However compensation is calculated in your organization, people's time costs money.
That's why employers need to know that their people are at work for the right hours. It's also why, in many cases, they need to know what their people are working on when they're there.
That's why factory and shop staff have to clock in and out, why lawyers and management consultants fill in timesheets, and why project managers running multiple projects allocate the proportion of their time spent on each one to different project codes.
Without an appropriate system for time recording in place, you have no way of billing for hours worked or of improving the accuracy of fixed price quotations. You can't tell which projects are profitable, and which ones you should never rerun again.
In this article we'll look in detail at the benefits of accounting for time, we'll discuss the various approaches to time recording that organizations can use, and finally we'll show you what you need to consider when deciding what type of time recording is right for you.
Why Record Time?
For Payroll
In its most basic form, workers track the time they spend at work by using a time card to "clock in" on a machine. The machine records the hours worked, and the information is sent to payroll for processing.
Clocking in is generally used in factory, retail and other environments where there is traditionally a certain mistrust of "shop floor" staff: it implies that they can't be trusted to arrive on time and work a full shift. On the other hand, the practice can protect both employees and their supervisors: by clocking in, an employee can be confident that they won't be falsely accused of late-coming, and they also know that the system will immediately pick up on any overtime payments they're due. Meanwhile, supervisors are freed from "roll call" duties, and can focus on more value-added work.
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