Managing employee time and attendance is crucial for delivering on-time, accurate paychecks. As businesses evolve, so do their needs for workforce management software. Effective time and attendance management is essential for controlling costs, ensuring compliance, and boosting workforce productivity and engagement in today’s competitive environment.

If your current system is outdated, the idea of fully automating your processes or replacing an old system can feel overwhelming. With limited budgets and resources, it is vital to choose the right solution at the right cost from a vendor who will support you through implementation and beyond.

Here are key signs that it’s time to start looking for a new solution and essential features to look for in your next system.

Signs You Need a New Time and Attendance System

Using outdated methods to manage time and attendance can lead to inefficiencies, such as duplicate data entries, calculation errors, and wasted hours tracking down information. These issues can negatively impact employee engagement.

A fully automated solution streamlines routine tasks like labor data capture, timecard management, and labor cost tracking, saving valuable time and effort. Real-time visibility helps enforce work and pay rules, manage exceptions, and maintain compliance. Increased payroll accuracy and simplified information access also make employees more productive and engaged.

You need every advantage to stay competitive and profitable. The right time and attendance solution offers intuitive tools, configurable workflows, and instant insights that adapt as your organization and challenges evolve.

Assessing Your Current Processes

To begin, review your existing timekeeping processes and pay policies to identify what’s working and what’s not. This review will help you:

• Understand how your timekeeping processes currently function
• Spot opportunities for time and cost savings
• Identify processes that may cause employee disengagement
• Pinpoint issues that automation can solve, such as:
  • Redundant data entry
  • High payroll error rates
  • Inefficiencies from semi-automated processes
  • High administrative costs
  • Employee or manager dissatisfaction with the process

Review Your Pay Policies

Various operational reasons, such as varied job roles and responsibilities, shift or pay differentials, and compliance or collective bargaining reasons, may justify inconsistencies in pay policies. Still, these inconsistencies need to be addressed in your automated solution. Additionally, check for communication breakdowns and issues like employees gaming the clock.

• Are complex pay rules misunderstood across different locations or groups?
• Are there varying interpretations of pay policies between departments?

Indicators It’s Time for a New Solution

• Manual Processes Slowing You Down: If your system relies heavily on manual data entry and calculations, it’s time to upgrade. Modern systems offer automation features that reduce errors and free up managers for strategic tasks.
• Compliance Risks are Growing: Keeping up with changing labor laws is crucial. With AI-powered time and attendance, you can save time on administrative tasks and focus more on people. If your system isn’t easy to adjust to changing compliance requirements or can’t fully automate your policies, seek a solution with built-in compliance management.
• Inconsistent or Inaccurate Data: Frequent payroll discrepancies due to timekeeping errors frustrate employees and create administrative headaches. Consider a system that offers greater accuracy.
• Limited Integration with Other Systems: Your system should integrate seamlessly with HR and payroll systems to avoid data silos and duplicate entries.
• Employee Frustration with Clocking In/Out: Difficulties in clocking in and out or limited access to timesheets signal an outdated system that frustrates employees. A user-friendly system with multiple clock-in options and mobile access can improve the employee experience.

Features to Look for in a New Time and Attendance System

With AI-powered time and attendance, you can save time on administrative tasks and focus more on people. Modern time and attendance solutions offer automatic timesheet approvals, premium calculations, and schedule-to-clock exception alerts, ensuring alignment between timesheets and schedules.

In addition, your new system should help reduce compliance burdens with automatic violation reporting, premium pay calculations, and support for predictable pay. A few additional features to look for include:
Automated Timesheet Approvals: Automatically approve timesheets that meet criteria, allowing managers to focus only on exceptions.

• Real-Time Schedule-Aware Timesheets: Integrate with scheduling software to ensure timesheets align with employee schedules.
• Flexible Clock-In Options: Allow employees to clock in via various methods, accommodating different work environments.
• Employee Empowerment with Mobile Access: Enable employees to manage their schedules and clock punches from mobile devices.
• Pre-Built Compliance Templates: Use pre-built templates and create additional pay rules without customization.
• Automated Tip Pooling: Manage and record tips accurately with automated pooling and manual entry options.
• Restrict Unscheduled Clock-Ins: Automatically track out-of-compliance attendance and ensure employee attestation and audit trails.
• Ensuring Minimum Contracted Hours: Round hours to ensure employees receive their minimum contracted hours.

The Bottom Line

Investing in a new time and attendance system can transform your business. A system with advanced automation, real-time schedule integration, and comprehensive compliance management reduces administrative overhead, ensures accuracy, and satisfies managers and employees. If your current system no longer meets your needs, it’s time to explore new options to keep your business running smoothly.

Legion Workforce Management (WFM) intelligently automates time and attendance activities to help organizations achieve transformational results.

Automate Approvals

Legion’s intelligent automation saves managers time with timesheet auto-approvals and schedule-to-clock exception alerts. Deep integration with scheduling ensures alignment of timesheets and schedules.

Forrester Research found that, on average, 8-10 hours/week are saved with auto-computed premium, and 1-2 hours/week are saved with auto-approved time clock approvals using Legion. You can also automatically apply corrections to close payroll across multiple employees from multiple locations.

Real-Time Attendance Tracking

Tracking attendance in real-time is a challenge, especially for managers in large stores or highly distributed workplaces who often lack sufficient visibility into their employees’ clock-in status and work patterns.

With Real-Time Attendance, managers get a simple, comprehensive dashboard that refreshes every minute and delivers real-time visibility into scheduled activities and employees’ weekly hours, clock-in/out status, meal break information, and employees approaching overtime. With this information, managers can refine the schedules for their locations as needed in real-time.

Minimize Compliance Risk

End-to-end compliance management from schedule creation through hours paid and employee attestation. While workforce compliance is constantly evolving, how you manage it can be easy.

Legion makes achieving full, end-to-end compliance easier with its AI-powered, schedule-aware timekeeping system. All policies are centrally configured during implementation and applied consistently—taking the guesswork out of managing rules and providing prompts for predictive scheduling consent, potential violations, and “clopenings.” Upgrading to Legion’s Time and Attendance could be the solution your business needs to stay competitive.

Lower TCO

No costly hardware is required. With Legion, employees have one app for employee clocking, checking schedules, communicating with coworkers, and accessing wages early. Legion integrates with your existing time clocks as well.

Today, staying competitive requires smart investments in technology that drive efficiency, accuracy, and compliance. Upgrading your time and attendance system is not just about adopting new tools; it’s about empowering your workforce and positioning your organization for success.

With features like automated approvals, real-time tracking, and comprehensive compliance management, a modern solution like Legion’s Time and Attendance offers the transformational impact your business needs. Don’t let outdated processes hold you back—schedule a demo today.