate the many problems associated with keeping track of employees’ hours worked and preparing a paycheck for each employee. It also meets the needs of the Fair Labor Standards Act.

Historically, hours worked have been logged in by the worker, person in charge, business owner or a machine. In the latter case, a paper card was inserted under a clock-work mechanism that stamped the appropriate date/time. Each of these methods have many drawbacks and they are well documented. Presently time clocks are still sold at stores such as Office Depot for $300 plus the cost of the time cards and rack. You must buy cards lifelong.

In an effort to alleviate the problem of having to figure payroll, many small business employers have gone to a salary method of payment for two reasons. One, so the deductions and pay stub remains the same from week to week. Two, some employers pay a salary with the mistaken belief that the employee is going to work extra hours without compensation, which may be illegal and is just not the case. Human nature tells me and should tell you that every employee will be compensated or will compensate him or herself for hours worked one way or another.

An additional problem with the salary approach is the US labor laws have definite descriptions of who qualifies as a salaried position. In the event an employee is disqualified as a salaried employee, you may find your practice in violation of the law and subject to fines and unpaid wages. If your employee is salaried and works over 40 hours, you would then become responsible for paying time and one-half for everything over forty hours, in addition to the taxes due. Over a two-year period, this can amount to a substantial amount of money. Who needs that? You will also find that most people will prefer to be compensated on an hourly rate­­ opposed to the nebulous salary, as they have a better opportunity for recognition and pay raises.

Some advantages gained by utilizing a software time clock program:

1. Keeps a documented log of all hours worked meeting federal and state labor law requirements. Please note that federal labor law requires every employer to have a written record of the hours worked by all employees (which must be preserved for two years), and the penalty for not having this record is a ten thousand dollar fine. The only exceptions are executive, administrative, professional and outside sales as outlined in part 541 of the Guide to the Fair Labor Standards Act. Most likely your employee does not meet the requirements. When you read the guidelines, you will understand.
2. Provides the ability to review, change and modify hours worked by employees.
3. Creates the opportunity to further utilize your computer or computer system and allows each terminal to act as a check-in area and provides you with total hours worked for each employee. Then it helps you calculate automatically the gross pay, social security, withholding and net pay needed to write paychecks. No more calculation errors.
4. Enables you to create employee profiles in which the rate of pay, home address, emergency contact, date of hire, last raise date, social security number and other important data can be stored and used in the office.
5. Allows the computer not only to log time, but also provides the employer and employee with the total amount of hours worked­­ without having to extrapolate from daily time sheets or time cards, then laboriously add hours worked on a daily basis for each employee. Countless hours are saved, for which the business is currently paying. The time-saving factor of this feature alone pays for the program many times over.
6. Tracks when the last payroll period ended and automatically updates this record each time payroll is calculated.
7. Configure the program, including the password, to your personal taste. An extra bonus of this method of clocking in allows the business owner to control the cost of employees’ hours by being able to monitor them at any given moment during the working day. You will realize many other advantages as you become more familiar with the program.

The program can provide the following reports for your accountant:

1. Employee listings including name, address, social security number and number of dependents
2. Employee Performance Report
3. Individual Earnings Report
4. Federal 941 Quarterly Tax & Wage Report
5. State Unemployment Report
6. Federal Unemployment Report
7. W-2 Generation
8. Individual employee hours worked on a job
9. Total employee hours worked on a job
10. Employee Attendance Report
11. Profit Sharing/Pension Report
12. Active Employee Report
13. Days Missed Report
14. 1099 Report

What can it do for you?

Lets the employer set three levels of security:

1. Employee/general.
2. Payroll/accounting.
3. System administrator.

• Allows employees to punch into a specific job and log hours worked on that job.
• Logs vacation and sick days.
• Logs attendance and reasons for not being at work.
• Provides rate tables, withholdings, social security, Medicare, state unemployment, federal unemployment, local taxes, EIC and other deductions required. All rate tables may be edited and changed when the government changes the rate table in the Circular “E.”
• Affords the employer to make his or her own deduction table for Christmas club, charity, etc. Extra withholdings can be assigned to special employees.
• Permits the employer to automatically integrate the hours worked, pay scale and employee profile deductions with the rate tables to provide the employer with a paycheck with all appropriate taxes deducted and recorded.
• Automatically provides the employer with the 941 payroll amount for deposit to federal account for the payroll period employer/manager chooses.
• Provides for an end-of-year routine that allows the employer to back-up and clear all reports; To start the new year with empty data files retaining all pertinent data for the up coming year.
• Features an import/export feature that allows the employer to import/export time sheets from one location to another. This is useful where employees work at more than one location.

For additional information, please write 1655 East Oakland Park Blvd, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33334. Call 1-800-786-2425, fax 305-563-0990 or visit the website www.punchclock.com.