by kathryn@timeclockmts.com | Feb 5, 2009 | New Releases, News
A new version released today. One small fix to stop a constant slow down of the software over time and one major new feature. The major new feature is the integration of Time Clock MTS with a Fingerprint Scanner. This is the last word in employee security and along with the other security features in Time Clock MTS should help you to eliminate buddy punching and payroll fraud completely.
The software will only work with the Digital Persona U.are.U 4000 and 4500 fingerprint scanners. Currently I am not selling the hardware but Digital Persona recommended I use California PC as a supplier for the scanners. The price they offer is good and they should provide you with good after sales service. To get the software running with a Digital Persona scanner try taking a look at the using Time Clock MTS with a fingerprint scanner help topic.
As always please email me if you have any questions or problems.
by kathryn@timeclockmts.com | Jan 21, 2009 | New Releases, News
A quick release today fixing up a couple of problems introduced in the new version yesterday and fixing up another problem with reports that I have been trying to track down for a while.
- Fix to divide by zero error that occurred when running a report that included sick/vacation accrual data. Only occurred when an employee was assigned to a sick or vacation accrual scheme with a zero ‘accrues every time period’ setting.
- Fixed up an error introduced to the calculation of working hours in the last version (did not effect payment amount)
- Fixed up a problem with the ‘always pay salary’ setting that was added in the last version.
by kathryn@timeclockmts.com | Jan 20, 2009 | New Releases, News
A new release of Time Clock MTS to make it fully compliant with California overtime rules and to try to fix up a few niggling problems that I’ve not been able to get to the bottom of until now.
- A new setting on the Employee Maintenance->Payroll Information screen. Salaried employees have a new setting called ‘Always Pay Wages’. With this setting turned on the wages paid to employees is calculated based on the report period rather than the hours worked. So, if a salaried employee with this setting turned on has a payroll report run across a period of a week then they will get 1 weeks wages rather than a prorated amount dependent on how many hours they worked.
- A new setting on the Employee Maintenance->Payroll Information screen called ‘waive automatic breaks’. When this setting is turned on the selected employee will not be allocated automatic breaks if they have been configured.
- A new setting for each employee defining overtime rate 2.
- A new global overtime setting for a second tier of daily overtime. When this is turned on daily overtime above the new limit is paid at overtime rate 2.
- A new global overtime setting to turn on seventh day overtime. This includes a limit, under which seventh day overtime will be paid at overtime rate 1 and over which will be paid at overtime rate 2.
- Three new fields added to the payroll summary report section template. These display hours worked, rate and earnings for the new overtime rate 2.
- Time Clock MTS now refreshes the connection to it’s database every 20 minutes.
- Fix to secret question answers on Tools->Options->System Settings page.
- Fix to prompt on enter note screen.
- Fixed vacation and sick time starting balances not copying correctly when the copy employee command was used.
I will have a more detailed post up shortly covering the details of the new overtime settings and how these apply to California overtime rules.
by Mark Nemtsas | Jan 13, 2009 | News
As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago I’ve finally identified a hardware vendor that produces the quality fingerprint scanners that I was looking for. Digital Persona are one of the best known manufacturers in the industry, with their hardware and software drivers rapidly becoming the standard for the biometric software industry. Their popular U.are.U 4000 USB fingerprint scanner has recently been superseded by the newly designed U.are.U 4500 model and it is this model that I have settled on. I am in the process of integrating Time Clock MTS with this scanner, and in the short term at least, this and the 4000 model are going to be the only biometric devices that will work with Time Clock MTS.
A Digital Personal USB Finger Scanner
Currently Digital Persona bundles up the fingerprint scanner with some software that you can use to manage user accounts on your Windows PC and that will also manage your web passwords and so on. They currently have this bundle available at just US$69.95 which is an insanely good price considering how much it cost me for a single scanner for development purposes! You can purchase the scanners directly from the digital persona website. Please note that I am not affiliated with Digital Persona in any way, and do not currently sell their hardware so if you have any problems with the scanner then you’ll need to deal with them rather than with anyone at Timesheets MTS Software.
Stay tuned for a new version of Time Clock MTS that works with these fingerprint scanners very soon!
Update: quite a bit has changed since we wrote this entry more than five years ago. Of course Time Clock MTS has had fingerprint security for a long time. And second, Digital Persona seems to have under-gone a re-branding and no longer sells directly to consumers. If you wanted to buy a Digital Persona 4500 scanner to use with Time Clock MTS then we recommend you purchase from California PC. At the time this update was written (November 2014) it looks like a suitable fingerscanner could be purchased for under US$100.
by kathryn@timeclockmts.com | Jan 8, 2009 | New Releases, News
A minor bug fix release today. Two bugs fixed up plus some minor useability improvements. The bugs fixed were:
- Sick time and vacation accruals now work correctly if the ‘accrues every’ setting is set to more than 1.
- Sick time or vacation time taken on the last day of a report was not shown (but it was recorded correctly). This is now fixed up.
- Various text fields on the options screens now select the entire contents when you select the text box.
by kathryn@timeclockmts.com | Dec 24, 2008 | New Releases, News
Another minor release today containing some bug fixes and some useability improvements. Changes made include:
- Fixed up the tab order and text box sizes on the first login screen.
- Added an adjustment to the employee starting balance for sick time and vacation accruals. This allows you to set each employee with their own starting balance. This new setting is cumulative with the accrual scheme starting balance.
- The edit times time period selections were not quite working correctly. This has now been fixed up.
- A new status message is displayed on the note entry screen to tell employees if they actually have to enter a note.
- Fix to an error that occurred occasionally when selecting an employee from the employee list.
- When editing a time on the edit times screen the matching times details are also shown. Ideally it would have been nice to be able to edit both on one screen but given that time notes are per time and not per pair this didn’t really make sense.
