by kathryn@timeclockmts.com | Sep 15, 2009 | New Releases, News
A fairly major release today fixing up some minor problems and adding a major new feature, job tracking. I’ll do a detailed blog entry and static web site page on job tracking so I won’t cover it in too much detail here. Stay tuned for more details on how this exciting new feature works. A brief list of the changes can be found below. Added job tracking. This included a new job tracking screen on the Tools->Options screen, two new reports (the active job and job time reports), a new employee setting (job tracking requirements), and two new data entry screens, the job code screen and the switch jobs screen. Various changes to stop Time Clock MTS grabbing the windows focus when it is not the active window. Fix to web cam image capturing when using the keypad interface. Moved the error text box on the keypad interface, it was partially hidden by another text field. When you’re logged in as the administrator you can double click on an employee in the employee list and be shown the edit employee details screen for that employee. In the next few hours I’ll have some more information posted about the new job tracking... read more
by Mark Nemtsas | Sep 15, 2009 | How To, Using the Software
A lot of businesses either want to track employee costs based on what tasks they’re working on, or perhaps on a customer based project by project basis. In Time Clock MTS we call this ‘job tracking’. This Time Clock MTS How To Article describes how to easily setup Time Clock MTS to track jobs in your employee time clock and then leads you briefly through the process of how an employee would record their time against a job as they use Time Clock MTS. Step 1 : Defining Jobs Firstly log into Time Clock MTS as the administrator. How you log in as the administrator was covered in this Time Clock MTS How To Article. Once you’ve done this go to the Tools->Options->Job Tracking screen, where you’ll see the screen above. To create a new job just click the new job button and you’ll be shown the screen below. To create a job give it a unique numerical job code, give the job a name, and if you like a description. If you do not have your own job numbering system Time Clock MTS will automatically assign each new job a unique job code. You can also disable a job to prevent employees booking time to that job. This might be useful if you’re just setting your system up, or your customer isn’t paying you for that job anymore, or perhaps your internal budget for a project has been exceeded. Step 2 : Deciding Which Employees will Use Job Tracking The next step is to decide which employees will have to use job tracking and how they will use... read more
by Mark Nemtsas | Aug 28, 2009 | Tips and Tricks
I got an interesting email from a Time Clock MTS user today who had found an apparent overtime calculation error in the software. I have set up our user with Vacation and Sick Accrual information as well as OT info. Basically, we have OT set for weekly over 40 hours and also set so that Vacation/Sick and Holiday DOES effect OT. When I ran the report for last week (with a vacation day included) the report ran information saying she had 40 hours Regular and 2.8 Hours OT. It shouldn’t show any OT calculation since she had 8.0 hours vacation. Can you please tell me why the report isn’t properly calculating. It should be 42.8 hours Regular time due to the Vacation. I asked for and received their database so I could check their data and sure enough what they reported was correct. The reason for the apparent error was one innocuous setting. The “Sick/Vac Time Affect OT” setting was checked on the Tools->Options->Overtime Settings page. Unchecking this setting and saving the changes I re-ran the payroll reports and presto Time Clock MTS reported 42.8 hours of normal time. It’s worth a quick look at the effect of this setting. In this case when the setting is turned on Time Clock MTS considers vacation time to be an active part of the work week. So, the overtime limit is set to 40 hours and all time (including vacation time) is compared with this limit. Hence, it reports 2.8 hours of overtime. When the setting is turned off vacation time is ignored from the overtime calculation. So 34.8 hours is... read more
by Mark Nemtsas | Aug 26, 2009 | How To
A fairly common method of defrauding computer time clocks is to stop the time clock software running, change the computers’ system clock, and then restart the software and record a fraudulent clock in or out. To prevent this Time Clock MTS includes a feature to prevent employees from stopping and restarting Time Clock MTS without the intervention of the Time Clock MTS administrator. This Time Clock MTS How To Article covers how to prevent employees from stopping and re-starting Time Clock MTS. To prevent employees from stopping and re-starting Time Clock MTS just follow the steps shown below. Log into Time Clock MTS as the administrator. How you log in as the administrator was covered in this Time Clock MTS How To Article. Go to the Tools->Options->Security screen and you’ll be shown the screen at the top of this article. Select the require password setting from the dropdown. The options are to require password on program start, program end, or both. The most secure options are program start or program start AND program end. Just selecting program end is not particularly secure because Time Clock MTS could just be stopped using the Windows Task Manager. When you’re happy with your Require Administrator Password setting press the Save button to save the changes. Now, depending on what setting you’ve selected the Time Clock MTS administrator password will need to be entered on program start, stop, or both. It is worth noting that this setting is most effective at preventing employee time clock fraud when used in conjunction with the Prevent System Clock Changes... read more
by Mark Nemtsas | Aug 26, 2009 | How To
There are several features in Time Clock MTS designed to prevent employee fraud. One of these allows you to prevent system clock changes while Time Clock MTS is running, and thus prevent employees from simply changing the system clock to tamper with their clock in and clock out times. This Time Clock MTS How To Article covers how to prevent system clock changes while Time Clock MTS is running. To dis-allow system clock changes in Time Clock MTS while it is running just follow the steps shown below. Log into Time Clock MTS as the administrator. How you log in as the administrator was covered in this Time Clock MTS How To Article. Go to the Tools->Options->Security Settings screen and you’ll be shown the screen at the top of this article. To get Time Clock MTS to prevent system clock changes while it is running just check the Do Not Allow System Clock Changes checkbox. When you’re happy the change press the Save button to save the changes and Time Clock MTS will now monitor the system clock for any changes. It is worth noting that Time Clock MTS does not actually prevent the system clock being changed, it will however prevent any employee clocking in or out if it detects that the system clock has been changed by more than a few seconds. It is also worth noting that this feature is only really useful if it is teamed up with the ‘Require Admin Password’ setting (see image above). This means the admin password will need to be entered on software startup, software shutdown, or... read more
by Mark Nemtsas | Aug 25, 2009 | How To
While Time Clock MTS records all clock in and out times to the nearest second it can be useful to round the times for reporting purposes. There are several reasons why you might like to do this, but the primary reason is that your overtime policy may require overtime to be of a certain length before it can apply. Rounding could therefore be used to exclude overtime from payroll calculations if an employee was to clock in just a few minutes early or just a few minutes late every day. This Time Clock MTS How To Article covers how setup report time rounding. To setup report time rounding in Time Clock MTS just follow the steps shown below. Log into Time Clock MTS as the administrator. How you log in as the administrator was covered in this Time Clock MTS How To Article. Go to the Tools->Options->Payroll Settings screen and you’ll be shown the screen at the top of this article. There are 4 different rounding options, the nearest minute, nearest 1/10th of an hour (6 minutes), nearest 15 minutes and nearest 30 minutes. To select one just choose it from the Report Time Rounding dropdown box. Check the least quantity box if required. When this option is selected all clock in times will be rounded up and clock out times will be rounded down to the nearest time increment selected from the rounding drop down box. When you’re happy with your selection press the Save button to save the changes and the next time you run a report the times will be rounded. It is worth noting that... read more
