Time and Attendance Software for Small Business

There is a wide variety of time and attendance solutions available for the small business sector (1-49 employees) at an attractive price point. Determining your current state and ideal time and attendance solution is your first step. Once you have an idea about the type of time and attendance solution you need, the next step is to look at vendor solutions that meet your needs. Before completing the questionnaires to help you choose the best time and attendance software, you will first need to understand what types of features are available – and important – when making your decision. Start off by reading about the key decision criteria to use when choosing your small business time and attendance software.

Web-Based Time and Attendance Solutions vs. Stand-Alone Systems

Some small organizations may be able to get by with a small stand-alone time clock solution, especially if they have a small office with a very few employees. However, most would benefit from a cloud-based time and attendance solution, especially if they plan to expand. Because cloud-based time and attendance solutions are easily scalable, they are especially attractive to quickly growing small and midsize businesses. Web-based time and attendance software is also more feasible for organizations with smaller or outsourced IT departments because they take so little time to implement on the client side. Finally, small businesses may not have the budget for a large capital investment, so a monthly or annual subscription may make financial sense as well.

Biometric Scanning vs. Swipe Cards or RFID Cards

Most time and attendance systems for small business offer a basic swipe-card solution, and many offer RFID technology as well. A few of the higher end systems in this segment also offer biometric scanning. Biometric scanning is a must-have for midsize businesses, so they can ensure they are properly managing their labor costs as accurately as possible. This is especially important when organizations expand to multiple locations, or once they grow beyond 100 employees. However, biometric scanning may also be important to small businesses with multiple locations, or for smaller startup companies with flex-time benefits, allowing employees greater flexibility in their start and end times each day.

Compatibility With Accounting and/or Payroll Systems

Everyone in a small business wears multiple hats and performs multiple functions, so reducing the number of manual steps is incredibly important. Most small and midsize businesses will need time and attendance software that can be interfaced with their accounting/payroll packages, such as Quickbooks. At a minimum, time and attendance software for small businesses should be able to export data to an Excel file, which can be uploaded to their accounting or payroll package. Most software reviewed on this site can seamlessly transfer time and attendance data to the major accounting and payroll packages.