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March 28, 2008

On Employee Types and Accruals

Of course being a Time and Attendance software package Time Clock MTS focuses primarily on Employees. Each employee can be classified by Employment Type. When Time Clock MTS was designed these employment types were thought to be things like 'full time', or 'seasonal', or 'contract' or whatever sorts of employment types you might need. This classification is of course useful for reporting and sorting purposes.

As time has progressed our users have found that it is also very useful for setting up of Vacation and Sick Time Accruals. These accruals, rather than being set by employee, are set by employee type. This allows you to have just a few accrual policies that cover all of your employees. This sort of ease of use is great, except where companies have unusual accrual schemes, or many different schemes. While Time Clock MTS cannot handle every different accrual scheme automatically, it does have the flexibility to allow you to handle them manually. An accrual scheme that we have been asked about is one that allocates vacation time based on years of service. This is different to the assumed scheme in Time Clock MTS which assumes a basic accrual over time calculation system, and cannot handle the years of service based system automatically. However, it can handle it through creative use of Employee Types.

Let's say you have a scheme that allocates 1 week of yearly vacation time for each year of service up to a maximum of 4 weeks. All you need to do is create 4 different employee types, perhaps calling them '1 Year of Service', '2 Years of Service', '3 Years of Service',and '4+ Years of Service'. Create a vacation accrual scheme for each employment type to have an initial amount of 1, 2, 3, and 4 weeks accordingly. Then you can go ahead and assign your employees to the correct employment type and they'll now all be allocated the correct vacation time. Each year at the same time (the end of the fiscal year would be good) work your way through your employee list and make sure to allocate each of them to the correct employment type again.

For more information you might find our Setting Up Vacation Accruals article helpful. The Employment Type Help Topic is also worth a look.

Posted by mnemtsas at 10:34 AM | Comments (0)

March 27, 2008

Time Clock MTS Version 1.6.3 Released

Just a minor release containing one new feature, a fix to a problem some people were seeing and some new logging code to try to track down three bugs that occur infrequently.

The feature is a minor one, disabled employees are now only displayed on the employee list when logged into the software as the administrator.

The bug fix involved changing the drop down buttons on the Edit Times screen. For some reason some people were not seeing the drop down menu when clicking these buttons. We've changed the buttons and this appears to have been fixed.

Posted by mnemtsas at 4:52 PM | Comments (0)

March 17, 2008

Microsoft Access Database Password Support

Version 1.6.2 of Time Clock MTS was released today. It contained a couple of minor bug fixes and added one very important security feature, support for Microsoft Access database passwords.

Users finding and manipulating the back end database of Time Clock MTS has always been a problem. Time Clock MTS has always included a series of internal checks to try to detect this sort of manipulation, but of course no system is perfect. By including support for Access database passwords we have added one additional layer of security to ensure that your time and attendance information is accurate. Using a database password with a Microsoft Access database encrypts the data it contains and prevents non authorized access to the database when someone tries to open it with MS Access.

To setup Time Clock MTS to work with an Access database that is password protected follow these simple steps:

  1. Password protect your Access database using MS Access. How this is done depends largely on the version of MS Access that you have. Consult your MS Access help documentation for detailed instructions.
  2. Run the Time Clock MTS administrator program, the software will detect that the database back end is password protected and prompt you to enter the password.
  3. Once entered click OK and re-start the software as prompted. If you entered the information correctly then you'll connect directly to the database. If you didn't enter the password correctly you'll be prompted to enter it again.
  4. You'll need to repeat the password entry process for every client installation you have.

That's all there is to it. If you're wondering, the MS Access database password you enter into Time Clock MTS is stored locally on each computer (which is why you need to enter the password for every Time Clock MTS Client you have). The password itself is stored in an encrypted format for extra security.

Posted by mnemtsas at 11:58 AM | Comments (0)

March 12, 2008

Adding Client Licenses

A common question we get from existing users of Time Clock MTS is whether they can add client licenses to their existing system. The short answer is yes, of course. What's more you can add the licenses and keep working with your existing information without any interruption. You can add client licenses whether you are currently using the single user version or if you are already using the multi user version.

The cost of adding client licenses depends on what license fee you originally paid. For example, if you are currently using the single user version and paid US$49 (the pre 2008 price) then it will cost you US$46 to upgrade to the 1 Client license. However, if you paid US$59 (the price at the time of writing) for your single user license then you'll be up for US$36 to upgrade to the 1 Client license. You'll need to contact us for the pricing for your particular situation.

If you do want to add client licenses to your Time Clock Software then all you need to do is send us an email with the number of client licenses you'd like to purchase and with your original sales reference number. We'll reply quickly with a Buy Now link for the correct amount and upon purchase you'll receive a new registration code. All you need to do is enter this registration code into Time Clock MTS and you'll be automatically upgraded with your new client licenses.

Posted by mnemtsas at 11:18 AM | Comments (0)

March 4, 2008

When an Employee Forgets to Clock In

Employees forgetting to clock is a common problem that all employers have to deal with. Today we received an email from a Time Clock MTS user asking the best way to deal with this situation. Here's the users question:

What I am trying to do is to clock in employees while they are working, because sometimes they forget to clock in at the beginning of the shift and they tell me about 2 hours later to clock them in, but I can't because it won't let me clock them in without giving them a clock out time as well, and well the times they leave varies because we work in the restaurant business

Solving the problem is easy. Here's how in just a few simple steps:

  1. Log into Time Clock MTS as the Administrator
  2. Go to the Tools->Edit Times menu
  3. Select the employee you want to add the time for and then click the Add Clock In/Out Time button and select add a single clock in/out time.
  4. Make sure the clock in time and date is correct (it doesn't matter about the clock out) and add the clock in/out time.
  5. Select the clock out time for the time you have just added on the list of times.
  6. Click the Delete Time button and select the Delete Selected Time Only menu item and this will delete the clock out time for the time you have just added.

So now the employee is clocked in, with the time added manually and they can clock out normally at the end of the day. This process takes just under a minute and really couldn't be easier.

Posted by mnemtsas at 6:49 PM | Comments (0)