by Mark Nemtsas | Mar 29, 2013 | New Features
Above you can see the employee time off request report which is a new addition to our employee clockin software. If you’re not sure what Time Clock MTS employee time off requests are you can read more about them here or watch a video explaining how employees place a request. The employee time off request report allows users to break down requests by status and date. The way the report is generated is different to most other reports in Time Clock MTS because it is not configured from the report configuration screen but rather is run directly from the screen administrators use to manage employee time off requests. Here’s an image of that screen: The report is run by clicking the button with the printer icon on it. The actual data displayed on the report is determined by what data is displayed on the screen at the time. So, if for example, you’re showing requests from All Time (selected from the time period drop down) and only displaying Pending requests (because the Pending checkbox is ticked and the other two boxes are not) then the report will show Pending requests regardless of the date the requests were made. Another example would be to display all Approved requests from the the previous month. To accomplish this we would select “Last Month” from the time period drop down and check the “Approved” checkbox and uncheck the others. To view the report click the Printer button. In conclusion if you do need to record and track employee time off requests from your employee punch clock software then the time off request report... read more
by kathryn@timeclockmts.com | Mar 28, 2013 | New Releases, News
Version 4.1.1 of our employee punch clock software has been released. The changes made in this release are primarily aimed at the employee time off requests area of Time Clock MTS but there’s a few changes made to other things too. Here’s a list of the changes made: No Finger Scan setting added to the employee information screen. When checked for an employee that employee will not need to scan their fingerprint to clock in and out. Useful for employees whose fingers will not scan reliably. Of course you must have the biometric time card features switched on for this setting to have any effect. When an employee bulletin that requires acceptance is marked as read by an employee it will no longer be displayed to that employee. A different icon is shown for employees that are clocked into a job on the employee list interface. Changed the date formats on the employee and administrator time off request screens to allow for proper date sorting when the column headers are clicked. Adjusted some of the text and tooltip popups on the import employees screen. Made several changes to the administrator manage time off requests screen. The changes include adding a time filter, relocating the time off request status filter check boxes, and adding the view time off request report button. Added the time off request report. The value of the checkbox that creates an employee bulletin on the Approve/Deny time off request screen is now remembered. Fixed up the import employees process to bring in employee display color and do no pay overtime settings... read more
by Mark Nemtsas | Mar 25, 2013 | News
You may or may not be aware but we also offer an online punch clock system which is a replacement for both mechanical time card machines and desktop punch clock software. Online Time Clock MTS can be run from pretty much any browser on any computer anywhere in the world to track your employee attendance data. It can also be run on many mobile devices such as iPods, iPhones, and iPads. Free Online Punch Clock Trial Online Time Clock MTS offers an obligation free 30 day trial in which you can use the time clock system on as many computers as you like to track as many employees as you like. It is not restricted in anyway and runs for long enough to trial the system for at least one full payroll period. Signing up for a free Online Punch Card Trial just takes a few seconds and you can be punching in or out within just a few minutes of signing up! It really doesn’t get much easier than that. Why an Online Punch Clock? Online Time Clock MTS requires no installation, has no third party software requirements, and an account can be registered and put to work in just a minute or two by a non-technical person. The time punches that Online Time Clock MTS records are completely secure and cannot be falsified by employees. Your time punch data is regularly backed up so no more worries if your power goes off, no more having to keep track of software registration keys, and no headaches if your punch clock PC fries itself. Just fire up an Internet... read more
by Mark Nemtsas | Mar 18, 2013 | Using the Software
Almost any business can benefit from the use of time attendance software in preference to paper based timesheets or time-cards. Further benefits can be seen by using biometric time attendance software as this will completely eliminate the practice of buddy punching. Buddy punching is when employees punch in and out for each other in an attempt to misrepresent their real work hours. Biometric security on your time and attendance software obviously eliminates because the technology makes it extremely difficult to pretend to be anyone else. Biometric security for time clock software can take several forms but the most common and most cost-effective is fingerprint attendance tracking. Time Clock MTS can make use of a Digital Persona U.are.U fingerscanner to give you access to a fully featured biometric time clock system for a very low cost. In fact, something less than US$200. This is extremely cost effective compared with the cost of a physical biometric time clock machine at more than US$1500 per machine Let’s take a look at the cost of each component of a biometric attendance system. Time Clock Software Cost The Stand Alone Edition of Time Clock MTS will track up to 500 employees on one computer and costs just US$99 (US). There’s no on-going fees with this and you’ll have a lifetime license to use the current major version of Time Clock MTS. Cost So Far: $99 (US) Fingerprint Scanner Cost We don’t have an affiliation with any hardware seller who sells Digital Persona fingerscanners but we’ve had some luck buying off of California PC. Right now they are selling DigitalPersona 4500 USB scanners for US$88.95.... read more
by Mark Nemtsas | Mar 18, 2013 | Using the Software
Dentists, dental clinics, and endondontics specialists probably comprise the biggest single type of business that uses Time Clock MTS to track their employee time and attendance. As of mid-March 2013 there’s 350 different companies of this type using Time Clock MTS or about 3% of companies who use the software. It’s probably no great surprise because most small dental practices comprise one or two dental professionals (who typically are the owners) and a number of technical and administrative support staff who are paid hourly. It’s not unusual for the staff to work different hours to the owners and because of this tracking attendance accurately and with minimal effort is vital to minimize both payroll overheads and time clock fraud. Payroll overheads are a a real and unavoidable cost but good dental time clock software will help minimize the cost and stop payroll errors. Time clock fraud however, can easily be eliminated. If you want to see the type of time clock fraud that goes on in the dental practice take a look at this thread on The Dental Lab Network. The examples mentioned in that thread involved an hour or more of unworked time being claimed by an employee every single day. Installation of Time Clock MTS to replace written records would eliminate that activity almost immediately saving the up-front cost of the software in just a week or so. Even if employees get more crafty and start punching in and out for each other a dental lab or dental practice could easily implement the biometric time and attendance features of Time Clock MTS to eliminate that too. In... read more
by Mark Nemtsas | Mar 14, 2013 | Tips and Tricks
At the time that this blog entry was written Time Clock MTS was being used by more than 100 hotels, inns, villas, and motels to track their staff attendance, generate payroll reports, and monitor staff leave and accruals. I’ve had a lot of emails over the last few years from these types of users about how best to configure the software to suit their requirements so I thought it would be worthwhile listing off some of what I’ve learned in this time. We enjoy using the Time Clock MTS software because it is quick, easy, dependable and gets the job done! Read more Qaheer RahemtullaManagementHoward Johnson BurlingtonIowa, USA Split Hotel Staff by Departments If you’re using Time Clock MTS as hotel time attendance software you’re going to want to split your employees into departments to mirror the functional areas found in a typical hotel. Obvious departments to setup and assign to Time Clock MTS employees are housekeeping, front office, reservations, uniformed services, bar and wait staff, and administrative staff. Clearly it’s going to be worthwhile splitting up your hotel time attendance tracking by department so that payroll expenses for different cost centers can be tracked more easily. Also, Time Clock MTS can be much easier to use if departments are setup and the Departmental Folder View on the Interface Settings screen is used. Also don’t forget that most Time Clock MTS reports can be run for a single department and that there’s some reports built into the software specifically aimed at tracking departmental costs such as the Departmental Wages Report. Use Job Tracking for Detailed Cost Tracking Time Clock... read more
