What Higher Education Should Know About Time Clocks

There are many reasons a university or college should consider upgrading to a new electronic time clock system. It can equip staff, students and departments with a user-friendly tool that boosts productivity and saves administration costs.

A good time clock solution also reduces payroll errors, assures compliance with government restrictions (on work study programs) and quickly achieves ROI with its savings and increased performance.

(For more information on what your higher education institution should look for in a time clock, download our free guide.)

While researching the best time clock solution for their needs, a higher learning institution should ask these questions of a potential vendor:

Is the Solution Flexible So It Can Handle Multiple Jobs?

From smaller community college campuses to large universities with museums and airports, your time keeping system should be able to adapt to the requirements of all departments. These can include staff dining, theater and dance facilities, security, medical facilities, athletic department and so on.

Can Time Clocks Be Configured by Location?

It’s useful, for example, if the time clock system has the capability of recognizing which building a student is entering when clocking in, so the school can, in turn, charge the correct amount to the proper cost centers, route that information to managers, and then sync with payroll.

How Will Time Clocks Streamline Processes?

With the best time clock solution, students and faculty can go into a single system for payroll and time tracking, with an integrated look and feel, creating a seamless user experience. From a management perspective, it keeps you up to date with what is going on with your time-and-attendance system, alerting you, for example, if a clock goes down.

Does the Solution Allow Clock-by-Clock Customization?

The time clock solution should be dynamic, allowing clock-by-clock customization. So, for example, a clock in the housekeeping department, where a staff person only has the one job, may only need two seconds before it resets. On the other hand, if it is someone who is clocking into an area where it is common to have multiple jobs – like an athletic complex — and they need more time to select their job, the clock can be adjusted for more time, to say, five seconds.

Can it Account for Student Walking Times?

For example, if a student works the same dining job in two different buildings, what is charged to each building may vary, because of walking times. Rather than treating the work as two different jobs, the new time clock system can recognize the work as one job, accounting for the time variances because of walking time.

Is Your Vendor a Helpful Partner?

A good time clock vendor is there when you need them. If there is any problem with the system, they will work with you to quickly solve it, minimizing interruption. For example, if a student or facility worker goes into another role and the new clock doesn’t recognize their new job for some reason, the responsive customer service team will resolve the problem quickly.

A leading time-and-attendance solution provider since 1991, Accu-Time Systems is the partner your institution needs to get around the learning curve and start realizing the productivity benefits of having the right time clock solution.