January 2, 2012
Setting Up Time Clock MTS in Multi User Mode - SQL Server
Getting Time Clock MTS to work with SQL Server or SQL Express isn't too difficult. This article takes you through the process of doing so and should have you up and running in fairly short order.
1. Creating the SQL Server Database
The first step in setting up Time Clock MTS to work with SQL Server is to create a database using the standard Time Clock MTS Access backend database as a template. To accomplish this you must have the Administrator version of Time Clock MTS installed, you must have an accessible installation of SQL Server (or SQL Express) and you must have installed SQL Server Management Studio.
- Using SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) create a new database that Time Clock MTS will use.
- Right Click on the new database in SSMS and select the Tasks option and then select the Import Data option. This will start the SQL Server Import and Export Wizard.
- Click Next in the Wizard and choose the Data source as "Microsoft Access".
- Click the Browse button and navigate to your Time Clock MTS Access database. This will most likely be in this location: c:\Program Data\Time Clock MTS\Database\timeclock.mdb. However, if you've changed the location then you'll know where your file is. Remember if you cannot find the directory that you might have to Show Hidden Files and Folders to see it.
- Click the Next button in the Wizard and choose the SQL Server location, database, and login details and then click the Next button.
- The next step of the Wizard allows you to either copy your data directly from the Access database to you SQL Server database or generate a script that you can run later. The choice is yours but in this case we'll copy the data directly. Click the Next button.
- This step allows you to choose which tables you want to copy from the MS Access database. Choose all of them and click Next.
- Choose Run immediately and click Finish.
- SSMS will now display a progress window showing you how the import data process is going. Hopefully it'll go smoothly and you'll have a functional SQL Server database that Time Clock MTS can work with.
2. Configuring the Time Clock MTS Administrator Program to Work with SQL Server
- If you're running the 30 day trial of Time Clock MTS or you're a licensed user who purchased Enhanced Database Support then you'll be able to connect Time Clock MTS to a SQL Server database.
- Run Time Clock MTS and log in as the administrator and go to the Tools->Options->System Options screen.
- Configure the SQL Server details on this screen. You'll need to know your server name (or IP address), your database name and your SQL Server login details. Note that the SQL Server user must have permissions to add, modify, and delete both data and tables.
- When you're happy with the server details click the Test SQL Connection button and check that a connection can be made to the database.
- Select "SQL Server" from the Database Type drop down and then click the Save button to save the changes.
Warnings: If there's a red box covering the server detail fields then you're not licensed for Enhanced Database Support. You should Contact Us for help.
3. Configuring the Time Clock MTS Client Program to Work with SQL Server
- If you're still in your Time Clock MTS trial period or if you chose the "Enhanced Database Support" option when you purchased Time Clock MTS you'll be able to connect the Time Clock MTS client program to a SQL Server backend database.
- Install and run the Time Clock MTS client software.
- The first time you run the Time Clock MTS client software you'll be shown the Database Connection Wizard.
- Selected the SQL/MSDE database option and enter all of the appropriate database server details into the fields provided. When you're happy with the details click the Test Connection button to make sure you've entered the details correctly and that you can make a connection to the database. Remember that the SQL Server user must have permissions to add, modify, and delete both data and tables.
- Click the Wizard finish button and when you're done the Time Clock MTS client should be connected to your SQL Server database.
Posted by mnemtsas at 8:25 AM | Comments (0)
December 13, 2011
Free Business Time Clock Software
If you're running a small business, you might be wondering how you can effectively manage your employees without dipping too far into business funds. As other business owners may tell you, using a time clock system greatly increases the accuracy of employee payroll, thus allowing you to manage the business in a better way. Time Clock MTS can provide a small business with free business time clock software, so there's no expense involved. This software gives you a free and easy way to track employee attendance. People often expect a cost to be attached to almost everything; however, Time Clock MTS is a quality time clock system that allows you to track and record the attendance and information of up to three employees, completely free of charge.
Apart from tracking their attendance, you can easily track sick and vacation time. When each employee has different vacation times throughout the year, it can become confusing to work out the payroll and attendance manually. This free business time clock software will calculate the payroll automatically, even if you are paying employees different hourly rates throughout the week.
One feature of Time Clock MTS that many people find useful is the ability to generate as many reports as you need within seconds. This enables you to see the performance of one or many of your employees over a period of time.
A reliable time clock system will encourage better productivity from your employees. This is mainly due to the fact that a time clock tool like Time Clock MTS is very accurate and records the exact times that employees clock in and out. It discourages bad habits such as buddy punching, and as a result, the workplace will seem much more fair, which will encourage other employees.
Free business time clock software like Time Clock MTS is an ideal option for small businesses with three employees or less. The software is free forever as long as you only have three employees, and you will get free updates all the time, just like those who use the full version.
Using this free business time clock software is very simple, and it will greatly improve your time and attendance tracking efficiency. When the 30-day trial is up, it will automatically switch to free mode. If you decide that you want to stop using the free mode and use the full version, all you need to do is purchase the software and install it on as many computers as necessary. Installing Time Clock MTS could be a big step forward for any small business. You can start off with the free mode and choose to upgrade whenever the business starts to thrive and hires more employees. It is very beneficial to have a time clock system that has the ability to grow along with your business.
Posted by mnemtsas at 12:05 PM | Comments (0)
November 5, 2011
Time Clock Software without the Timeclock
Time clocks have come a long way since they were first invented in 1888. Many companies have become reliant on them in order to calculate employees' wages, vacations, overtime pay and many other factors. Nowadays, most businesses look for easy-to-use, hassle-free and cost-effective time clock systems that they can introduce into the workplace to avoid any possible mistakes with calculations.
How did traditional time clock systems operate?
First invented in the 19th century, time clocks were introduced to serve exactly the same purpose that they serve today - recording the hours that employees have worked and calculating the wages owed to each employee.
Traditional time clocks operated with the use of time cards. The cards had areas marked out on them and the employees would punch them to record the hours worked. The employee was the one responsible for doing it correctly; therefore, it was often very easy to make mistakes. As time went by, more advanced time clocks were devised, and these required even more advanced time cards.
By contrast, there were software-based time and attendance tools invented which did not require the time cards. Computers were used instead, and this type of employee attendance system soon became very popular with businesses across the world. The software-based systems immediately reduced the number of errors that were made by employees when clocking in and out.
Mechanical machines have now become a thing of the past for the vast majority of businesses, and computers are widely used in many places of employment. Most of the time and attendance tools that are used today only require employees to either log onto their account, swipe a card or scan their fingerprints.
Why are time clock systems often costly?
Most time and attendance tools are too costly for small businesses to afford. As a result, businesses with small budgets often don't have the money to pay for a good time clock system. Not only can the time and attendance tool itself be expensive, but you may also be required to buy additional hardware in order for the software to work. This may include devices that are needed to scan ID cards or fingerprints so that the employees can clock in and out.
What makes Time Clock MTS different?
Time Clock MTS is a modern, yet cost-effective time clock tool that is suitable for many types of business. Businesses with up to three employees can use the software completely free of charge. As smaller businesses usually have the smallest budgets, Time Clock MTS is perfect for companies with only a few employees. Larger businesses will have to buy the product if they want to use it for more than three employees; the cost will depend on how many employees the business has and how many computers they would like the software to be installed on.
Time Clock MTS will work on almost any type of computer. There is no need to purchase a recent, up-to-date computer - an older machine will work just as well. Additionally, you are not required to buy any other hardware or products; simply download the software and your employees can start clocking in and out! Test it out by downloading the software for the free 30 day trial before deciding to purchase.
Posted by mnemtsas at 9:17 AM | Comments (0)
October 31, 2011
Weekly Overtime and Irregular Pay Periods
Report Run Tuesday to Sunday
Above you can see a working hours report run for a period from Tuesday 11 October through to Sunday 16 October. In this case Time Clock MTS is setup with the first day of the week being Monday and to adhere to California Overtime Rules, with overtime paid after 8 hours in a day and after 40 normal hours in a week.
Close examination of the Weekly OT Hours column shows what appears to be, at first glance, what appears to be a mistake. On Saturday 15 October the software has calculated that the 6 work hours are all to be paid at Weekly OT rates. However, if we add up the hours in the Normal Hours column it appears that this employee has only worked 32 normal rate hours to that point, which clearly doesn't exceed the 40 hour limit stated above. So what is going on here?
What is going is that even though the report isn't showing the times for Monday 10 October Time Clock MTS is still taking those hours into account to calculate the weekly overtime. Let's look at the report including Monday's data.
Report Run Monday to Sunday
We can see that the employee has worked 11 hours on Monday. This takes the normal hours tally for Saturday 15 October up to 40 hours and Time Clock MTS is indeed correct in calculating those 6 hours as weekly overtime.
I've written about this example to highlight that Time Clock MTS calculates weekly overtime using ALL of the data from a given week regardless of the report period you've chosen to display. This is of particular importance to employers who use irregular pay periods like bi-monthly or monthly. Employers with pay periods like these that do not always start on the same weekday could easily end up with cases where hours from the previous pay period impact on overtime calculations for the current pay period.
Posted by mnemtsas at 10:44 AM | Comments (0)
October 13, 2011
California Overtime Clarifications
A while back I wrote about setting up Time Clock MTS to comply with California overtime legislation. An interesting question has come up from a user this week that is worth looking into further. The question relates directly to California Labor Code Section 500-558 (which you can see here). In particular it relates to this text:
Any work in excess of eight hours in one workday and any work in excess of 40 hours in any one workweek and the first eight hours worked on the seventh day of work in any one workweek shall be compensated at the rate of no less than one and one-half times the regular rate of pay for an employee.
It is easy to assume on reading this that all hours worked during a week are used in calculating hours in excess of 40 being worked. However, this is not the case as is illustrated by this memorandum from the Californian Department of Industrial Relations. The section of particular interest in this memorandum is this:
The statute also provides that "nothing in this section requires an employer to combine more than one rate of overtime compensation in order to calculate the amount to be paid to an employee for any hour of overtime work." This is consistent with DLSE's enforcement of the pre-1998 wage orders. It simply means that there is no "pyramiding" of separate forms of overtime pay for the same hours worked. Once an hour is counted as an overtime hour under some form of overtime, it cannot be counted as an hour worked for the purpose of another form of overtime. When an employee works ten hours in one day, the two daily overtime hours cannot also be counted as hours worked for the purpose of weekly overtime.
The basic upshot of this is that one an hour has been used towards calculating daily overtime it cannot be used to calculate weekly overtime. In practical usage this means that only Normal rate hours are used to calculate overtime due to exceeding the weekly work limit of 40 hours.
Above you can see how Time Clock MTS handles this situation. In this example the employee actually exceeds 40 hours worked on Friday 3 October but 4 hours have already been counted towards daily overtime and thus cannot be used to calculate the weekly overtime limit. In fact, the employee exceeds 40 normal hours worked after half an hours work on Sunday 9 October and the remainder of work on that day (6.5 hours) is counted as weekly overtime.
I hope this example explains how Time Clock MTS handles overtime calculations when configured to suit California Overtime Regulations.
Posted by mnemtsas at 2:09 PM | Comments (0)
September 26, 2011
How to Pay a Given Weekday as Overtime
The Overtime Settings Screen
This Time Clock MTS How To Article will show you the four simple steps that you will need to follow in order to pay a given weekday as overtime using the Time Clock MTS tool. Using the tool, you can change the settings to pay your chosen employees overtime on certain days of the week. This is particularly useful if your employee's employment agreement, pay scale, or union agreement requires a certain weekday (typically Sunday) to be paid as overtime.
Here's the steps to follow to pay all time on a given weekday as overtime:
1). Make sure that you are logged into the administrator account, otherwise you will not have access to any of the settings and will not be able to edit employee information. If you have only just downloaded Time Clock MTS, you will need to create a password for the administrator account and log in once it has launched.
2). Next, you will need to set the overtime rates so that you are paying the correct amount per hour. This can be different for each employee. In order to set the overtime rates, select one of your employees from the list. Click Employee Maintenance->Edit Selected Employee->Payroll Information. You can then set it using the boxes labelled "OT 1 Rate/hr" and "OT 2 Rate/hr".
3). Click Tools->Options->Overtime Settings to pay a given day as overtime. To do this, select Employee Maintenance->Edit Selected Employee->Payroll Information and select the box next to the particular day that you want to pay as overtime.
Each employee can have different pay rate for overtime. You may decide to pay a small handful of your employees more overtime pay than others, and all this can be set by selecting the Payroll Information of each employee and setting it as you wish. You can also choose to pay certain days as overtime; if you choose this, the whole day will be paid as overtime and normal overtime limits do not apply. The whole day will be paid as the hourly rate that you have set for Overtime 1, regardless of how many hours during the day the employee works.
As you can see, Time Clock MTS is very useful if you have employees that are receiving various amounts of pay for the different hours that they work. Arguably the most useful feature of this tool is the fact that you can edit each employee's payroll information individually, so that you can alter the pay of one employee without it affecting the pay of any others.
Posted by mnemtsas at 9:18 AM | Comments (0)
August 7, 2011
Correcting Your Employees Timesheets
One of the more time consuming areas of employee time and attendance tracking is allowing for and recording the events that are outside of the regular process of employees clocking in and out. These sorts of events include employees forgetting to clock in, forgetting to clock out, forgetting to log their breaks, or an administrator recording sick and vacation times. Computerized time clock software like Time Clock MTS cannot escape the need to deal with these sorts of situations any more than manual timeclocks or paper based timesheets can. Where Time Clock MTS excels is that it provides a streamlined process to enter these exceptions and recalculates your payroll in just seconds. While non computerized systems need tedious manual re-calculation which is not only in-efficient but is also prone to error and mis-calculation.
I thought it was worthwhile examining some of the time clock exceptions that would require you to use Time Clock MTS to correct your employees timesheets.
The Edit Times ScreenMissed or Late Time Clock Punches
The most common sort of event that requires an employee's timesheet to be corrected is the missing punch. This will usually be forgetting to clock in at the start of a work day or forgetting to clock out at the end of a work day. The first step to correcting a missing punch is to actually determine if there are missing punches. This is made very simple through the use of the Missing Punches Report. Alternatively if you've got employee comments enabled then employees can leave a note when they clock in late or clock out late. For some other methods of detecting if employees have missed a punch you should take a look at our detecting when an employee forgets to clock in or out blog entry.
There's a number of ways that Time Clock MTS allows you to handle missing or late punches and all of them involve the Edit Times screen. This screen allows administrators to correct existing employee time card data, insert new punches, and remove existing ones. Adjusting the time for a late clock in or out couldn't be any simpler. Just double click the time that needs to be edited on the Edit Times screen and change the event time and date to the correct values.
Missed Breaks and Meal Times
Forgetting to clock out and back in when breaks and meal times are taken is a lot more common that anyone realizes and probably the most common timesheet correction after late punches. Because of this Time Clock MTS has made it especially simple for the administrator to clock an employee out for a break and back in using the Edit Times screen. We've taken the time to write about this process in some detail in our blog entry about inserting a missing employee punch.
Recording Sick and Vacation Time
Obviously employees cannot use a time clock system to record their own sick and vacation time so Time Clock MTS delivers a streamlined method for administrators to enter several days sick or vacation time for an employee in one simple step. As you'd expecting this happens on the Edit Times screen. Here you can add a single day of sick or vacation time or more efficiently you could add up to 7 days worth of times by making use of the bulk time entry screen. You should be aware that before you can enter sick or vacation time that employee must be set up to record sick time or set up to record vacation time.
Recording Times for Off-Site Staff
There's no getting around the fact that sometimes staff just are not on site to be able to use your time clock software to record their time and attendance information. In these cases we usually recommend making use of one of our free timesheet templates to manually record the employee's work times. These times can then be added quickly and easily from the Edit Times screen, again making use of the bulk time entry screen.
Conclusions
If you're looking at purchasing a time clock system then you must ensure there is a simple and robust method of correcting your employees timesheets. For reasons of both business efficiency and payroll accuracy correcting employee timesheets is vital to ensure you can deal with forgotten employee punches, late punches, sick and vacation time, and for entering timesheet data for off-site employees.
Posted by mnemtsas at 2:52 PM | Comments (0)
July 25, 2011
Inserting a Missing Punch
The recent release of Version 3.2.1 of Time Clock MTS saw the addition of a new feature to the Edit Times Screen that allows the insertion of a missing punch into the middle of an existing clock in/out pair. The typical situation where this might be useful is if an employee forgets to clock out for a break. This blog entry takes you through the process of inserting a missing punch using the Edit Times screen.
Figure 1 - Missing Punch on Edit Times Screen
Above you can see the Edit Times screen for an employee who has clocked in just before 9:00AM and clocked out just after 5:00PM. The employee has forgotten to clock out for lunch so the administrator must insert punch to represent the break. To do this you must click on either the clock in or out where you want to insert the missing punch and then click the Insert Missing Punch (
) button.
Figure 2 - The Insert Missing Punch Screen
Above you can see the Insert Missing Punch screen. Note that the Clock Out time is first and the Clock In comes next. This is because when you insert a missing punch you are representing a missed clock out and back in, which in our example is a missed 30 minute lunch break. It's worth noting that you can also add a time note, assign a job to the missing punch, and change the overtime calculation method. It is important to realize that these settings only affect the newly created Clock In.
Let's go ahead and adjust the Clock Out and Clock In times to the lunch break times of 12:00:00PM and 12:30:00PM.
Figure 3 - The Insert Missing Punch Screen
Above you can see we've edited the screen to give the times wanted and have also added a note to record why this punch was inserted. We'll go ahead now and click the Insert Punch button to add the clock out and in. This will take us back to the Edit Times screen.
Figure 4 - The Edit Times Screen with Missing Punch Inserted
You can see in the image above that the missing punch has been added to represent the lunch break that the employee forgot to clock out and in for. Previously you could insert a missing punch into Time Clock MTS by using the Edit Time screen and by adding a new time but this new button greatly streamlines the process and helps to eliminate any potential for error.
As always if you have any questions please feel free to ask me!
Posted by mnemtsas at 9:11 AM | Comments (0)
June 5, 2011
The Always Pay Salary Setting
The Payroll Information Screen
Above you can see the Payroll Information screen which defines various settings pertaining to the payroll for the selected employee. In the Salaried Payments section is an innocuous checkbox, Always Pay Salary. When checked this setting means that Time Clock MTS will always pay your employees their calculated salary for a reporting period regardless of the hours worked during the reporting period. The reason I am blogging about this today is that 3 times in the last week Time Clock MTS users have emailed me concerned about apparent calculation errors in the software that were in fact entirely correct due to the Always Pay Salary setting being turned on. It's best to look at an example to explain exactly how the software makes it's calculations.
Setting up a Weekly Salaried Employee
First, let's set up an employee to be paid a weekly salary. You can see the Payroll Information screen above for this sort of setup. The employee has the Payment Type set to Salary, the Salary Period to Weekly and the Salary / Period to $1000. Note that the Always Pay Salary setting is checked. We'll go the Payroll Reports screen and run a Punchcard Report for a week (7 days) and check the results.
Punchcard Report with Always Paid Salary Setting Turned On
Above you can see a punchcard report run for the week June 6 to June 12. The employee has worked 34 hours for the week. Note that the report is showing a Total Work Time of 40 hours. However, below this is another value, Salary Work Time which is 34 hours. The first value is the calculated salaried hours, which in this case is the reporting period (one week) or 40 hours. If the report was run for 2 weeks the calculated salaried hours would be 80 hours, three weeks 120 hours and so on. The "Salary Work Time" value is the actual hours worked during the reporting period. The Total Work Time value is used for payroll calculations, so in this example the employee would be paid $1000 despite only working 34 hours for the week.
Now let's turn off the Always Pay Salary setting and run the same report for the same time period.
Punchcard Report with Always Paid Salary Setting Turned Off
In this case you can see that the Total Work Time is the same value as the Salary Work Time, or 34 hours. This number will then be used for all salary calculations.
Conclusions
It may seem a little odd that the Always Pay Salary setting gives these sorts of results but in practice this is exactly how many work places pay their salaried employees. For example, monthly salaried employees would get paid 12 equal amounts each year, despite the different number of work days in a month. Similarly weekly salaried employees would get the same pay week in and week out regardless of overtime worked. The numbers can seem a little odd but once you understand what is happening it all becomes quite clear. Time Clock MTS can thus easily be used to monitor the attendance of salaried employees while still calculating the correct payment amounts for them, regardless of the actual hours they work.
Posted by mnemtsas at 10:23 AM | Comments (0)
April 30, 2011
Reporting on Employees Who Clock In Late
The Late for Shift Report
The recent release of Version 3.1.5 of Time Clock MTS included a new report that allows users to easily run a report displaying employees that have clocked in late for their shift. The output of this report can be seen above. Here's how to setup Time Clock MTS to allow you to use this report to track when your employees are clocking in late for their shifts.
- For each different shift start time you need to track you'll need to create a shift in Time Clock MTS. You can do this on the Manage Shifts Screen. Made sure to set the shift start time to the time that you want to track.
- Assign each employee to the shift that they work. You can do this on the Manage Employees Screen
- Have your employees clock in and out using Time Clock MTS as normal.
- Run the Late for Shift report on the Report Configuration Screen. The report can be run over one or many days, and run for one or many employees.
- You can now interpret the report. It will give you a day by day list of the employees that have clocked in late for their shift. Each employee late arrival will be displayed along with the employee name, their shift name, the scheduled shift start, their actual arrival time, and the amount of time that they were late.
Posted by mnemtsas at 1:10 PM | Comments (0)
A Users Questions Answered
I just received a rather lengthy email from a potential Time Clock MTS user. They've spent some time considering their questions so I thought it only fair to take some time to consider my answers and I've decided that they can be posted up on the blog for everyone to read.
1. Installation fee per server?
No, fees are by the number of administrator computers you require and the client computers you require. Administrator computers are used to configure the software and run reports and client computers are just used to clock in and out.
2. Are there regular "required" upgrades?
No, there are no required upgrades. We do release new versions of the software once or twice a month and upgrading is entirely optional.
3. Is there a fee with each upgrade?
You get one year of free upgrades with your purchase (within the same major release number). You can continue getting upgrades after this first year is up for a fee of 20% of your initial purchase price per year. Again this is entirely optional and you can keep using your software whether you pay this fee or not.
4. Can we have One Server but Employee's can use from any computer?
Yes. Take a look at our network time clock page to understand how this would work.
5. Can administration be done on another computer besides the Server?
Yes, the administrator software doesn't have to be on the same computer that the database is one.
5.1 Assuming YES to the last question, could administration be done from a home computer with office access?
Only via some sort of remote login software like PC Anywhere or Log Me In.
6. How does administration set up Employee's in system?
Via the employee management interface, you can take a look at the help topic which should help: Managing Employees
7. Briefly, what are some of the administration features?
Adding/editing/deleting employees, managing employee times, creating tracked jobs, creating sick and vacation accrual times, running various reports.
8. How do employee's time in and out?
They can clock in and out in two ways. Either by selecting their name from a list of employees and clicking a clock in/out button or by entering their employee ID number via a keyboard and pressing the enter button to clock in or out. They can also use a barcode swipe or a mag card swipe.
9. How is time corrected? Can Employee correct their own time?
Employees cannot correct their own times. Administrators do it via the Edit Times screen.
10. Can an Employee request time off using the time clock system assuming we can have one server with time clocks at each computer?
No, there's no system to do this.
11. Can a manager approve Employee's time directly from the time clock system from their own computer?
There's no time off approval system.
12. How does the time clock track Holiday Pay?
There's a system to create one-off and recurring holidays. Employees can be set individually to either receive or not receive holiday pay. Take a look at the Time Clock MTS Holidays topic for more information.
13. Can the time clock accrue or calculate earned vacation and sick time?
Yes. You should take a look at our articles on Setting Up Vacation Accruals, Setting Up Sick Time Accruals, and Recording Sick and Vacation Time.
14. Some Employee's have more vacation time than others. Can the system manage this?
Yes, you can have as many different accrual schemes as you like.
15. Currently, vacation and sick time is given at anniversary dates, (not annually at start of year) can the system handle this?
Yes, you just need to make sure to check the "Use Hire Date not Fiscal Year" checkbox when you're setting up your sick and vacation time accruals.
16. Can the time clock calculate used vacation and sick time?
Yes, see the link above about recording sick and vacation time.
17. Would Exempt and Non-Exempt Employee's both use the time clock so system can calculate earned and used vacation and sick?
Yes, they can both use the system.
18. Can Time Clock information be interfaced with Payroll Company's system, so we could transmit pay period information?
No, not at present.
Posted by mnemtsas at 8:14 AM | Comments (0)
April 28, 2011
Employee Attendance Database
Before I started work on Time Clock MTS I'd worked at many different companies who thought that building a simple employee attendance database in preference to using paper time cards would save them a lot of time and money. Of course, when comparing the on-going costs of using a well executed employee attendance database to those of using paper time cards these companies were exactly correct.
These same companies also believed that they had unique requirements which meant that an off the shelf employee attendance software solution wouldn't work for them. So in several cases I was engaged to develop a custom software solution knowing that in many cases their 'unique' requirements were no different to what many other companies required. The end result was that the on-going cost savings that an employee attendance database delivered were offset against high initial development costs. Thus a much longer time was required before a company saw a positive return on their software investment.
After having been through this development process several times I resolved to build Time Clock MTS, a program that would deliver a simple feature set to allow for tracking of employee time and attendance data. The features would make the software suitable to a wide range of businesses of varying sizes. This has proven to be successful, with nearly 10,000 companies currently using Time Clock MTS. These companies have from 1 to 600 employees and come from many different (and seemingly un-related) industry segments. Yet, their time and attendance tracking requirements are similar enough that Time Clock MTS can be used by them with no customization. So, if you're thinking about developing your own employee attendance database, then think long and hard before you do so. You might just find that a system like Time Clock MTS delivers you 100% of your requirements and for a price that might just be under $100.
Posted by mnemtsas at 9:59 AM | Comments (0)
Class Attendance Software
It's probably no great surprise that after more than 5 years of development and being used by several thousand companies in more than 60 countries that Time Clock MTS has been used in some unusual ways. One interesting application that I am aware of is using it as Class Attendance Software in vocational education classes. One user in particular was running a vocational metal working class and wanted his students to experience a 'work like' atmosphere during the class. This included using Time Clock MTS to clock in at the start of the class and clock out at the end of the class. The class teacher carried through the idea of a 'work' environment by issuing a virtual payroll, having scheduled break times, and even using Time Clock MTS to track vacation time and < a href="/articles/sick-leave-accruals.htm">track sick time.
It's a fairly simple matter to setup Time Clock MTS to be used as class attendance software. Multiple classes could be tracked by displaying the student list in department folders, projects worked on by students during class could be tracked with the job tracking features, and the user interface could be modified to suit the school environment on the Interface Settings screen. Reports like the employee status report can easily be used to see what students are present at the class, or the job time report could be used to determine how much time students have spent working on particular projects or tasks.
In conclusion I'd like to say that while Time Clock MTS wasn't designed specifically as class attendance software it can (and is) certainly able to be used as such. Modifying the user interface makes it a little easier for students to digest, and in the specific example I gave above it will give students in the class situation a taste of what a real work situation is like.
Posted by mnemtsas at 9:55 AM | Comments (0)
April 22, 2011
You cannot currently clock in as synchronization with the Internet Time Server Has Failed
If you make use of the security feature in Time Clock MTS that allows you to use an internet time server to set the time that Time Clock MTS uses then very occasionally you might get this error message:
You cannot currently clock in as synchronization with the Internet Time Server has failed at startup or for at least 1 hour after startup. Re-start the software to try to synchronize again or talk to your Time Clock MTS administrator.
In simple terms this message means that Time Clock MTS has been unable to connect to your selected time server for a period of time and for security reasons has prevented employees from clocking in or out. The cause of this error is usually one of two things. The first is that you've just got a temporary network problem and given a bit of time the issue will resolve itself. The second reason is that the time server you've chosen for Time Clock MTS to synchronize itself to is either experiencing extreme load or has been disabled completely. Here's a couple of things to try if you believe your message is due to the second reason:
1. Try connecting to our own dedicated internet time server instead of a third party server. We're committed to maintaining this time server so you're assured it will always be available.
2. Rather than using Time Clock MTS to get a time from an internet time server use Windows itself to do this and then lock down the Windows permissions to prevent users from just manually changing the system time. To learn how to do this take a look at our blog entry covering what to do when the internet time server doesn't work.
Posted by mnemtsas at 9:49 AM | Comments (0)
Free Attendance Software Download
If you're running a very small business you're probably looking for a cheap and easy way to track your employee attendance. Better still you're probably wanting a free way of tracking employee attendance. Ideally the free method of tracking your employee hours would be accurate, easy for your employees to use, and generate easy to understand reports when you have to process your payroll. If you're looking for all of this then you're in luck, Time Clock MTS provides you with a free attendance software download that allows you to track up to 3 employee's time and attendance information. You can track sick time and vacation time, track time spent working on projects, and generate any number of reports in just seconds. And you can do this forever, with no charge, with just two limitations. Limitation one is that you can only track three or fewer employees. Limitation two is that you can only install and run the software on one computer, so you cannot make use of the multi computer time clock features of Time Clock MTS.
So if you're looking for a free attendance software download then Time Clock MTS is probably exactly what you're looking for!
Posted by mnemtsas at 8:04 AM | Comments (0)
April 16, 2011
Barcode Attendance System
The Time Clock MTS Keypad Interface
Time Clock MTS was designed to be a flexible barcode attendance system for small and medium sized businesses. Here's what you need to do so that you can use Time Clock MTS as your Barcode Attendance System.
- Get a suitable barcode reader. Time Clock MTS requires a barcode reader that has a 'keyboard wedge'. This means that it can be plugged into either the USB port or old style PS2 keyboard port of your computer and output characters to your computer exactly the same as a computer keyboard.
- Configure the barcode reader to put a return character at the end of each scanned barcode. Most readers do this by default but you might need to change the settings of the reader via the configuration software that comes with it.
- Install and run Time Clock MTS. Log into Time Clock MTS as the administrator and go to the Tools->Options->Interface Settings Screen.
- Change the Data Entry Mode setting to "Keypad".
- Save the changes.
- Log out of the administrator mode of Time Clock MTS and you should see the Keypad interface of the software (see the screenshot above).
- Log back into Time Clock MTS as the administrator and create your employee records in Time Clock MTS using the Employee Maintenance->Add New Employee screen. Take note of each employee's Badge ID
- Get your employee barcode attendance badges printed. The data encoded should be each employee's badge ID and no other data. Make sure that the barcode encoding you use is supported by your barcode reader.
Now that you've configured the software, setup your barcode reader, and printed your employee barcode badges you're ready to start using Time Clock MTS as a barcode attendance system. All you need to do is run Time Clock MTS in keypad interface mode and have it as the active Windows application. As employees scan their barcode attendance badges the employee badge id will appear in the badge number field on the screen and the clock in or out action will be triggered automatically. Note that if you've got employee PINs or employee notes activated then your employees will still need to enter this information via keyboard or touchscreen.
If you require more detailed instructions on setting up Time Clock MTS as a barcode attendance system then please take a look at this article, Time Clock MTS and Bar Code Readers.
Posted by mnemtsas at 9:21 AM | Comments (0)
April 6, 2011
User Question : Times Not Appearing on Reports
We received this question from a user of the free version of Time Clock MTS.
Both employees punch in and out for each the morning and afternoon work periods. The problem is that now I'm finding that when I run a Punchcard Report for the period March 16 through the 31st, the first period, say from 8:00AM till lunch (usually around 1PM), does not appear. Only the afternoon period appears on the report. This does not happen for January or February. I have read on your web site that you suggest having shifts start at 12AM to avoid this, but to prevent early clocking in we have had the shift start at 8AM for quite a while without seeing this problem. I hope you can assist me with this.
It's not unusual for us to get emails from users reporting the same sort of behaviour. In every case it is linked to the First Day Starts At setting on the Payroll Settings screen. This setting actually changes the time at which Time Clock MTS considers a day to start. So, if you set it to 8:00AM then any time before 8:00AM is considered to be the day prior. The setting shouldn't be used if you just want to define when your shift begins or end and in almost every case shouldn't really ever be used at all.
Some time ago I covered in detail what you might use this setting for and why you almost certainly don't want to use it. You can read it all in the First Day Starts At Clarifications article.
Posted by mnemtsas at 9:41 AM | Comments (0)
User Question : Employees Changing Computer Time
Here's a question we just got from a Time Clock MTS user:
I seem to have another problem that I'm not sure we can solve. The guys that are using the time clock are pretty computer savy. I'm sure one of them changed the date on the computer that they sign in on - the time that is used is off of the that computer not the time on the "client" computerm(or my computer)... I have not "called" them on it yet and won't unless it happens again, but I went out and it is very easy to change the clock and clock in or out then change the clock back to the regular time. Do you know of any way to LOCK the time on the computer they are signing in on? Or any other way around it?
There's a few ways to prevent this sort of thing from happening, here's the solutions I suggest in the order that I consider best to worst.
- Setup your Windows system to get the system time from an Internet Time Server and then put in place a system policy to remove permissions for your Windows users to change the system time.
- Configure Time Clock MTS to get it's time from an Internet Time Server. We've recently setup our own dedicated time server, so we suggest you make use of it for maximum reliability.
- Turn on the "Do Not Allow System Clock Changes" setting and require the administrator password when the software is started. You can change both these settings on the Security Settings Page. This will prevent users from closing Time Clock MTS, changing the system time and then re-starting the software.
- Turn on the "Do Not Allow System Clock Changes" setting on the Security Settings Page. This is fairly insecure because employees can just close the software and change the system time and re-start the software.
Posted by mnemtsas at 8:27 AM | Comments (0)
March 25, 2011
Dedicated Time Clock MTS Time Server Now Available
Setting up the New Time ServerI am please to announce that we've just spun up a dedicated internet time server just for users of Time Clock MTS. Here's the details of the time server:
Host Name: time.timeclockmts-online.com
IP Address: 97.107.133.228
You might need to use the IP address to refer to this new time server until the DNS record propogates (which it should do within 48 hours or so). To use the new dedicated time server log into Time Clock MTS as the administrator and go to the Tools->Options Security Settings Screen (see the screenshot above). Select "Custom Time Server" from the Internet Time Server dropdown and then enter either the host name or the IP Addrss for the new server. Click the Check button to make sure everything is working then click Save to save the changes.
The next release of Time Clock MTS will set this new time server as the default, and ideally this will be the end of the sporadic time server problems we've had over the last couple of years.
Posted by mnemtsas at 9:41 AM | Comments (0)
March 13, 2011
Detecting when an employee forgets to clock in or out
The Missing Punches Report
The recent release of Version 3.1.2 of Time Clock MTS and the addition of the new Missing Punches Report made me realize that we'd never posted up a blog explaining how users of Time Clock MTS could detect when an employee has forgotten to clock in or out. So, here we have a few methods doing this:
1. Make use of the Employee Status Report at the beginning or end of the work day. Run at the end of the work day an employee who has forgotten to clock out will still be shown as clocked in. Conversely, an employee who forgot to clock in at the beginning of the day will still be shown as clocked out.
2. A quick visual scan of the Employee List Interface at the beginning or end of the work day can serve the same purpose as running the Employee Attendance Report described in point one.
3. Periodically run the Punchcard Report. A quick scan of the hours worked over the reporting period should quickly highlight any extra long periods between clock in and outs. You should also look out for extremely short clock periods (for example when an employee forgets to clock in one morning and that afternoon clocks in and back out immediately). Both these indicators can be a sign of an employee forgetting to clock in or out.
4. Institute a policy that requires employees to enter a note when they've forgotten to clock in or out and realize this when they go to clock out at the end of the day or back in the next day. Use the Employee Notes Report to find these notes.
5. Make use of the Missing Punches Report. This report checks the employee clock in / out activity on a day by day basis over the chosen reporting period. Any day that shows an odd number of clock events is reported as potentially missing a clock in or out. The logic behind this is is that if an employee forgets to clock out then that day will show an unbalanced number of clock events as will the day before.
Got any other suggestions of how Time Clock MTS can be used to detect when an employee forgets to clock in out? Why not Contact Us and let us know!
Posted by mnemtsas at 7:38 AM | Comments (0)
February 23, 2011
The Manage Connections Screen
The Manage Connections Screen
Above you can see the Manage Connections screen. This screen is used to view and manage the connections to your Time Clock MTS database. Generally you wont need to use this screen for much, but every now and again you may need it to delete old, stale connections that are using up your Time Clock MTS Client Licenses. This can commonly happen two ways. Firstly, you've installed the Time Clock MTS Client software on too many computers and you're continually using up your client licenses (naught, naughty, you should only install the Time Clock MTS Client software on as many computers as you are licensed for). The second reason is that perhaps a computer with the client software on it has suddenly died or shutdown incorrectly and you're going to install the software on a new PC because the old one is kaput. In this case the connection record for the old computer can often not be deleted correctly and you'll need to remove it manually.
This blog describes the process to remove a connection record from Time Clock MTS.
1. Find the connection you want to remove in the list on the Manage Connections screen. You can identify the computer the connection is coming from by the name of the computer or the MAC address of the computer.
2. Ensure that the computer named is no longer running the Time Clock MTS Client software.
3. Click on the connection record you want to delete.
4. Click the Disconnect button to remove the connection record.
That's all there is to it, but as always if you have any problems please Contact Us and we'll do our best to help you out!
Posted by mnemtsas at 6:55 AM | Comments (0)
February 19, 2011
Starting up Time Clock MTS in Debug Mode
From time to time we need to users of Time Clock MTS to run the software in a special logging mode to allow us to find and fix up problems with the program or with the computer it is installed on. When this mode is activated Time Clock MTS creates a new Microsoft Excel worksheet and logs all manner of information to the worksheet which can then be emailed to us. This blog entry details how to start up the software in what we call "Excel Debug Mode".
1. Find the Start->Run box on your version of Windows. If you're using Windoxs XP it's just a matter of pressing the Windows Start button and selecting the Run option from the window that pops up. In Windows Vista the Run box is hidden by default and you may need bring back the Start->Run box. If you're running Windows 7 just click the Windows Pearl (the round button on the bottom left of your desktop) and select the run option from the window that pops up.
2. Generally the Start->Run box looks something like the screenshot shown above.
3. Enter the following command into the text field in the window. Make sure to enter the correct command depending on whether you're trying to get the Time Clock MTS Administrator program or the Client program started in Excel Debug Mode. Make sure to cut and paste the commands from this article rather than trying to type them in.
Administrator Program:
"C:\Program Files\Time Clock MTS\timeclockmts.exe" ExcelDebug
Client Program:
"C:\Program Files\Time Clock MTS Client\timeclockmtsclient.exe" ExcelDebug
4. Click the OK button and Time Clock MTS should start up as should a Microsoft Excel Worksheet. The worksheet should look something like it does above.
That's all you need to do to start Time Clock MTS in Excel Debug Mode. If we ask you to do this we'll ask you to do something once the software is running (like clock someone in and out or similar). Then all you'll need to do is shutdown Time Clock MTS, save the Excel worksheet and attach it to an email to send to us. As always if you have any problems or get stuck please Contact Us for more information.
Posted by mnemtsas at 9:48 AM | Comments (0)
January 31, 2011
Overtime Rate 2 Hours and Report Section Templates
Just recently a Time Clock MTS user picked up an issue with the Payroll Summary Report that he believed was due to a calculation error by Time Clock MTS. Here's the part of the report in question:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Payroll Summary Report ... Printed Jan 26 2011 05:08:25 PM
Period: Jan 11 2011 to Jan 25 2011
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Employee: Smith, Janice
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary Information For: Smith, Janice
Total Work Time: 86.18 hrs
Total Holidays: 0.00 hrs
SSN: 888-88-8888
Regular Hours: 79.63 hrs @ $16.13 /hr = $ 1284.43
Daily OT Hours: 5.23 hrs @ $24.20 /hr = $ 126.57
Total Earnings: $ 1453.58
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
On first glance it appears that Time Clock MTS has indeed made a calculation error with this employee. Notice that the Regular Hours and Daily OT hours do not add up to the Total Work Time figure and the Total Earnings Amount is more than the Regular and Daily Earnings Amounts. However, if we drill down a little we find that the Time Clock MTS user has configured his overtime settings to pay two tiers of overtime (OT and OT2) but there's no sign of the OT2 hours or earnings in the report. Now we can examine the Payroll Information Report Section Template on the Report Settings screen and we see the following:
Summary Information For: <FULL_NAME> Total Work Time: <T><TOTAL_WORK_TIME> hrs Total Holidays: <T><TOTAL_HOLIDAYS_TIME> hrsSSN: <SSN>
Regular Hours: <T><REGULAR_HOURS> hrs @ <NORMAL_RATE> /hr = <NORMAL_EARNINGS>
Daily OT Hours: <T><DAILY_OT_HOURS> hrs @ <OT_RATE> /hr = <DAILY_OT_EARNINGS>Total Earnings: <T><T><T><TOTAL_EARNINGS>
It's clear from this that this calculation error isn't an error at all, it's simply that the OT2 related fields are not being displayed in the report. So, we can make a few quick changes to the report section template and we get the following:
Summary Information For: <FULL_NAME> Total Work Time: <T><TOTAL_WORK_TIME> hrs Total Holidays: <T><TOTAL_HOLIDAYS_TIME> hrsSSN: <SSN>
Regular Hours: <T><REGULAR_HOURS> hrs @ <NORMAL_RATE> /hr = <NORMAL_EARNINGS>
Daily OT Hours: <T><DAILY_OT_HOURS> hrs @ <OT_RATE> /hr = <DAILY_OT_EARNINGS>
Daily OT2 Hours:<T><DAILY_OT2_HOURS> hrs @ <OT2_RATE> /hr = <DAILY_OT2_EARNINGS>
Total Earnings: <T><T><T><TOTAL_EARNINGS>
Now we can re-run the report and the payroll summary report for the employee looks a lot better:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Payroll Summary Report ... Printed Jan 31 2011 02:38:02 PM
Period: Jan 11 2011 to Jan 25 2011
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Employee: Smith, Janice
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary Information For: Smith, Janice
Total Work Time: 86.18 hrs
Total Holidays: 0.00 hrs
SSN: 888-88-8888
Regular Hours: 79.63 hrs @ $16.13 /hr = $ 1284.43
Daily OT Hours: 5.23 hrs @ $24.20 /hr = $ 126.57
Daily OT2 Hours: 1.32 hrs @ $32.26 /hr = $ 42.58
Total Earnings: $ 1453.58
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Notice now that the total for hours and earnings now total up correctly!
Posted by mnemtsas at 1:19 PM | Comments (0)
January 26, 2011
Job Tracking Reports
I got an email today from a user interested in the job tracking features of Time Clock MTS who wanted to know what job based reports were available within the software. Right now there's a few reports that are job specific.
1. The Job Punchcard Report - this report is basically a copy of the Punchcard Report with a couple of extra columns showing the job name and number that each clock in/out pair is associated with. If a time wasn't associated with a job then no job code is shown. This report is useful to examine the activity of employees on jobs on an employee by employee basis.
2. The Job Time Report - this report totals time employees worked on each job across the report time period. This report is useful to examine the time spent on each job on a job by job basis.
3. The Active Job Report - this report prints out a list of all active jobs along with their job codes. This report would be useful to print out and pin up next to your time clock stations so that your employees know what job codes to enter into Time Clock MTS when they need to track a job.
It's worth noting that Job Punchcard Report and the Job Time Report can be run for just a single job by selecting a job name/code from the Choose a Job dropdown on the Report Configuration screen. This enables you to see the activity on a single job over the report period very quickly and easily.
Posted by mnemtsas at 9:41 AM | Comments (0)
January 20, 2011
Employees Printing their Own Timesheets
If you've ever uninstalled Time Clock MTS then you would have noticed that a web based survey pops up in your browser window asking you why you're uninstalling the software. This is a valuable tool for you to tell us about bugs in the software that we are not aware of or to work out if there's an annoying aspect to the software that a lot of people are bothered by. We've found the results of these surveys extremely useful but from time to time we get an uninstall survey response that tells us that a particular user decided not to purchase the software because they believe the software doesn't do something it actually does. Most of the time when I get one of these responses I'll pop up a blog entry covering the topic. Today the following feedback came in from an uninstall survey:
wish the employee could print out their timesheets without being log in as admin because as admin you can change time which I do not like....this is the reason I uninstalled and did not buy
Of course you can configure the software to allow employees to print their own timesheets without having them log in as the administrator and here's how to do it:
- Setup Time Clock MTS to allow employees to view their own timecards, you can learn how to do this in the employees viewing their own timecards how-to guide.
- Check the Employees Can Print Timecard check box on the Interface Settings screen.
Posted by mnemtsas at 1:15 PM | Comments (0)
January 17, 2011
Salaried Employees and Work Hours Reported
The Report Settings Screen
A couple of times this year I've had questions from Time Clock MTS users who thought that the actual hours worked for salaried employees was reported incorrectly on various Time Clock MTS reports. The mis-understanding arises because of two factors:
1) Time Clock MTS allows you to track the clock in and out times of salaried employees BUT....
2) Time Clock MTS calculates the actual work hours of salaried employees on a pro-rated basis of elapsed calendar weeks or months across a report period.
In a nut shell this means if you've got a salaried employee whose salary period is weekly, you've got your work week set to 40 hours, and you run a report for two weeks then the reported work hours for that salaried employee will be 80 hours. Regardless of the hours actually worked by the employee.
You can see the actual hours worked by a salaried employee by editing the Employee Summary and Payroll Summary section templates on the Report Settings screen. Edit these templates to include the
Posted by mnemtsas at 3:33 PM | Comments (0)
What Does the Least Quantity Checkbox on the Payroll Settings Screen Do?
The Payroll Settings Screen
There's an innocuous check box on the Payroll Settings screen labelled "Least Quantity". Some Time Clock MTS users have been asking some questions about what it does. It's actually pretty simple. If you've got report time rounding turned on and the least quantity check box is ticked then it will do the following at report generation time:
1) All clock ins will be rounded UP to the nearest unit set in the Report Time Rounding dropdown box.
2) All clock outs will be rounded DOWN to the nearest unit set in the Report Time Rounding dropdown box.
The practical upshot of this is that the elapsed time for clock in/out pair is minimized. There's a three things to be aware of if you're wanting to use this setting. Firstly, it wont work unless you have a time unit set in the Report Time Rounding dropdown box. Secondly, like all report time rounding in Time Clock MTS the rounding is applied at report time only, the actual recorded times for the clock in/out are stored accurate to the nearest second. Finally, and a big caveat on this one, is that you should be careful that your local payroll laws allow for this sort of report rounding, there are many that do not.
Posted by mnemtsas at 3:12 PM | Comments (0)
January 11, 2011
When I buy Time Clock MTS is it a one time fee or do I have to renew yearly?
A fairly common question I get from prospective users is whether purchasing Time Clock MTS is a one time thing or is a yearly renewal required? Here's the answer:
- When you buy Time Clock MTS you get a lifetime license to use the software you buy and one year of email support and software updates.
- Once a year has elapsed since the purchase of Time Clock MTS you'll receive an email allowing you to renew your email support and software update contract for a further year. The cost of this is 20% of your initial purchase or US$15, whichever is higher. Of course you don't have to renew but you wont be eligible for support nor will you be able to receive updates to the software that might include new features or bug fixes.
That's all there is to it. There's no need to renew your support every year if you don't want to, Time Clock MTS is very reliable and has enough flexibility to support most businesses right now. However, some companies like the surety of email support and the chance to access new features and bug fixes as they become available.
Posted by mnemtsas at 7:53 AM | Comments (0)
October 22, 2010
View All Times Spent on One Job
The Report Configuration Screen Screen
Prior to the release of Time Clock MTS Version 3 all the Time Clock MTS job based reports were run for all jobs. A common request we had was to allow reports to be run for a single job to allow for simple cost tracking on a job by job basis. This has now been accomplished simply by placing a job selection drop down on the Report Configuration screen which you can see above. It's a simple matter now to select a job from this drop down and then choose a job based report to run (like the Job Punchcard Report or the Job Time Report). The data on the report will then be restricted to the job you selected from the drop down.
If you're not sure what job tracking in Time Clock MTS is or you just want to know how to make it work then you should try watching the Time Clock Job Tracking Demo.
Posted by mnemtsas at 1:14 PM | Comments (0)
Dealing with Employees with Existing Accrual Balances
The Employee Payroll Information Screen
A common issue that the new user to Time Clock MTS has is dealing with bringing employees into Time Clock MTS that have existing sick and vacation accrual balances. Prior to the release of Time Clock MTS Version 3 the only real solution was to set the hire date of the employee to the day they were entered into Time Clock MTS. Then their accrual starting balance (either the employment type starting balance or the employee starting balance) could be set to their actual balance. This worked fine but not having the hire date set correctly could affect on going accrual calculations or lead to confusion when manually setting those employees to different accrual schemes as their years of service increased.
This has all changed, though, as of version 3 of Time Clock MTS. A couple of innocuous little settings (seen in the screenshot above) allow you to set an accrual start date for employees with existing accrual balances. When the Accrual Start Date checkbox is checked and a date set that date is used as a starting date for that employees accruals and the employees starting balance used as a starting balance. This ensures that the accrual calculations are accurate and that no confusion arises because of an incorrect employee hire date.
So, here's how to setup an existing accrual balance for an employee being entered into the Time Clock MTS software for the first time.
- Setup the Vacation Accrual Scheme and Sick Time Accrual Scheme and assign them to the employee as required.
- Transfer the sick time and vacation accrual balances from your existing attendance system into the Starting Balances text boxes on the Time Clock MTS Employee Payroll Information screen.
- Check the Accrual Start Date checkbox on the Employee Payroll Information screen and select the accrual start date.
That's all there is to it. The Accrual Start date will now be used as the start date for all accruals for that employee all accruals from that point forward will use the starting balance as the starting point for all calculations.
Posted by mnemtsas at 12:27 PM | Comments (0)
May 8, 2010
Time and Attendance Clock
The Time Clock MTS Keypad Interface
We've spoken many times here about the benefits of using an employee time and attendance clock but it's always worth re-emphasizing the benefits an employer is likely to see by the adoption of a computerized time and attendance clock. So, here's my top 5 reasons why you should be looking to move your current mechanical or manual time and attendance system to a computerized one like Time Clock MTS.
- Recording Timely and Accurate Data : Your core business isn't collecting time and attendance data, your business is looking after your patients, serving your customers, making meals, fixing cars, manufacturing valves, or whatever your business does. Collecting employee attendance data should be quick, painless, and take a minimal amount of time to ensure that your employees actually do it.
- Reducing or Eliminating Time Clock Fraud and Buddy Punching : It's a fact of life that there are people around who will try to crib time on their time sheets or have friends clock in or out for them at the work place. A good Time and Attendance Clock like Time Clock MTS should allow you to go a very long way to minimizing or eliminating this costly practice.
- Reducing Administrative Overheads : A good Time and Attendance Clock should record accurate data to a central database and then provide this data to your payroll administrators for instant and accurate reporting. Manual tallying of time cards, the wasted time this entails, and the inevitable payroll errors that result should be completely eliminated. Your staff should be able to spend a minimal amount of time processing payroll and be able to focus on what makes your business profit.
- Low On-Going Cost of Ownership : Even if your chosen time clock system produces payroll reports of great accuracy it is useless if it requires hours of training for each new employee you take on board or hours of tweaking by administrators to get it to work the way you want. Your Time and Attendance Clock system should be easy to configure and stunningly easy to clock in and out of. This tool should pay for itself in savings rather than be a continual administrative and training expense.
- It Must Grow With Your Business : All businesses go through changes and your chosen Time and Attendance Clock must be able to grow as you do. Time Clock MTS can be used and administered on just one PC for a very small business and can scale upwards to be used on dozens of work stations as your business grows. There's no need to be changing systems as more employees come on-board.
We're pretty confident here that Time Clock MTS can deliver strong benefits in all these areas. Try heading over to the Time Clock MTS Quick Tour to learn more about it or go to the Time Clock MTS Downloads page to download and trial the software for 30 days.
Posted by mnemtsas at 10:16 AM | Comments (0)
Biometric Time Clock Software
Enrolling an Employee Fingerprint in Time Clock MTS
There's no doubting that buddy punching and time clock fraud are an on-going problem in most work places and as an employer you must either accept the on-going problems this causes or do your best to prevent it. Biometric Time Clock Software is the current tool of choice in workplaces where the employer has decided to take a stand against poor time and attendance data collection. There are a number of biometric methods available to Biometric Time Clock Software including facial recognition and iris scanning but by the far the most popular is fingerprint recognition. Fingerprint scanning is a proven technology, the hardware is quite affordable, and the software to make it work is low cost and very reliable.
Time Clock MTS has teamed up with the very well known biometric security company, Digital Persona, and can offer a comprehensive Biometric Time Clock Software. Not only does this offer you, the employer, the best chance of eliminating time clock fraud, it also offers it at no extra cost over the normal version of Time Clock MTS. Just buy the correct DigitalPersona finger scanner (the 4000 and 4500 models are supported) and standard version Time Clock MTS will work with them without you needing to purchase anything else. It really doesn't get any easier than that! If you'd like to see how Time Clock MTS works with the DigitalPersona fingerprint scanners then try taking a look at our biometric time clock software demonstration video. If you need more information then you should head over to the biometric Time Clock MTS page.
Posted by mnemtsas at 9:52 AM | Comments (0)
May 7, 2010
Employee Clock In Software
Time Clock MTS Employee List with Department Folders
If you're considering purchasing and using employee clock in software then you need to ask yourself the following questions:
- Is it Simple to Use?: It doesn't matter how you paint it, employee time tracking and timesheets are not fun, they are necessary but not something anyone actually wants to do. And given an opportunity your employees will use any excuse avoid clocking in or out as they must. So any employee clock in software you choose must be extremely simple to use from the employee's point of view or you'll have a constant battle with them to even collect their attendance data.
- Does it Fit Your Business?: The employee time clock software you choose must have sufficient flexibility to suit your business and the way you work. It should fit seamlessly within your organization and go about it's work with a minimal amount of fuss. To achieve this it must provide flexibility in terms of reporting, vacation and sick time accruals, overtime calculations, and be secure.
- Is it Timely and Accurate?: A key failing of manual or paper based employee clock in systems is that the information is often neither timely nor accurate. Employees are prone to making poor estimations of the time of their arrival at work and manually processing and tallying paper timesheets is both time consuming and prone to error. The employee clock in software you choose must collect attendance data using an accurate clock, record it immediately to a central database and that data must be available at all times for accurate reporting.
Posted by mnemtsas at 12:23 PM | Comments (0)
Using Job Tracking to Track Paid Breaks
Defining Time Clock MTS Jobs
A common question I get asked is "How do I track paid breaks for my employees?". I've never really had a good answer to this question until earlier this week in a flash of inspiration (yes I do have them very occasionally) I realized that anyone could easily make use of the Time Clock MTS Job Tracking features to easily track paid breaks. Here's how I'd set it up:
- Go to the Job Tracking screen and define a job for each paid break type that you want to track. This might be 'lunch break' or 'coffee break' or whatever suits your needs.
- Go to the Employee Information screen and set the Job Tracking setting for each employee to "Optional". When this is set, employees will be shown the "Enter Job Code" screen when they clock in or out but they won't actually have to enter a code.
- When employees come to work, just have them clock in as normal without entering a job code. When they take a paid break, have them clock out and switch jobs to one of your paid break codes which you defined in step 1 above. When they return from a paid break, have them switch jobs again but not enter a job code (they are back on normal time).
- You can then use Job Time Report to monitor how much time your employees are spending on their paid breaks and ensure there is no time clock fraud occurring.
I hope you find that little tip helpful, it will certainly give employers much tighter monitoring on what their employees are up to with almost no extra administrative overhead being added to the business!
Posted by mnemtsas at 11:57 AM | Comments (0)
Freeware Time Clock Software
Time Clock MTS is a commercial software program with a free 30 day trial period, however, under certain usage conditions it can be used as freeware time clock software. That's right you can use it for free, forever, if you just use it under the following restrictions:
- You can only track 3 or fewer employees in the Time Clock MTS Database. This allows startup or micro businesses access to truly powerful freeware time clock software free of charge until they grow to a point where they can afford to purchase the software.
- You can only install and use Time Clock MTS on one computer, this means you can't use the client version of the software on one PC and run your reports and configure the software on another. You'll have to use the administrative software on one PC to manage your employees AND record your time and attendance data.
If you're interested in trying some freeware time clock software then head over to our download page to download Time Clock MTS. Once you've done that you can try out the full version of the software for 30 days and once that period is over Time Clock MTS will revert to freeware mode and you can keep using it without interruption. Of course you'll have to have 3 or less employees in your database and not be using the client software for this to happen!
Posted by mnemtsas at 11:41 AM | Comments (0)
Employee Time Clock Software
Last week I was asked what the key selling point of Time Clock MTS was? I thought for a while before saying the following...."the software is designed primarily to be extremely simple to use for employees ensuring that the quality of time and attendance data collected is as high as possible and the on-going cost of ownership to the company is as low as possible". Time Clock MTS is in fact, employee time clock software. Much time has been spent streamlining the process that employees go through to clock in or out of Time Clock MTS and in it's most simple form they can do so with just two mouse clicks. There's a little more work if you want your employees to enter a PIN number or password when they clock in or if you want them to use their fingerprint to clock in or out but even then you're talking about less than 10 seconds work.
In my experience, any employee time clock software that makes the employee's task of clock in or out difficult or time consuming will result in one or many of the following happening:
- The failure to use the employee time clock software all together or only sporadically, meaning employee attendance information will neither be timely or accurate.
- Log jams at the start of shifts as employees queue to clock in or out meaning time is lost on non income generating administrative tasks.
- An on-going and recurring training expense for new hires as they need to be trained in the use of a clunky employee time clock system.
With the time we've spent refining and optimizing Time Clock MTS to be the easiest to use employee time clock software on the market we've addressed all of these three points. We're so confident of this that in most cases companies will pay for their initial purchase of Time Clock MTS within just a couple of months and have a system that allows them to get on with the work that generates their profits. If you're interested in trying out Time Clock MTS free of charge for 30 days then head over to our download page to download employee time clock software.
Posted by mnemtsas at 10:52 AM | Comments (0)
April 28, 2010
Time Clock MTS in a Childcare Center
I got a question from a potential Time Clock MTS user recently, she is the director of a childcare center in the USA. Here's what she had to ask:
Would you be able to answer these questions for me by e-mail? I'm trying to determine if your time clock software will work for what we'd need to use it for. We currently have about 60 students and about 25 staff. We use a centrally located computer for everyone (students & staff) to clock in and out each day. Each person has an ID # that they use to clock in and out. • I'd like to set this up where people can clock in/out on the main computer, but I can run reports from 2 computers in the office. We'd like to have 2 administrators. Is that possible? • How many people can use this to clock in/out? If we reach our maximum in the future, is there any way to extend the number of users? Do you happen to know how other childcare centers are using this program to clock in/out students? Do they set students up as a certain Department or something? Any help you can provide would be greatly appreciated.
There's a few points about this. Firstly, yes you can have multiple administrator computers, but you'll need to purchase a license for each one and then set up the second (and subsequent) administrator computers as described in this blog entry. The second thing to note is that Time Clock MTS is most certainly used by other childcare centers, several dozen at least (plus about 6000 other companies around the world). Here's my response to the question:
1) Two admin licenses and one client license are possible but only one of the admin PC's at a time will be able to run the software. Cost for this setup would be US$167.2) I'll happily extend the software for you to allow up to 150 people to clock in and out. You can delete employees/children if they are no longer using the system to free up positions. Regarding other centers, I seem to recall at least one using different departments to track children/staff. A quick browse through our customer database shows around 60 or so centers using our software.
Posted by mnemtsas at 11:42 AM | Comments (0)
Why Aren't My Time Clock Reports Showing Hours and Minutes?
Here's a question we got from a Time Clock MTS user recently.
I have downloaded the trial version of the time clock, which I find very useful. I don't understand how is this calculating the time. I need it to calculate time on hourly basis (60 minutes) on the reports. But the reports calculation don't match my calculations. Can you please tell me where do I fix this? I will really appreciate your help.
Of course reports can be configured in Time Clock MTS to show times in decimal hours (for example 1.1 hours) or hours and minutes (for example 1 hr, 6 minutes). A lot of users prefer decimal hours because it makes payroll and overtime calculations a lot easier, some others are just interested in attendance times and like the easier to understand hours and minutes reports. Here's my reply to the above email:
Do you have the reports setup to show in hours and minutes? If not you can change this on the Tools->Options-> Report Settings page. If that's not the problem perhaps you can give me some more detail on what the specifics of your issues are?
The user got back to me and the report settings was indeed their problem. If you're not exactly sure of what I'm talking about try taking a look at the report settings help topic.
Posted by mnemtsas at 11:09 AM | Comments (0)
March 31, 2010
Time Clocks in the Machine Shop
I've just found a very interesting thread over on "The Practical Machinist" forums which discusses the use of time clocks in the machine shop. The thread is To Time or not to Time (Clock) makes for very interesting reading. All of the discussion is from the workshop manager/owner's point of view and if you read the entire thread you'll see some common problems that are experienced due to what is usually a minority of employees. Heres some key issues I noted:
When i started working at my current job we just wrote our time cards out ourselves. then matt started. He was the last to arrive first to leave but always had the most hours...now we have a time clock. thanks matt
Now, that being said, if you have several employees, you can lose time "around the edges" of the day, and lunchtime. Without a time clock, 30 min lunches can become 35 min., and employees are often standing at the time clock waiting to punch out the second it turns.So, for example, if you have 10 employees, and each one "nibbles" 15 min per day, then that's 150 min per day, or 750 min per week! Some lost production time right there...
Once had a helper who never kept track of any time on repair jobs . His method was to stare at the clock and gusstimate when he started /finished , and then guessed what the customer would like to pay , and then kinda sorta arrive at a price . He was a great worker , but probably lost me lots of $$. He now has his own shop so he can now lose money for himself .
So, there you have a few real world problems experienced by people who are not using a time clock (whether it be a physical time clock or time clock software like Time Clock MTS. Now let's look at some of the benefits some of the posters have noted from some sort of time clock system.
Before me and my partner got together, he had bought one (a time clock system), not for punching in and out, but to keep track of jobs. He was doing a lot of time and material and each job was assigned a time clock badge, so come the end of the week he had an excellent hard copy of how much to charge on what job.
I wouldn't run the shop without one. In union happy Québec Canada the punch clock is a common fixture everywhere. A a matter of fact it helps you build up a file againsta bad apple when needed. One guy has been robbing meanywhere from 15 - 30 min. a day plus being talkative.
A time clock protects the employer, and it also protects the employee so he gets all the pay he's due. There are occasional lapses, someone forgets to clock in or clock out once in a while, then I take their word for what the correct time was and they are fair with me. This beats the heck out of depending on a busy employee remembering to take note of when he started and when he stopped.
If you take a look through the thread you'll note that one happy poster is a user of Time Clock MTS. It's great to get this sort of spontaneous feedback about the software and know that it is a tool of great practical use in the real world. Here's what the happy user had to say:
I'd second John's opinion. A time clock keeps both the employee and employer accountable and provides accurate record keeping. My employees can come and go whenever they choose, so deciphering their hours was a nightmare. As almost all of our machines have a PC located at them, we use a inexpensive software version called MTS Timeclock. The software cost under $100 and we can use it on as many computers as desired. We have been using this software for about three years with no problems at all. My office manager loves it as she does not have to spend lots of time calculating hours. I like it because I know that I have accurate time recording and records to prove it and my employees like it because it is simple and easy to use.
Just one last point, a couple of people in the thread mention that they'd love it if their time clock could track time worked on jobs. It's worth a reminder here that Time Clock MTS can not only track your employee time and attendance information it can also track what jobs they are working on at the same time with almost no extra effort. If you want to find out more about this take a look at the Time Clock MTS Job Tracking page or the job tracking with your time clock software video.
Posted by mnemtsas at 9:45 AM | Comments (0)
January 18, 2010
Using the Data from Your Trial Period When You Purchase Time Clock MTS
One of the more popular questions I get asked by companies that are planning to purchase Time Clock MTS usually goes something along the lines of:
"Can I keep using the information I've setup in the trial version of Time Clock MTS when I purchase the software and what do I need to do to keep using it?"
The very short answer to this question is "Yes and and you don't need to do anything".
The longer answer is yes you can keep using the data and there's nothing you need to other than enter your registration code when you purchase the software to keep using the data. From day one Time Clock MTS was designed to give you the minimal amount of disruption when you're using the trial or transitioning to from the trial to the purchased version. A few weeks ago I talked about what you get when you purchase Time Clock MTS. One of these was the license code, when this is entered into Time Clock MTS the trial period is removed and the software transforms itself into the purchased version and you'll just keep working. That's it. Nothing else, no need to download and install anything else, no need to re-build your dataset, no need to re-configure the software.
In conclusion let me re-state, to keep using your trial data when you purchase Time Clock MTS you really don't need to do anything!
Posted by mnemtsas at 1:34 PM | Comments (0)
January 17, 2010
Setting up Time Clock MTS in Multi User Mode - MS Access
Time Clock MTS can be run on a single PC, allowing one PC to be used for all collection of time and attendance information plus all reporting and software configuration. It can also be used in multiple client mode which allows you to administer the software from one PC and collect time and attendance information from one or more other computers on your network. This blog entry gives detailed instructions on how to setup Time Clock MTS to run in multiple client mode when you're using the standard back-end database.
- Choose a computer on your network that you want to administer Time Clock MTS from and generate and print reports from.
- Install the normal Time Clock MTS program (download from here) on the chosen computer.
- Using the System Options page of Time Clock MTS move the Time Clock MTS database somewhere on your network. This network location must be visible to each computer you wish to use as a clock in / out station. You must also make sure that any computer that is going to use Time Clock MTS has full read/write/execute/delete permissions for the network location.
- Choose the computers that you want to use as clock in / out stations.
- Install the Time Clock MTS Client (download from here) on each of these client computers.
- Run the Time Clock MTS client on the chosen client computers. The first time you do so you will be asked to locate the Time Clock MTS database you moved in Step 3 above.
- Use the computer with the main Time Clock MTS program on it to configure the software with your employees and payroll rules.
- Get your employees to start using the Time Clock MTS Client program to clock in and out of the software.
- Once you've purchased you'll get an immediate email containing a temporary registration code so you can keep using the software until you get your permanent registration code. This is to help people whose trial period has expired keep working without interruption.
- You also get an email from our payment processing company containing a receipt for your purchase.
- A day or two later you'll get your permanent registration code via email. This email is generated and sent automatically by our systems. If you haven't received your email within a week of purchase then it's almost certain that the email was either caught up in your spam filters or you entered an incorrect email when you purchased. You can get your registration code directly from our website using the lost registration code page. Why do we delay the permanent registration code email a day or two? Simply for reasons of internet fraud, most fraudulent uses of credit cards are picked up in a day or two so we delay this long just to make sure that emails are not sent out to those that shouldn't receive them.
- You'll get a reminder email from our payment processing company a few days after purchase reminding you of your purchase because sometimes people are confused when a charge from an unknown vendor appears on their credit card statement!
- 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 compared with the overtime limit of 40 hours (resulting in 34.8 normal hours) and then the 8 normal vacation hours is added onto this, resulting in 42.8 hours of normal time.
- Turn off the Use Internet Time Server setting in Time Clock MTS. This will result in Time Clock MTS determining all times from the local PC clock.
- Change the Windows settings to have the local pc clock time determined from an Internet time server. How you do this will depend on the version of Windows you are running. For example, in Windows Vista you can do it by simply right clicking on the Taskbar clock and then selecting Adjust Date/Time from the popup menu.
- Change the Windows user account permissions that Time Clock MTS is run from to prevent changing the Windows System time. How you do this is well beyond the scope of this entry as it will vary tremendously depending on the version of Windows you are running and any sort of network management software you happen to be using.
- Examine if you need to actually use the First Day Starts At setting. It is really only useful if you run shifts or if you want to restrict clock in times to stop employees clocking in early. If you dont need to use the setting leave it set to 12:00am (again you can change this setting on the Tools->Options->Payroll Settings screen.
- Turn on report rounding and restrict clock in times to the same period as you've set report rounding for. So, for example, if you set report rounding to 15 minutes set the clock in restriction to 15 minutes before shift start. To restrict clock in times you must assign an employee to a shift and then set the clock in restriction on the Tools->Options->Shifts screen.
- Setup and configure your first administrator installation and move your Time Clock MTS database somewhere on your computer network. The database file must be visible from the computer you plan on installing the second administrator license on. The second computer must also have full read/write/execute/delete permissions on the folder that the database is in. You can read how to setup your first installation here.
- Install the admin software on the second computer.
- Open the file timeclock.ini in Windows Notepad. This file can be found in one of two locations. If you're using Windows XP is will be here: C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Time Clock MTS\timeclock.ini . If you're using Windows Vista it will be here: C:\ProgramData\Time Clock MTS\timeclock.ini. Note that you may have to Show Hidden Files and Folders to find the file.
- Once you've opened the file in Windows Notepad it should look something like the image above. Look for the line starting with DatabaseLoc. This contains the path to the Time Clock MTS Database.
- Once you've located the entry change the path after the '=' symbol to the path to YOUR database. For this example we'll say the path to your database is Z:\Time Clock Data\timeclock.mdb. Of course yours will almost certainly be different to this.
- Once you're sure you've got the path correct it should look something like the image above. If you're happy with it you can save the file using the File->Save menu in Windows Notepad.
- That's all there is to it. You can now run Time Clock MTS on this PC and when it starts up it should be connected to the Time Clock MTS database you've got on your network!
- Have them select their name from the employee list.
- Click the View Information Button and then the View Timecard option.
- If you've got employee PIN's or employee fingerprint security turned on then the employee will need to enter their PIN or scan their fingerprint to view their time card.
- The report configuration screen will be displayed. The employee can pick the date range from the top right, and the report they want to view from the report list. Note that the employee cannot pick any other employee from the list of employees.
- When they're ready to view their timecard they just need to click the Create Report button.
- Employees will then be shown their timecard for the period they selected. If you've allowed them to print their timecard then they'll be able to print their time card too.
- Not long after you send us your database we'll send it back (if required). We'll send it back attached to an email just like you sent it to us. The only difference is that we will zip the file up using Winzip because a lot of email servers will block the type of file that the Time Clock MTS database is. You can see above what this email might look like. Of course this will vary depending on what email client you use. The attachment to the email is called 'timeclock.zip".
- The next step is to open the timeclock.zip file with a program that is capable of reading it. In this case I am opening it with Winzip, but you can open zip files with a number of programs and can even open them with Explorer if you are using Windows Vista or Windows 7. You can see above what the contents of the file are. It contains a single file called timeclock.mdb which is the file you will have sent us.
- The last thing you need to do is unzip the timeclock.mdb file into the correct location. Now this location depends on your version of Windows and how you setup your version of Time Clock MTS. You should remember exactly what the file location is depending on where you found the file when you emailed us the database.
- Exactly how you unzip the file is dependent on what tool you are using to view the zip file. In this case using WinZip I just right clicked on the timeclock.mdb file and selected extract. This shows the screen above. I am unzipping the file to the default file location for Windows Vista/Windows 7 which is c:\Program Data\Time Clock MTS\Database. I'll unzip the file OVER the existing file. So because of this it is worthwhile backing up the old file before you do this extraction process.
- The Time Clock MTS database can only contain 3 active employees. If you have more than this then you will not be able to do anything but disable employees.
- You can use one PC only to install the software on. This same PC must be used to collect all attendance information as well as configure the software and run all reports.
- Locate the database. By default this file is called timeclock.mdb and is found in different locations depending on what version of Windows you are using. If you are using Windows XP or earlier then you will find the file in C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Time Clock MTS\Database. If you are using Windows Vista you will find it in c:\ProgramData\TimeClockMTS\Database.Note that if you have moved the database because you are using the multi client version or for some other reason then the file will not be found here, and you or your system administrator should know where the file is.
- If you cannot find either of these locations using Windows Explorer then you most likely need show system files and folders.
- You can see above that I have located the file timeclock.mdb in Windows Explorer in the default location for Windows Vista.
- Now that you have found the file you need to attach it to an email and email it to us at support@timeclockmts.com. Exactly how you do this depends entirely on what email tool you use. Discussing each email client is well beyond the scope of this post so I wont go into it. However, this article looks a good place to get some tips.
- Once you've attached the file to your email it should look sometime like the image above (this screenshot is taken from Microsoft Outlook 2003). You can now go ahead and send the file to us!
- Daily Overtime: hours worked between 8 and 12 in a single day are subject to 1.5 times the normal rate of pay. Hours worked in excess of 12 hours in a single day are subject to 2.0 times the normal rate of pay.
- Seventh day overtime: If an employee works for the first 6 days of a work week then they are eligible for overtime if they work on the seventh day of the work week. The first 8 hours of work on the seventh day are subject to 1.5 times the normal rate of pay. Hours worked in excess of 8 hours are subject to double the normal rate of pay.
- Assign all employees with this sort of accrual to a single employment type. You could call the employment type to "yearly accrual" or whatever you like.
- In the administrator version of Time Clock MTS go to the Tools->Options->Vacation Accruals page and select the yearly accrual employment type you have setup.
- Check the Accrues Vacation Time check box.
- To start time accruing at hire date set Start Accruing Hire Date Plus setting to zero.
- If you want to allow for accruals in advance then set the Start With setting to some number, or otherwise set it to zero.
- Set the Accrue text field to the yearly allocation you wish to allow each employee.
- Set the For Every text box to 12 and the units drop down to Month.
- Make sure the Use Hire Date not Fiscal Year checkbox is checked to us the hire date anniversary to reset the amount of time accrued rather than the fiscal year.
- Turn on the internet time synchronization feature. This way the clock in and out times are completely un-related to the PC system clock.
- If 1. is not possible setup the PC with a system policy requiring Windows Administrator permissions to change the system time.
- If 1. and 2. are not possible then turn on the 'admin password required on software startup' feature and check the 'do not allow system clock changes' checkbox. In this case, users cannot change the system clock while Time Clock MTS is running, and while they can stop the software they cannot re-start it without the admin password. The administrator can then check the PC system time before allowing Time Clock MTS to re-start.
- Look for a bar code reader reader that can plug into the keyboard port (PS2) or USB port of your PC and output text exactly like a keyboard. This is typically known as a reader with a keyboard wedge.
- Get a reader that can output a return (or line feed) character at the end of the stream of read data, most will do this by default or you will be able to configure them to do so.
- Get some card stock printed up with your barcodes that are encoded with the Time Clock MTS Badge/Employee ID's. These ID's are setup on the Employee Information Screen. It doesnt matter much with bar code format you use, but make sure your bar code reader can read it, Code 25 or Code 128 are good choices. It may be a good idea to get the cards laminated to extend their useful life.
- Stick to the default employee numbering in Time Clock MTS (which starts at 1000 and increments by 10 for each new employee). This will allow you to pre-print a number of cards that can be used as your company expands. So your cards would be encoded with the numbers 1000, 1010, 1020 etc etc.
- Look for a magnetic card reader that can plug into the keyboard port (PS2) or USB port of your PC and output text exactly like a keyboard. This is typically known as a keyboard wedge.
- Look for a magnetic card reader that can output a return or line feed character at the end of the data read of a swipe card.
- You only need the most basic of magnetic cards, they only really need one 'stripe' and the data doesn't need to be encrypted or anything fancy.
- Get your magnetic cards encoded with the Time Clock MTS Badge/Employee ID's. These ID's are setup on the Employee Information Screen.
- Stick to the default employee numbering in Time Clock MTS (which starts at 1000 and increments by 10 for each new employee). This will allow you to buy pre encoded magnetic cards that can be used as your company expands. So your cards would be encoded with the numbers 1000, 1010, 1020 etc etc.
- Only the administrator can access the administrator functions with their password.
- All employees have PIN numbers to prevent them clocking in or out for each other.
- Administrator passwords are required on program start or stop (or both) to stop employees stopping the program and changing the system clock.
- You can use an attached web cam to capture images on employee clock in or out, review these images or use them as a deterrent to prevent buddy punching. You can learn more about this here.
- Synchronize times with internet time servers to eliminate manipulation of system time.
- Time Clock MTS database is password protected to prevent manual editing of data. You can learn more about this here.
- The software monitors the PC clock to prevent the system clock being changed.
- Rounding set to 15 minutes, an employee clocking in between 8:00:00AM and 8:07:29AM will have their time rounded down to 8:00:00AM.
- Rounding set to 15 minutes, an employee clocking in between 8:07:30AM and 8:14:59AM will have their time rounded up to 8:15:00AM.
- Easier identification and elimination of time card fraud.
- Identification of areas of excess overtime and elimination of the cost by increasing staffing levels or improving efficiencies in other business processes.
- Management has a more accurate picture of the real cost of employment.
- More simplified compliance with overtime, vacation and occupational health and safety requirements.
- Improvements in business efficiency and payroll accuracy.
- Timely, there is no point having a time and attendance reporting system that delivers reports 6 weeks after the fact.
- Accurate.
- Flexible to allow easy compliance with your payroll rules and local labor requirements.
- Simple to administer and run. You do not want to be handing back efficiency gains and cost savings from your time and attendance reporting system because it is large and unwieldy and takes a lot of time to run.
- Computerized and interface with de facto standard office software such as Microsoft Office.
- Able to collect time and attendance information from multiple locations within the business and store the information centrally.
- You can only track time card information for a maximum of three employees. If you ever have more active employees in Time Clock MTS while it is operating in free mode you'll only be allowed to disable employees, all reports, clock punching, and so on will be disabled.
- You will only be able to collect and report on time and attendance information on one PC. The Time Clock MTS Client software will no longer function so no more remote data collection is allowed.
- Full Name - the name of the employee as set on the Employee Information Screen
- Total Work Time - the total hours worked by the employee for the report period
- Total Holidays Time - the total public holiday hours for the employee for the report period
- T - inserts a TAB space, used for alignment and formatting purposes
- Sick Time Taken Period - the sick time taken by the employee for the report period
- Sick Time Taken Fiscal - the sick time taken by the employee for the current fiscal year
- Sick Time Taken All Time - the sick time taken by the employee since they were employed
- Sick Time Owing - the current sick time owing to the employee
- Vacation Time Taken Period - the vacation time taken by the employee for the report period
- Vacation Time Taken Fiscal - the vacation time taken by the employee for the current fiscal year
- Vacation Time Taken All Time - the vacation time taken by the employee since they were employed
- Vacation Time Owing - the current vacation time owing to the employee
- T - inserts a TAB space, used for alignment and formatting purposes
- Full Name - the name of the employee as set on the Employee Information Screen
- Total Work Time - the total hours worked by the employee for the report period
- Total Holidays Time - the total public holiday hours for the employee for the report period
- SSN - the social security number of the employee as set on the Payroll Information Screen
- Regular Hours - the number of hours worked by the employee during the report period that were paid at the normal rate
- Daily OT Hours - the number of hours worked by the employee during the report period that were paid at the daily overtime rate
- Weekly OT Hours - the number of hours worked by the employee during the report period that were paid at the weekly overtime rate
- Normal Rate - the normal rate of pay
- OT Rate - the overtime rate of pay
- Normal Earnings - earnings during the report period at the normal rate of pay
- Daily OT Earnings - earnings during the report period at the daily overtime rate of pay
- Weekly OT Earnings - earnings during the report period at the weekly overtime rate of pay
- Total Earnings - the total earnings for the report period
- T - inserts a TAB space, used for alignment and formatting purposes
- You are only allowed three active employee records. If this condition is ever exceeded the software will not allow you do anything except delete employee records.
- Time Clock MTS is restricted to being used in single computer mode when operating as your free punch clock system.
- Report Name - the name of the report that is being run
- Period Start - the report start date
- Period End - the report end date
- Report Time - the date and time the report is run
- Shift Filter - the shift the report is filtered on (if applicable)
- Employee Filter - the employee(s) the report is filtered on (if applicable)
- Department Filter - the department the report is filtered on (if applicable)
- T - inserts a TAB space, used for alignment and formatting purposes
- Company Name - the company name as set on the Display Settings page
- Company Address - the company address as set on the Display Settings page
- T - inserts a TAB space, used for alignment and formatting purposes
- Full Name - the name of the employee as set on the Employee Information Screen
- Badge ID - the badge ID / employee ID of the employee as set on the Employee Information Screen
- PIN - the PIN of the employee as set on the Employee Information Screen
- SSN - the social security number of the employee as set on the Payroll Information Screen
- Shift - the shift of the employee as set on the Employee Information Screen
- Department - the department of the employee as set on the Employee Information Screen
- Hire Date - the hire date of the employee as set on the Employee Information Screen
- Employment Type - the employment type of the employee as set on the Payroll Information Screen
- Address - the address of the employee as set on the Contact Information Screen
- Home Phone - the home phone number of the employee as set on the Contact Information Screen
- Cell Phone - the cell phone number of the employee as set on the Contact Information Screen
- Exemptions - the tax exemptions for the employee as set on the Tax Information Screen
- T - inserts a TAB space, used for alignment and formatting purposes
- Full Name - the name of the employee as set on the Employee Information Screen
- Badge ID - the badge ID / employee ID of the employee as set on the Employee Information Screen
- Shift - the shift of the employee as set on the Employee Information Screen
- Department - the department of the employee as set on the Employee Information Screen
- T - inserts a TAB space, used for alignment and formatting purposes
- You can decide when you want to capture images (clock in, clock out or clock in and out), it is recommended that you capture images on both events for maximum security.
- The image capture location can be easily set using the Set button. By default it will have the location set to the same directory that your Time Clock MTS database is stored in.
- Because captured images take up disk space you may decide to only keep the recorded images for a certain amount of time. Time Clock MTS can delete older images based on their age, you can decide to keep images for a week, a month, 6 months, or forever.
- If you have more than one camera attached to your Time Clock MTS computer you can choose which one to use by clicking the Select Camera button. Time Clock MTS will default to the first camera attached to your computer if the selected camera is no longer attached to the PC.
- Currently Time Clock MTS captures images into BMP format, which means that for bigger images the file size can be quite large. To help combat this you can select the captured image size by clicking the Select Image Size button. It is recommended you choose the smallest available capture size.
- Add the employee you want to use as a template, give them all the settings you require including payroll, assigning to a department, a shift, and whatever else you need. For the sake of this example we'll call this employee 'John Smith'.
- Select the employee 'John Smith' in the employee list and then select the Employee Maintenance->Copy Selected Employee menu item.
- The employee maintenance screen will now been displayed with all the details already filled in, the name of the employee will be set to 'Copy of John Smith'. All you need to do now is edit the details you want to change for this employee (such as the name, address, and PIN) and in just a few seconds you've created a new fully configured employee.
- Create a new accrual scheme called yearly accruals (or whatever you like).
- Set the accrual delay to zero to start accruing at hire date.
- Set the starting balance to the yearly allocation to allow accruals in advance or leave it at zero to not give them any accrual until 1 year of service.
- Set the accrual amount per unit to the yearly allocation and the accrual period to 12 months.
- Check the Use Hire Date not Fiscal Year checkbox to use the anniversary of hire to reset accruals (if you need them reset).
- clientlog.txt - contains all the logging information for the client version of Time Clock MTS
- log.txt - contains all of the user interface logging information for the administrator version of Time Clock MTS
- logdll.txt - contains all of the business logic logging for both the client and administrator versions
- timeclock.ini - contains all the local configuration options for both versions of the software
- timeclock.mdb - found in the Database sub directory this is the MS Access version of the Time Clock MTS database. If you cant see this file then it's because it has been moved.
- Restricted to three active employee records. When you have more than this you will not be able to add times, run reports, or do anything other than disable or delete employee records.
- Restricted to using the software in single computer mode. This means that the Time Clock MTS Client will no longer function when the software has reverted to the free mode of operation.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- You'll need to repeat the password entry process for every client installation you have.
- Log into Time Clock MTS as the Administrator
- Go to the Tools->Edit Times menu
- 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.
- 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.
- Select the clock out time for the time you have just added on the list of times.
- 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.
Posted by mnemtsas at 11:16 AM | Comments (0)
December 11, 2009
Time Clock MTS - What you get when you purchase
A fairly common question that I am asked is what exactly do you get when you purchase Time Clock MTS? Hopefully this post will clear up some of these questions for you.
What Emails Will I Get?
Will I Get a CD Shipped To Me?
No you wont, our delivery is via electronic download only.
Will I Have to Download the 'Registered Version' of Time Clock MTS?
No you wont. Once you've entered your registration code into the trial version of Time Clock MTS it becomes the 'registered version'.
What is my License to Use Time Clock MTS?
Once you've purchased Time Clock MTS you have a lifetime license to use the software you bought. There's no yearly renewal charge unless you want to extend your support with us.
What Support will I Receive when I Purchase Time Clock MTS?
When you purchase Time Clock MTS you are entitled to one year of email support and software updates. After the year has gone by you'll get an email from us offering to renew the support for another year for $20 or 20% of your initial purchase price, whichever is higher. We do not offer phone support, it is simply not economical to do so for such a low cost product. There is a phone number on our website where you can get hold of us and we do answer phone calls but generally you'll be directed to send support enquiries to us via email.
Is my License Different if I buy a Client License?
The first thing to understand is that no matter what Time Clock MTS license you purchase it always includes at least one license to use the administrator version on one computer. If you buy the single computer version, for example, you just get a license to install and use the administrator version on one PC. However, when you buy a 1 client license you have a license to use the administrator version on one computer plus you can install and use the client version on one computer.
For those of you who are new to Time Clock MTS the administrator version allows you to administer and setup Time Clock MTS as well as record employee time and attendance information. The client version only allows you to record time and attendance information.
In Conclusion
I hope that this will resolve some things that are not entirely clear to people who are considering using Time Clock MTS in their business. As always if you need more help please Contact Us with your enquiry.
Posted by mnemtsas at 10:13 AM | Comments (0)
November 17, 2009
Time Clock MTS In Action - Community Service Organization
Another user of Time Clock MTS has emailed me with details of how they are using the software. While their application is slightly more conventional that the other applications I've discussed to date (timing racing cars and refitting trucks) it is still novel enough to be worth discussing. You can find the (slightly edited) email from the user in question below explaining their application.
A little more information... What I said was true, we don't care about the payroll functions and are only concerned with the time clock feature, but we actually are billing for the time. Let me give you a little more information about our organization, what we do, and what our usage entails.We are a non-profit organization dealing with people suffering from some sort of illness. We have many different programs to help these people feel confident with themselves, train them in basic job skills, and help them to obtain a job, build a resume, and eventually, lead them to independence.
As I said, we are non-profit, so a lot of our funding comes through grants and special programs. In the near future, our billing is changing and our services will be billed through a government program. When this happens, we need to track hours for all of the people that attend what we call our Clubhouse in order to bill for them.
Time Clock MTS is being used in this company at the two entrances to their 'clubhouse'. They have purchased a single client license (US$98 at the time of writing this article) and have a client installation at one door and the admin installation at the other. Let's see what the main benefits from using Time Clock MTS in this situation have been.
Currently, under the grant we are being funded through, we are tracking people as they come and go with a paper sign in sheet. When we begin billing through the government program, we would prefer a more reliable, electronic means that would also provide us with a reporting feature. Unfortunately, because our main software package doesn't allow us to import data, we then need to key in the hours tracked through your software and get them into our system for billing.This isn't vastly different than what we are doing now, but it helps us on three fronts. First, we aren't currently tracking time - just whether a person signs in or not. Second, with the reports generated from your system, we are able to eliminate the issues of trying to decipher various handwriting styles. Third, as an added bonus, because we can assign a pin number to each person, it will speed up our data entry. In our billing system, we can look up a person by name, but it is faster to look them up by their 4 digit ID number. By assigning the 4 digit ID number as a pin in your software, it makes keying in the information faster and more efficient, even though we are actually capturing additional data.
So Time Clock MTS is providing the organization in question with a much more reliable and efficient way of collecting their club's attendance data. This data can then be imported easily into their existing club accounting system for provision to the government for appropriate reimbursement. At the moment we are working with the organization to define a report suitable for direct export from Time Clock MTS into their other computer systems to eliminate the last source of errors and double data entry. All of these gains are realized without using a large portion of the software (payroll, vacation accruals, sick time, holidays and many other things). Time Clock MTS is simple enough to use to just allow it to be used as a simple time tracker without being forced to use the more advanced functionality the software offers.
Posted by mnemtsas at 11:10 AM | Comments (0)
Showing Department Folders on Employee List Interface
Employee List with Department Folders
Version 2.5.0 of Time Clock MTS included an interesting new feature that allows you to split the Employee List Interface into departmental folders. This can be extremely useful if you have a lot of employees or if you have separate Time Clock MTS client stations located around your business on a department by department basis. In the screenshot above you can see how the employees are split up by department and that the department groups can be expanded or collapsed as required. Time Clock MTS will remember which departments you have expanded or collapsed when you restart the software so you can setup (for example) a single Time Clock MTS Client to just display the employees from a single department.
Turning on the department folder view of Time Clock MTS is very easy. Just login as the Administrator and then go to the Tools->Options->Interface Settings page. When you're on this screen check the Dept. Folders on Employee List checkbox and then click the Save button to commit the changes. When you return to the employee list you should see that it is now split up by departments. Of course you'll need to have some departments defined and have assigned your employees to the departments.
Posted by mnemtsas at 6:11 AM | Comments (0)
October 14, 2009
Removing Page Breaks Between Employees on Reports
We received an interesting email today that contains a little tip that could be handy to some Time Clock MTS users.
When we print a summary report of all employees it prints each employee on a separate sheet, can it print them all on one sheet (or as many as it can fit)?
My Reply:
Go to the Tools->Options->Report Settings page and uncheck the 'new employees page break' setting.
If you're wondering what page this is you can take a look at the Report Settings Help Topic for more information. Putting a page break in between employees on reports was one of the most requested features for the software, and wouldn't you know it as soon as it was changed people started asking for it to be changed back! Now Time Clock MTS has the flexibility to print reports either way.
Posted by mnemtsas at 11:37 AM | Comments (0)
October 4, 2009
Time Clock MTS Quick Tour Available
I've written a quick tour of Time Clock MTS in an effort to help new users understand how the software works and what some of the capabilities of the software are. The tour covers the main aspects of the software and what some of the real benefits of using it are. The tour is available from the top menu bar of the website. Individual sections of the quick tour can be found below:
Time Clock MTS Quick Tour - Overview
Time Clock MTS Quick Tour - Employee Time Clock
Time Clock MTS Quick Tour - Administrator Controls
Time Clock MTS Quick Tour - Reporting
Time Clock MTS Quick Tour - Overtime
Time Clock MTS Quick Tour - Security
Time Clock MTS Quick Tour - Network Time Clock
Posted by mnemtsas at 2:48 PM | Comments (0)
September 15, 2009
Tracking Jobs in Time Clock MTS
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 and then leads you briefly through the process of how an employee would log their time against a job as they use Time Clock MTS.
Creating and Editing Jobs
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.
Creating a Job
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.
Employee Details
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 it. Select an employee on the employee list and go to the Employee Maintenance->Edit Selected Employee screen (which you can see above). On the employee information screen use the job tracking drop down box to define how an employee will use job tracking. They can either not use it, use it optionally (they can choose not to enter a job code when they clock in) or must use it (they must enter a job code when they clock in).
Entering a Job Code
Step 3 : Employees Entering Job Codes
Entering job codes for employees couldn't be any easier. When employees clock in they'll be shown the enter job code screen above. Employees need to enter the job code for the job they want to book the time to either via keyboard or via the numeric buttons on the screen (with a mouse click or via a touchscreen). Time Clock MTS will try to auto complete the job code for the employee and show the job details so that the employee is sure he or she is booking their time to the correct job. It would be very useful to have printed out the Active Job Report and have this next to your Time Clock MTS computers so that the employees have a readily available list of the jobs they can book time to.
Switching Jobs
Employees can quickly switch jobs by clocking out of Time Clock MTS (via either the employee list or keypad screens of Time Clock MTS). The screen above will be shown to employees where they can either clock out or switch jobs. If they switch jobs the enter job code screen will be shown again and the employee can enter a new job code and switch to a new job.
Step 4 : Reporting on Jobs
The Job Time Report provides the Time Clock Administrator with all the information they'll need to understand how time is being booked to jobs. It shows a break down of each job defined in Time Clock MTS, and how much time each employee has logged against each job.
Posted by mnemtsas at 2:59 PM | Comments (0)
September 3, 2009
Time Clock MTS Not Calculating Time Correctly - Or is it?
I've had three Time Clock MTS users contact me in the last week complaining that their employee time cards did not add up correctly. As you can imagine I take these sorts of problems very seriously, correct time calculations are, after all, at the very heart of what Time Clock MTS does! In each case I asked the user to provide a days worth of time entries, including clock in and out times, their manual calculations, and the results that Time Clock MTS was reporting. In all three cases, the difference between the hours worked reported by Time Clock MTS and their manual calculations was the same for each day for each user. My worries that there was a problem with the software disappeared at this point.
For one user Time Clock MTS was reporting 20 minutes less time worked each day, for another it was 30 minutes, and for the last it was one hour. Some readers probably already know what is happening with the hours worked calculations. For those that do not, it's not a problem with the software, it is the way software setup that is causing the apparent discrepancy. In each case the users had automatic employee breaks setup to be deducted from each work day and they'd forgotten about it. This was causing Time Clock MTS to deduct some time from each day to account for breaks taken and thus reporting less time worked than just looking at the clock in and out time. It's an easy enough thing to do, and to be honest the first time someone complained I was momentarily worried myself!
It's something to be aware of, and if for some reason you're starting to think Time Clock MTS is reporting working hours incorrectly then please go and check your automatic break settings on the Tools->Options->Payroll Settings page.
Posted by mnemtsas at 1:47 PM | Comments (0)
August 28, 2009
Vacation Time and Overtime Calculations
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 Vaca.
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.
Posted by mnemtsas at 2:07 PM | Comments (0)
What to do When and Employee Forgets to Clock Out
Some time ago I wrote about what to do when an employee forgets to clock in. Just recently I got an email from a Time Clock MTS user with the opposite problem, employees were forgetting to clock out and the user wanted to know how to fix this up.
I've been discussing issues with trying to clock in and out employees who forget to clock in/out and more than a day has passed.You could select any employee, but if you look at the recent activity for *Name Removed*. In most cases, I learn the next day that they "forgot", but I can't go back to correct.
if you could go back to *Name Removed* Account and add her hour for August 20 which were 1:30 pm to 5:30 pm. I ended up adding them on 8/22 which was a day she did not work. I appreciate the screen shots.
The user emailed me their Time Clock MTS database so I could work them through a solution. You can find it below.
Step 1
1. Go to the edit times screen and select *Name Removed* and choose to view the last 28 days. You'll note there are two clock outs, one on Aug 12 and one on Aug 21. You need to delete the one on Aug 21. So select it in the list. Then click the Delete Time icon (the one with the red cross) and choose 'Delete Selected Time Only'.
Step 2
2. You'll be shown a confirmation screen, press yes to delete the time.
Step 3
3. The times should look correct now (in, out, in out, and so on). Now add a time for Aug 20, click the new time button (the one with the blank page on it) and choose to add a single time.
Step 4
4. On the screen that pops up enter the correct time details. And click Save Time when you're ready to add the time.
Step 5
5. The list of times should now include the time you needed to add.
That's all there is to fixing this up. Time Clock MTS includes the tools to allow you to manipulate a users times to fix up these sorts of errors. You can delete a single time, you change the state of a single time, and you can add times. In this case I suspect the user changed the state of the errant time in error. It was a simple task to delete it and get things back in the correct order!
Posted by mnemtsas at 1:12 PM | Comments (0)
June 4, 2009
Time Clock MTS User Question : Yearly Accruals
I've done this a couple of times before, Time Clock MTS users sometimes ask interesting questions that are worth sharing with the rest of the user community. I got a good question this morning so I'll post up here along with a solution.
Question:
I am beginning the program in the middle of the year. My employees began the year with 80 hours vacation. They each have various amounts of vacation left right now. I can't get the program to show each employees individual vacation hours that are available. This is not on an accrual basis. Everyone starts the year with 80 hours vacation on January 1 of each year. How do I get the program to calculate properly?
The answer is pretty simple. Firstly, the user needs to setup a yearly accrual scheme which I've spoken about previously. There's a subtle variation here though, this yearly accrual scheme needs to start on 1 January for all employees. So rather than checking the 'Use Hire Date, not Fiscal Year' you'd leave this unchecked. You'll then need to go to Tools->Options->Payroll Settings screen and set the First Day of Fiscal Year to 1 January.
Adjusting the starting balance for each employee is required because the Time Clock MTS user will not be starting use of the software on 1 January. This is pretty simple again, just adjust each employees starting vacation balance using the Employee Maintenance->Edit Selected Employee->Payroll Information screen.
That's how it's done. It's a fairly simple thing but does require you to change settings across a few different screens in Time Clock MTS. Got any more tricky accrual questions? Why not contact me and tell me what your question is and I'll post up a solution here so everyone can benefit!
Posted by mnemtsas at 9:27 AM | Comments (0)
May 24, 2009
Time Clock MTS - What to do When the Internet Time Server Doesnt Work
You may well know that Time Clock MTS can determine the internal time used for clocking in and out from an Internet time server. This is a pretty foolproof way of preventing time clock fraud as the times recorded are completely independent of the local PC clock setting. You can turn on this feature in the Time Clock MTS administrator program on the Tools->Options->Security Settings page. Just tick the Use Internet Time Server checkbox, pick a time server from the drop down box and check that it works for you by clicking the Check button. You can read more about this on the security help topic page.
The above works well, but for whatever reason very infrequently it doesn't work in a fool-proof fashion. This wont result in incorrect employee attendance data but it can prevent employees from clocking in or out. Time Clock MTS will actually prevent employees from clocking in and out if it cannot contact the Internet time server for an hour (this is to stop employees just pulling a network cable to get around the Internet Time Server setting). Sometimes the reason Time Clock MTS cannot contact the time server can't easily be determined, it my be network congestion, it might be firewall problems, or it might be problems with the time server itself. When these sorts of problems occur frequently it may be adopting a different solution to setting the system time using Windows itself. Here's what you'll need to do:
That's all there is to it. What you've done is set the local PC clock to get accurate time from an Internet time server and Time Clock MTS will get it's clock in and out times directly from this. By adjusting the Windows user account permissions you've prevented employees from changing the system clock of the PC in an attempt to provide fraudulent time clock data.
Posted by mnemtsas at 11:21 AM | Comments (0)
May 21, 2009
Time Clock MTS - First Day Starts At Setting Clarifications
I've had a couple of Time Clock MTS users send in emails about the same thing in the last week and it worth covering the issue here. Basically the symptom is this, when running reports (say for a week), sometimes it appears that the reports pick up a time or two from the next weeks report. When they run the next weeks report it is missing these times that show up on the previous weeks report. When you examine these times that seem to mysteriously appear on the wrong weeks report it turns out that the clock in time was before the usual clock in time for the day. The reason this is happening is because employees are clocking in BEFORE the First Day Starts At setting used by Time Clock MTS to determine when the work day (and thus work week) starts.
So, for example, lets say you have the First Day Starts At setting in Time Clock MTS (set on the Tools->Options-> Payroll Settings page) set to 8:00am. Now lets say an employee clocks in at 7.30am on Monday AND you dont have report rounding time turned on. Time Clock MTS considers the time worked between the clock in and the time when the employee clocks out to OCCUR ON SUNDAY rather than Monday. The time of clock in determines the day on which the recorded time occurs. This is complicated a little if you have report rounding turned on. If you have report rounding set to, say 15 minutes, then an employee can clock in up to 15 minutes prior to 8:00am on Monday to have their time to be reported on Monday. If they clock in more than 15 minutes prior to 8:00am then the time will be reported on Sunday.
There's a couple of ways of preventing this sort of thing happening in Time Clock MTS.
Posted by mnemtsas at 5:16 PM | Comments (0)
May 3, 2009
What Computer is Your Employee Clocking in or Out From?
The Time Location Report
One of the most common forms of employee time clock fraud is buddy punching. This is simply when one employee clocks in or out for another one. Time Clock MTS has a number of methods built into it to help you reduce or eliminate this practice including fingerprint security, image capturing, and employee PINs. Version 2.2.12 saw a new feature added to the software to help further eliminate buddy punching.
When an employee clocks in or out Time Clock MTS now records the Computer Name and Network MAC address along with the time record. Each computer on your network will have a unique computer name and the network cards in these computers all have a unique MAC address. Armed with these two pieces of information you or your network admins can determine exactly which PC an employee clocked in or out from. To give you this information in an easy to read format there's a new report, the Time Location Report. You can run this report in the same way as you run all the other Time Clock MTS reports, from the Report Configuration Screen. An example of this new report is shown above. Each time recorded for the employee has it's own line and each time shows the computer name and MAC address of the computer the employee clocked in or out from.
So, if each of your employees is supposed to clock in and out from their own PC, and you suspect someone is clocking in or out for someone else, then this new feature can help you detect this practise. Just run the Time Location Report and you can see quickly and easily where an employee is clocking in or out from!
Posted by mnemtsas at 9:46 AM | Comments (0)
April 28, 2009
The Reset Administrator Password Menu
I am beginning to think that there's some confusion about what the File->Reset Administrator Password menu item does so it's worth a little bit of clarification. A few months back I described how you could use this menu item to Reset Your Administrator Password.
When you Should Use the Reset Administrator Password Menu
You should only use the File->Reset Administrator Password menu when you've forgotten your administrator password and you need to reset it. To reset your administrator password successfully you'll need to know the answers to the reminder questions. If you answer the questions correctly then Time Clock MTS will contact our web server to get a new password and reset the password. If you're a registered user of Time Clock MTS then the email address you used to purchase the software will be emailed the new password. If you're using the trial version or the free version then you'll be told what the new password is via a popup message. You shouldn't use the File -> Reset Administrator Password Menu if you know your Administrator password and just want to change it.
Manually Resetting Your Administrator Password
If you know your administrator password and just want to reset it to something different then you should not use the above method. Log in as the administrator and go to the Tools->Options->System Settings page and reset the password there. You can read more about this in the System Settings Help Topic.
What to do When You've Forgotten Your Admin Password AND Reminder Question Answers?
In this case you'll need to get us to reset your admin password for you. You'll need to email us your Time Clock MTS database. We'll reset the password for you and then email your database back, once you've got it back you'll need to read the instructions here to learn what to do.
I hope that this helps to clear up any confusion!
Posted by mnemtsas at 7:44 AM | Comments (0)
April 16, 2009
The Difference Between Clients and Employees
I've posted about this before, but I get enough questions about it that it's worth talking about it again. What's the difference between clients and employees in Time Clock MTS?. Put simply an employee is a record in the Time Clock MTS database corresponding to a person in your organization for whom you wish to track time and attendance data. On the other hand, a client is a computer on which you have installed the Time Clock MTS Client software so you can record time and attendance information using that computer for any employees in your Time Clock MTS database.
The cost of Time Clock MTS is dependent on both the number of employees you want to track AND the number of clients you need. In base form the software can track 75 employees on a single computer. You can add database expansions (in lots of 75 employees) to track more employees if you require. You can also add client licenses as required. For the exact pricing of this you should take a look at the Online Shop. The shop can give you pricing for your particular needs, just type in the number of employees you want to track, and the number of client computers you need and it will give you a price.
Posted by mnemtsas at 1:52 PM | Comments (0)
Configuring a Second Time Clock MTS Administrator Computer
Quite a few users of Time Clock MTS have decided that they need more than one administrator installation of the software. This might be because they want to run reports from one location and administer the database from another, or perhaps because they want to control employees from different departments from different computers. Time Clock MTS can accommodate this, with a couple of provisos, firstly you must have a license for the second PC, and secondly, only one of the admin computers at a time can be logged in. This blog entry will show you how to setup the second administrator installation.
timeclock.ini File Before Editing
timeclock.ini File After Editing
In the future I think there'll be some facility within the software to allow you to do this without this mucking about with the timeclock.ini fle. In the mean time this method isn't too hard at all. As always email me if you have any problems.
Posted by mnemtsas at 1:25 PM | Comments (0)
April 15, 2009
Employees Viewing their Time Cards
If you're using the Time Clock MTS employee list interface then you can allow employees to view their own time cards. This blog entry will cover how you can setup the software to do this and how your employees can then view their information.
Interface Settings Screen
Setting Up the Software
Setting up the software to allow employees to view their time card information is very simple. Just log into the administrator software as the administrator and then go to the Tools->Options->Interface Settings page. All you need to do then is check the 'Employees Can View Timecard' checkbox. You can also allow them to print their timecard by checking the 'Employees Can Print Timecard' checkbox. Click Save to save the changes. Note that employees can only print and view their own timecards when you're using the Employee List Interface.
Report Configuration Screen
Employees Viewing their Timecard
If you've setup Time Clock MTS to allow employees to view their time card then they can do so very simply.
That's all there is to it. A lot of companies like to make this information available to their employees because it saves a lot of questions for the payroll staff. If you didn't know Time Clock MTS could do this and your company would find it useful why not turn on this useful feature today!
Posted by mnemtsas at 7:51 AM | Comments (0)
February 17, 2009
Getting your Time Clock MTS Database Back
In a previous entry I talked about emailing your Time Clock MTS database to us, perhaps for a password reset for example. In this post I'll talk about what you need to do when you get it back from us.
That's all there is to it! Hopefully you'll never need to send your Time Clock MTS database to us. But if you do, you should now know how to send it to us and what to do with it when you get it back.
Posted by mnemtsas at 1:22 PM | Comments (0)
Free Windows Punch Clock
You can use Time Clock MTS as a Free Windows Punch Clock system FOREVER but you'll be subject to certain limitations. To get started just download Time Clock MTS, install it, and you'll be able to trial the full commercial version of the software for 30 days free of charge. The full commericial version allows you to use any computer as a clock in/out station, you can use it with one of the advanced database compatibility options, and track attendance for up to 75 employees. If you haven't purchased the software once the 30 day trial period is up then Time Clock MTS will change to the free version.
Time Clock MTS is perfectly good free Windows punch clock software. If you are a very new business or a micro business with 3 or less employees then the free version of Time Clock MTS will still be of great benefit to you. While operating in free mode Time Clock MTS is restricted with the following limitations:
The free version of Time Clock MTS can be used forever given that you dont go over the three employee limit. If at any time you want to take advantage of the more advanced features of the software you can convert your free Windows Punch Clock Software to the full commercial version by just purchasing it and registering the software with the license code that we'll supply.
Posted by mnemtsas at 11:23 AM | Comments (0)
February 16, 2009
Emailing your Time Clock MTS Database
At some stage it may become necessary to email us your Time Clock MTS database. This might be to reset your administrator password or to help us get to the bottom of some sort of problem. This is a pretty simple task but it is worth providing some simple instructions leading you through the process.
In the next post I've cover what to do with your Time Clock MTS database once you get it back from us.
Posted by mnemtsas at 2:16 PM | Comments (0)
February 14, 2009
Setting up Employee PIN's or Passwords
I've just posted a new flash tutorial taking you through the process of setting up Time Clock MTS to use employee PIN's. To be able to view the tutorial your browser must be able to display flash animations. Why not take a look at the Enabling Employee PIN's tutorial now!
Posted by mnemtsas at 6:20 AM | Comments (0)
January 20, 2009
California Overtime Regulations Part 2
In part 1 of configuring Time Clock MTS to comply with Californian Overtime Regulations I covered how to setup the software to calculate this sort of overtime automatically. In this second part I'll cover how it is displayed in reports.
Report Template Changes to Show Overtime Rate 2
Modifying Report Templates
If you have only just started using Time Clock MTS then you will not need to modify your reports to display overtime rate 2 as the software will have set it up by default. You can therefore ignore this part of this article. However, if you are an existing user of Time Clock MTS upgrading an old version of the software to a newer version that supports the Californian Overtime Regulations then you will need to modify the Payroll Information report section template. In the image above you can see the relevant section that I have added to the report section template. I have added this immediately under the line that was already there that displayed the overtime rate 1 information. The line I have added is:
Daily OT2 Hours: <T><DAILY_OT2_HOURS> hrs @ <OT2_RATE> /hr = <DAILY_OT2_EARNINGS>
Basically this displays the heading 'Daily OT2 Hours:' along with the actual hours worked at overtime rate 2, the rate of pay for overtime rate 2 (which should be set to double time) and the earnings at overtime rate 2. If you don't understand what the report section templates are then you should take a look at my posts on customizing Time Clock MTS reports in part 1, part 2, and part 3.
Overtime Rate 2 Report Date in Payroll Summary Section
Viewing Overtime 2 Payment Amounts in Reports
If you choose to display the payroll summary section in a report (or run the payroll summary report) then you will be shown the new overtime rate 2 payment information as per the image above. You can see in this example that the employee is entitled to 1 hour of overtime at overtime rate 2 which is set to double the normal rate.
So, that's all there is to it. It is very simple to configure Time Clock MTS to comply with the Californian overtime regulations. Doing so will give you significant productivity improvements come payroll calculation time, and will help to you do reduce and eliminate payroll errors. As always please email me if you have any questions.
Posted by mnemtsas at 2:23 PM | Comments (0)
California Overtime Regulations Part 1
Employee Settings to Suit California Overtime Regulations
California has it's own set of peculiar regulations for payment of overtime to employees. They are reasonably complex and are tedious when you have to apply and calculate them manually. As of Version 2.1.11 Time Clock MTS is now fully compliant with these regulations saving you a lot of time calculating your payroll and overtime pay. You can read about these regulations in detail on the Californian Department of Industrial Relations website. The relevant section of the page that applies (given that an employee is not subject to an exemption or exception) is:
1. One and one-half times the employee's regular rate or pay for all hours worked in excess of eight hours up to and including 12 hours in any workday, and for the first eight hours worked on the seventh consecutive day of work in a workweek; and2. Double the employee's regular rate or pay for all hours worked in excess of 12 hours in any workday and for all hours worked in excess of eight on the seventh consecutive day of work in a workweek.
Thus overtime can be split into two parts:
Overtime Settings to Suit California Overtime Regulations
Setting up Time Clock MTS to comply with these regulations is simple. Firstly, you must edit the employee payroll information for each employee that is to receive overtime. In the first image in this post you can see an employee configured with overtime rate 1 set to 1.5 times the base rate of pay, and overtime rate 2 to double the base rate of pay. Once this is done for each employee you can then move on to the global overtime settings.
The second screenshot in this post shows Time Clock MTS configured to calculate overtime as per the Californian stipulations. Daily over time rate 1 is set to trigger at 8 hours and over time rate 2 is set to trigger at 12 hours. Weekly overtime is turned off and the calculation of overtime is set to daily overtime only. Lastly, the seventh day overtime setting is checked and the limit set to 8 hours.
In the next installment I'll cover modifying the Time Clock MTS report section templates to display the new payment amounts covered by overtime rate 2.
Posted by mnemtsas at 11:51 AM | Comments (0)
January 8, 2009
Yearly Vacation Accruals
Here's a question I got this week that I thought was worth posting up here along with the solution:
We offer our employees vacation pay but not on an accrual basis and I canʼt seem to make the software set up a specific amount of time without accrual. For example, if any employee is consider full time for one year beyond their hire date we offer 40 hrs of paid vacation to those said employees. And every year after the next fiscal year this time starts a new 40 hrs so on and so forth. This is pretty much the same scenario in regards to sick time.
This is how to configure Time Clock MTS to allow for this sort of accrual scheme.
There you have it, it's not too hard and allows you a great deal of flexibility.
Posted by mnemtsas at 1:12 PM | Comments (0)
November 7, 2008
Stopping Employees Clocking in Too Early
In Version 2.1.7 of Time Clock MTS a new feature was added that allows you some control over when employees can and cannot clock in. You can configure this while logged in as the administrator on the Tools->Options->Shifts page (see the shifts help topic for more information). Click the new shift button and you'll be taken to the Add/Edit shift screen as shown below.
The Add/Edit Shift Screen
At the bottom of this screen you can see the new setting Restrict First Clock in to XX before shift. All you need to do is make a selection of None, 1 minute, 6 minutes, 15 minutes, and 30 minutes from the drop down. Obviously if you select none then there will be no restriction on when an employee can clock in. However, if you select one of the time limits then any employee assigned to that particular shift will be prevented from clock in any earlier that the chosen limit before the shift start time. So, for example, in the shift above, any employee will not be able to clock in any earlier than 7.30AM.
There is one restriction on this, the clock in must be the first one of the day for the restriction to take effect. I'll work on enhancing this in the next release.
Posted by mnemtsas at 9:12 AM | Comments (0)
October 30, 2008
Lost Time Clock MTS Registration Codes
Time Clock MTS users, for whatever reason, whether it be change of staff, lost emails or just simply time passing can sometimes lose their Time Clock MTS registration codes. In some other cases the automatic emails we send out containing registration codes can go astray (perhaps caught up by spam filters or ignored by accident). Either way you need your license code if you need to re-install the software on new PC or keep using it after your trial has expired.
Typically people email me asking for their license code, and unfortunately sometimes this email consists of nothing more than 'I've lost my license code, please send it to me again'. And that's it. No company name, no transaction reference, no nothing. In these cases I either need to go back and do a manual search of our systems looking for a sale made to that email address or I have to reply asking for more information. Of course this is fine, but it leads to delays that are a waste of time and money. So to avoid these delays did you know you can retrieve your own Time Clock MTS registration codes? And it's a very easy thing to do!
All you need is your original purchase transaction reference from your receipt or invoice that was generated when you purchased Time Clock MTS. Then you can go to our Retrieve Time Clock MTS Registration Code page. Here you can just enter your transaction reference and your registration code will be emailed automatically to the email address you used when you purchased Time Clock MTS.
Posted by mnemtsas at 7:42 AM | Comments (0)
October 20, 2008
Time Clock Software Security
Even though it's been mentioned here several times before it's well worth mentioning the security features of Time Clock MTS designed to prevent employee fraud. Here's an email I received recently:
"We have found that our employees are able to manipulate their time by simply changing the computer time. Once they change the time on the computer it changes the time on the MTS time clock thus allowing them to clock out early and leave but yet the timesheet is showing them out at a later time. How is it this software allows that? Is there a way to stop it?"
This can of course be addressed by Time Clock MTS. The possible solutions in order of preference are:
If you want to learn about more of the security features within Time Clock MTS take a look at the Security Features of Time Clock MTS weblog post or at the security features help topic in our online help file.
Posted by mnemtsas at 1:00 PM | Comments (0)
October 3, 2008
Free Time Attendance Software
I've mentioned it several times before (here, here , and here) but it's worth mentioning again because I still get people asking where the free version of Time Clock MTS is.
The free version of Time Clock MTS is just the normal version of Time Clock MTS subject to a few restrictions. Firstly, you can install it on one computer only. This means no clients, and it means collecting information from one location only and administering the software from the same location. The second restriction is that you can only track three employees while using the software in free mode. If you're a bit unclear about the difference between employees and clients try taking a look here.
So, if you're a small business, perhaps just starting up and want some time attendance software to track yours and your employee's time....why not give the free version of Time Clock MTS a go? It's easy to use, produces the reports you need and can grow with your business.
Posted by mnemtsas at 10:14 AM | Comments (0)
October 1, 2008
On Clients and Employees
One of the more common things people get confused with Time Clock MTS is the difference between Employees and Clients. For example, a common misconception is that if you want to track 20 employees then you'll need 20 clients. In most situations this is not the case.
A Client is simply a PC that has the Time Clock MTS Client software installed on it. A client can be used to collect time and attendance information and store it in the central Time Clock MTS Database.
An Employee is the core piece of data that is tracked within Time Clock MTS. Generally any Time Clock MTS Client can be used to track information for any employee that happens to be in the database.
OK so given that, what exactly does, for example, a 10 Client License of Time Clock MTS give you as a user? Well, it allows you to install the Time Clock MTS Administrator program on one PC so that you can administer the software and run reports from it. It also allows you to install the Time Clock MTS Client on up to 10 other computers so you can collect time and attendance information from them. Finally, it allows you to track and manage up to 75 Employees in the Time Clock MTS database.
I hope that helps to clear up this misconception!
Posted by mnemtsas at 7:49 AM | Comments (0)
September 22, 2008
Using Time Clock MTS in Languages other than English
You can now easily change the main clock in and clock out screen of Time Clock MTS to any language that you like. This is especially useful if your work force does not understand English and you want the software to be as easy as possible for them. You can now configure all of the text on the Time Clock MTS employee list interface to any text or language that you like (including non latin characters like Japanese, Cyrillic, or Chinese).
To setup Time Clock MTS to use a different language on the employee list interface log in as the administrator and go to the Tools->Options->Interface Settings screen. Select the Main Screen Label you want to edit from the drop down box and then enter the text you want to set to be displayed for that item on the Employee List Interface. When you're done you can get a result like the following image.
Time Clock MTS Translated to Ukrainian
From time to time (as our users are willing to provide the information) I'll try to get translations in different languages included into some blog posts.
Posted by mnemtsas at 6:34 PM | Comments (0)
September 10, 2008
Time Clock MTS and Bar Code Readers
In the last weblog entry about time clock software and magnetic card readers I talked about using Time Clock MTS without a keyboard and using magnetic swipe cards to interact with this. In this entry I'll cover the user of bar code readers with Time Clock MTS.
Bar codes allow the storing of normal text data in printed form and the data can be read by a bar code reader very quickly, and most importantly, reliably. Bar codes themselves can be printed from a normal printer on any computer, all you need is a bar code font package (which are very inexpensive) and then you'll be able to print bar codes from various specialized applications or even from MS Word or Excel. The bar codes themselves can user different formats (such as Code 128, Code 25, or Pharmacode), but which one is used doesn't matter much to Time Clock MTS.
Similar to magnetic card readers, the simplest bar code readers can plug into the keyboard port (PS2 Port) or USB port of a PC and output characters to the PC in exactly the same manner as a keyboard would. In addition, like a mag card reader they will usually put a return character at the end of the stream of data they read to signify that they have finished reading the information from the bar code. So, if you setup Time Clock MTS to use the Keypad Interface and you use a barcode reader to scan in the badge number of an employee then you'll be able to clock them in or out very quickly and easily.
Here's some basic steps to take when wanting to setup Time Clock MTS with a barcode reader:
Posted by mnemtsas at 8:38 AM | Comments (0)
September 2, 2008
Time Clock MTS and Magnetic Card Readers
Time Clock MTS can be used without a keyboard if required by using the Keypad Interface and a touch screen or a magnetic card reader or a barcode reader. Today I'll talk about using Time Clock MTS with a magnetic card reader. In its most simple form a magnetic card simply has normal text characters (like those you'd type on your keyboard) stored in the magnetic stripe on the card. In fact, some of the simplest magnetic card readers can plug into the keyboard port or USB port on your computer and output text characters to the computer EXACTLY the same way that a keyboard does. So, for example, if you had a magnetic card with the characters "hello world" stored in the magnetic strip and you had a magnetic card reader plugged into your keyboard port and you scanned the card while you had a text editor (like MS Word) running then you'd see the characters "hello world" appear on your monitor. And in all likelihood you'd get the "enter" or "return" character at the end of the line. Most magnetic card readers output the "return" character at the end of the data scanned from a magnetic card by default so that you know you have all of the data from the magnetic card.
When you're using the keypad interface of Time Clock MTS you can use a magnetic card reader to output characters to the employee ID/badge number field and the "return" or "enter" character "presses" the Enter button on the screen to clock the employee in or out. So, the practical upshot of this is if you have magnetic cards encoded with Time Clock MTS employee badge numbers (or employee ID's) then you can use them to clock your employees in or out of Time Clock MTS very quickly and easily. In summary here's a checklist of what you should look for in a magnetic card reader:
Posted by mnemtsas at 7:32 AM | Comments (0)
August 20, 2008
Security features of Time Clock MTS
Time Clock MTS includes many features in it's design to eliminate fraud and keep your data secure. These are some of the features:
Posted by mnemtsas at 9:18 PM | Comments (0)
August 18, 2008
Time Clock Rounding Rules
Rounding of time clock data is both legal and commonly practiced in many areas. Typically time clock rounding rules allow rounding of employee attendance information either up or down based on predefined time segments. Usually these time segments are either 6 minutes, 15 minutes, or 30 minutes. Normal arithmetic rounding rules are used, so for example:
Which Time Clock Rounding Rules your company decides to use depends on the local regulations in your area. In the interests of fairness (and probably legality) a balanced rounding approach should be used, as this favors neither the employer or employee. However, some localities allow the use of time clock rounding rules that ALWAYS ROUND UP clock in times and ALWAYS ROUND DOWN clock out times. This is clearly favorable to the employer and should be used with caution (if it is used at all).
Whatever time clock rounding rules you choose to adopt be assured that Time Clock MTS is able to perform the rounding automatically and accurately for you. You can setup Time Clock MTS to do your time clock rounding automatically using the Payroll Settings screen from within the software.
Posted by mnemtsas at 9:41 PM | Comments (0)
August 12, 2008
Time and Attendance Reporting
Monitoring of employee attendance is a key requirement if you are to minimize employment costs and improve business efficiency. Some of the key benefits to a business that has an adequate time and attendance reporting system include:
All of these are positive things for any business. But to be able to deliver on any of these benefits a time and attendance reporting system must be:
Time Clock MTS is a time and attendance system that will allow you to do all of this and more. Why not download the free 30 day trial now!.
Posted by mnemtsas at 11:03 AM | Comments (0)
August 7, 2008
Free Time Card Software
You can use Time Clock MTS as a free time card software package FOREVER subject to certain limitations. All you need to do is download it, install it, and you can then trial it without limitation for 30 days. This means you can use it on as many PC's as you like, or with one of the more advanced database options, or any of the security features. Once the 30 day trial period is up and you still haven't purchased a license then Time Clock MTS will revert to free mode of operation. When operating in free mode a lot of these advanced features are disabled.
Time Clock MTS is perfectly good free time card software, and for new or very small businesses it will be all you ever need until you grow. While operating in free mode Time Clock MTS is restricted with the following limitations:
If you don't exceed the active employee limitation you can use Time Clock MTS as free time card software forever! While operating in free mode, you can at any time purchase a license for the software and re-enable the more advanced features of the software.
Posted by mnemtsas at 11:07 PM | Comments (0)
August 5, 2008
Customizing Time Clock MTS Reports - Part 3
In part 2 of customizing Time Clock MTS Reports I covered some of the report sections and data fields used to customize the reports in the software. In this third part I'll cover the remainder of the report sections and data fields.
Employee Summary Section
Employee Accruals Section
Payroll Information Section
In the fourth and final part of this series on customizing Time Clock MTS reports I'll show some example report section templates and what these look like in the actual printed reports.
Posted by mnemtsas at 8:44 PM | Comments (0)
August 1, 2008
Replacing Your Paper Time Clock Card System
With personal computers become less and less expensive and old models usually left unused there's no reason to not put these machines to a useful purpose. One great use is to replace your paper based time clock card system with an electronic time clock system such as Time Clock MTS. Time Clock MTS will run on pretty much any computer from the last several years and give you a time clock card system that is far superior to older manual paper based systems. You can collect your time and attendance information at many locations but automatically store it in one data store for easy and instant payroll reporting. Time Clock MTS will do all of your overtime calculations and your payroll calculations using your rules in just seconds and without error.
Finally, the software contains a number of security features that will help to minimize or eliminate the problems experienced with older manual systems. Employees can no longer manipulate their time card information manually and buddy punching is largely eliminated.
Posted by mnemtsas at 1:15 PM | Comments (0)
July 24, 2008
Vista Time Clock MTS
Did you know Time Clock MTS is 100% compatible with the new Microsoft operating system Windows Vista? Vista brings all sorts of new features to the Windows user and Time Clock MTS operates happily with all of them. The one and only difference with the Vista Time Clock MTS is where the software stores it's configuration files and the default database location.
In Windows XP all of the program data was stored in this directory:
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Time Clock MTS\
Windows Vista changes the location where program data is stored and when using Time Clock MTS on Windows Vista you'll find all of your program information here:
c:\Program Data\Time Clock MTS\
That's really all there is to know about Vista and Time Clock MTS, just download and install Time Clock MTS onto Vista as normal from our website and you'll be up and running in no time.
Posted by mnemtsas at 7:32 AM | Comments (0)
July 23, 2008
Free Punch Clock System
Did you know that Time Clock MTS can be downloaded and installed and then used by you completely free of charge and without restriction for 30 days? Time Clock MTS can be trialled on one or many PC's using the the multiple client version. The trial version of Time Clock MTS can use the normal database backend (MS Access) or the advanced database options MS SQL Server or MySQL.
If you have not purchased Time Clock MTS when the trial period expires then it will switch to the Free Mode, which given that you operate within certain restrictions will give you a free punch clock system forever!
Operating in free mode, Time Clock MTS is still a very capable and useful free punch clock system, and during the startup phase of a business or for very small businesses it may be the only punch clock system you ever need. When operating in free mode Time Clock MTS has the following restrictions:
The free mode of Time Clock MTS will continue forever without charge as long as you never need more than three active employees in the system. If at some later point you need more than this it's a simple matter to purchase a license for the software and to keep working without interruption!
Posted by mnemtsas at 7:23 AM | Comments (0)
July 18, 2008
What Happens to Deleted Employees?
Time Clock MTS allows you to track attendance of employees that work for you. However, as employees leave your organization you may wish to either delete or disable an employee's record in Time Clock MTS. You may want to do this to declutter the employee list or to prevent the employee from recording any more attendance information. When you Disable an employee you can restore the employee while logged in as the administrator and using the Employee Maintenance->Re-Enable An Employee menu item. However, when you Delete an employee there's no way of undeleting that employee from within Time Clock MTS.
However, the deletion is not permanent. The actual employee data and all of their employee attendance information is actually still present in the Time Clock MTS database. All you need to do is email us your Time Clock MTS database and let us know which employee you want undeleted. We'll do it for you and email your database promptly and you'll find that the employee record is now visible again.
Posted by mnemtsas at 1:47 PM | Comments (0)
July 17, 2008
Customizing Time Clock MTS Reports Part 2
In part 1 of customizing Time Clock MTS Reports I covered the basic structure of reports and how you could customize them. In this second part I'll cover some of the Report Sections and the Data Fields that are available to each. If you dont know what a Report Section or Data Field is then go back and take a look at Part 1 of this topic.
Report Header Section
Company Header Section
Employee Details Section
Employee Header Section
In Part 3 of this series I'll cover the remaining report sections.
Posted by mnemtsas at 11:39 AM | Comments (0)
July 9, 2008
Customizing Time Clock MTS Reports Part 1
Version 2 of Time Clock MTS included a complete re-work of the way reports functioned, and allowed you do configure the appearance of reports to suit your requirements. In this weblog entry I'll cover the basic elements of customizing reports, in subsequent entries I'll take a look in detail each aspect of doing so.
Report Structure
Each Time Clock MTS report has the same basic structure, this is best illustrated by the following simple diagram.
<Report Header>
<Company Header>
<Employee Header>
<Employee Details>
<Report Data>
<Employee Summary>
<Employee Accruals>
<Payroll Information>
The first 2 report sections are displayed once per report, the last 6 sections are displayed for each employee you choose to run the report on. All of these report sections except the <Report Data> section can be customized to your requirements. The report data section contains the data for the report that you are currently running.
How Are Report Sections Customized?
Reports are customized by configuring each report section using the Tools->Options->Report Settings page.
You can read more about this page in the Report Settings help topic. In basic terms you use this screen to customize report sections by selecting a report section, and configuring the section template using either free text or by inserting data fields using the Add Field button and drop down.
What is a Section Template?
A section template is simply the text that defines the format of a Report Section. A section template can contain any text you like and can contain Data Fields. Each section template has a number of Data Fields that can be added to it.
What is a Data Field?
A Data Field is text that can be included in a section template that is automatically replaced by Time Clock MTS when reports are generated. For example, if you include the Data Field
Next time I'll cover some of the report sections and the data fields that are available to each.
Posted by mnemtsas at 9:10 AM | Comments (0)
July 2, 2008
How Does Payroll Time Rounding Work
A common question I get is how exactly does payroll time rounding work? So I thought it would be worthwhile to cover it in some more detail to help Time Clock MTS users.
How is Report Rounding Turned On?
You can turn on report rounding on the Tools->Options->Payroll Settings page. For more information take a look at the Time Clock MTS Payroll Settings help topic.
How Does Rounding Work?
Rounding is applied to time information at report time only. The rounding used is just normal arithmetic rounding. Here's an example, let's say we have the time rounding set to 15 minutes and the normal clock in time for your employees is 7:30 AM. In this example, anything on or before 7:37:29 AM is rounded down to 7:30 AM, and anything on or after 7:37:30 is rounded up to 7:45 AM.
What Does the Least Quantity Checkbox Do?
Checking this box over-rides the rounding scheme as shown above. The most basic way of explaining it is that all clock ins are ROUNDED UP and all clock outs are ROUNDED DOWN. So, in our example above any employee clocking in after 7:30:00 AM will have their time rounded up to 7:45:00 AM. Let's say the normal clock out time for the above example is 4:30:00 PM. When the Least Quantity check box is marked, any employee clocking out between 4:30:01 PM and 4:44:59 PM will have their clock out time rounded down to 4:30:00 PM. The practical effect of the Least Quantity check box is that the hours worked are minimized.
What Effect Does Rounding Have on Stored Time Information?
None, clock in and clock out data is still stored to the nearest second, the rounding takes effect when you run a report. In fact, you can now generate reports and suppress the rounding so you can view your raw time information. To do this all you need to do is check the Turn Off Rounding checkbox on the Report Configuration screen.
Why Would you use Time Rounding?
To comply with either your workplace payroll rules or government payroll regulations. A lot of workplaces have a minimum amount of payable overtime, so rounding can be easily used to prevent employees accumulating small amounts of overtime by clocking in slightly early, or clocking out slightly late. Another reason could be to allow for some leeway in clocking in or out, clearly not everyone can clock in exactly on time so time rounding allows for this. For example, Californian labor law allows for some leeway in rounding of time, allowing employers to not pay overtime for employees who clock in slightly early or out slightly late (provided they are not actually working of course). For more information on this take a look at the Department of Labor Website.
That about sums it all up, if you have any questions, as always post a comment or email us.
Posted by mnemtsas at 10:16 AM | Comments (0)
June 20, 2008
Using a Webcam with your Time Clock Software
A key problem with any time clock system is that of employees that clock in and out for each other. This is known as 'buddy punching' and is the main method by which employees try to manipulate their time card information. The use of magnetic cards, proximity devices, and PINs can help reduce buddy punching, but of course it does not prevent employees sharing their card, prox device, or even their PIN with a co-worker and still providing fraudulent data.
There are a couple of ways of eliminating buddy punching, one of these is capturing an employee image at the time of clocking or out. Using a computer along with Time Clock MTS and cheaply available web cameras allows you to have a very secure time and attendance solution that can largely eliminate buddy punching and help reduce your payroll costs accordingly.
Camera Hardware Requirements
You don't need anything special to allow Time Clock MTS to capture images when employees clock in and out. Time Clock MTS will work with almost any sort of USB web camera, if your version of MS Windows can detect your web camera then Time Clock MTS can probably use it.
Software Requirements
There are no additional software requirements, if you have Time Clock MTS Version 2.0.2 or newer then you have all the software you require to use a camera with Time Clock MTS. You can always download Time Clock MTS from here.
Setting Up Time Clock MTS to Use a Web Camera
Just make sure your web camera is plugged into your computer and then run Time Clock MTS and log in as the administrator. Go to the Tools->Options->Camera Settings page. You'll see the following screen:
If your camera is connected properly and is accessible by Time Clock MTS just check the Enable Image Capture check box. See below for a range of configuration options to setup image capture to suit your requirements:
Viewing Captured Images
If you suspect that buddy punching is going on in your work place then you can view captured images easily from within Time Clock MTS. While you are logged in as the administrator go to the Tools->Edit Times screen.
You will see a button in the toolbar above the list of times with a camera icon on it. Just select the time you wish to view the captured image for, and then click the camera button. You'll then be shown the following screen showing your captured image along with the clock in/out and user details that are associated with the captured image.
(In case you're wondering no that's not me!)
That's all there is to it. If you have a web camera and want to ensure that your time clock information is secure and accurate then I'd strongly recommend using this feature to help reduce your payroll costs!
Posted by mnemtsas at 8:15 AM | Comments (0)
June 17, 2008
Creating Employees the Easy Way
One change to Time Clock MTS is simply a new item added to the Employee Maintenance menu. This deceptively simple menu item Copy Selected Employee fixes up one of the most common complaints I had about Time Clock MTS. Usually the complaint went something like this:
"How can I add employees to Time Clock MTS without having to type in all the details for every single one?"
Well, prior to Version 2, the answer to this question was you just can't add a number of employees quickly and easily. Right though, with the addition of the menu item above the job of adding many employees to Time Clock MTS has suddenly become a lot easier.
Here's how to quickly add an employee using another employee record as a template:
Posted by mnemtsas at 7:23 AM | Comments (0)
June 14, 2008
Easily Finding Employees on the Employee List Interface
The employee list interface of Time Clock MTS is simple and easy to use when you have a mouse and keyboard available. However, when the list of employees becomes long it can be a chore to sort through it to find a name to be able to clock in or out. Time Clock MTS Version 2.0.1 introduces a new feature to allow you to easily find a name on the list with just a few keystrokes.
At the bottom of the employee list you can see a light blue colored text box, in its default state this box says <Search for an Employee>. If you type some letters in this box Time Clock MTS will find the first employee in the list whose name starts with those letters, the more letters you type the more refined the search will be.
For example, in the screenshot above lets say you type a 'J' into the box, Time Clock MTS will find the first person whose name starts with 'J' and select them (in this case John Smith). If you then type an 'o' it will select the first person whose name starts with 'Jo' (again John Smith). If you refine the search further by entering a 's' it will select the first person whose name starts with a 'Jos' (this time Jose Martinez is selected).
So, if you have a long employee list, and need to find your own name (or someone elses ) quickly and easily, just select the Search for an Employee text box, type in the first few characters of their name, and you'll be taken to their listing almost immediately.
Posted by mnemtsas at 3:46 PM | Comments (0)
May 22, 2008
Problems with Maryland NTP Servers
We have been seeing problems with time synching to the Maryland NTP time servers in the last few days. If you're seeing problems with this then please select any of the three time servers in Colorado. You can choose the time servers on the Tools->Options->Security page.
Posted by mnemtsas at 12:01 AM | Comments (0)
May 14, 2008
Setting Up Yearly Accruals
A user asked an interesting question last week, and one that had me stumped for just a few minutes. Can Time Clock MTS handle yearly accruals of Vacation and Sick Time? Yearly accruals work by crediting the employee with the full allocation of their sick or vacation time upon the anniversary of their employment or the start of the fiscal year. Typically this sort of accrual scheme will credit the employee with their full amount at the start of the yearly period and allow them to deplete it during the year. Here's how to set it up:
That's all there is to it. As always feel free to ask any questions you might have.
Posted by mnemtsas at 10:57 AM | Comments (0)
May 7, 2008
Administrator Passwords
Time Clock MTS has two levels of user access. That of the normal user or employee who just needs to clock in or out, and that of the Administrator who needs to configure Time Clock MTS and run reports. To use Time Clock MTS as the adminstrator you need to log in as the Administrator using a password.
How Is the Administrator Password Set?
The administrator password is set by you when you first install and run the Time Clock MTS Administration program. The screenshot below shows where you enter the administrator password.
How do I log in as the Administrator?
By simply using the File->Log in as Administrator menu.
Can I Change the Administrator Password?
Yes you can change the administrator password any time you like. All you need to do is run the Time Clock MTS Administration program and log in as the administrator. Then go to the Tools->Options->System Options screen. For more help on this try taking a look at the System Options Help Topic.
I've Forgotten the Administrator Password What Do I Do?
You need to send us your Time Clock MTS database so we can reset it for you. There's detailed instructions on how to recover a forgotten Time Clock MTS Administrator password on our support forum.
Why Cant I Reset it From Within Time Clock MTS?
For security reasons. If there was some method within the software to reset the administrator password the unscrupulous people could do so to manipulate the software for fraudulent reasons.
Posted by mnemtsas at 11:58 AM | Comments (0)
April 23, 2008
Time Clock MTS Configuration and Log File Directory Part 2
In Part 1 of this entry we had a look at the directory where Time Clock MTS stores all of it's local configuration and logging information. Now we'll take a quick look at the files in this location and what they are used for.
Just a quick final tip. If you are having problems with Time Clock MTS and you're emailing us about them it's always a good idea to attach the log.txt and logdll.txt files to the email as they can contain a lot of useful information that helps us get to the bottom of your problems.
Posted by mnemtsas at 9:12 AM | Comments (0)
April 16, 2008
Time Clock MTS Configuration and Log File Directory
Time Clock MTS stores all of its' local configuration and log files in the common program data directory on the computer that it is installed on. It can be useful to know where this directory is for several reasons, you might want to move the Time Clock MTS database, you might want to copy the main configuration file to share it among other computers, or you may need to send the log files to us to help sort out problems you are having. The exact location of the directory depends entirely on the version of Windows that you happen to be running. To determine where your information is take a look at this list:
Windows Vista (All Versions)
c:\ProgramData\Time Clock MTS\
Windows XP / Windows 2003 Server / Windows 2000
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Time Clock MTS
Windows Me / Windows 98 SE
C:\Windows\All Users\Application Data\Time Clock MTS\
Usually you can just navigate directly to this directory using Windows Explorer but in some cases Windows can be configured to hide system files and folders (of which this is one) by default. If this is the case then you'll need to use Windows Explorer to change some settings to allow you to find this directory. You can learn how to do this on your version of Windows by taking a look here.
In the next entry I'll take a look at the files in this directory and run through what they are and what they are used for.
Posted by mnemtsas at 4:01 PM | Comments (0)
April 4, 2008
Free Time Clock Software
Time Clock MTS can be downloaded , installed and used completely free of charge for 30 days with no restrictions whatsoever. So you can trial it on one PC, or on many PC's with the multiple client version, you can make use of the standard MS Access database backend, or with one of the advanced database options like SQL Server or MySQL. When the trial period runs out, and you haven't purchased an appropriate license most of this functionality is disabled and the software will revert to the Free Mode of operation.
When Time Clock MTS is operating in free mode it is still useful as a time and attendance software package, and for a lot of small or micro businesses it will be all they ever need until they grow beyond a certain size. The free version of Time Clock MTS operates with the following restrictions:
You can use Time Clock MTS in free mode forever given that you don't exceed the three active employee limit. And of course, at any time you can purchase a license for the software and register it to unlock the more advanced capabilities of the program.
Posted by mnemtsas at 9:56 AM | Comments (0)
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 17, 2008
Microsoft Access Database Password Support
Version 1.6.2 of
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:
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 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:
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)
February 25, 2008
Time Clock MTS Advanced Database Support - Why do I want it?
Advanced database support allows Time Clock MTS to use a number of fast, efficient, reliable and industrial strength databases to store it's data. The benefit to you, the customer, is software that will run faster and more reliably allowing you to collect information at a large number of work stations. The standard MS Access database used with Time Clock MTS is generally fine for most applications, but for added reliability and safety advanced database support is recommended. If you want more than 20 Time Clock MTS Client work stations then Advanced Database Support is your only option.
Currently Time Clock MTS supports MSDE, SQL Server 2000/2005, SQL Express, and MySQL. If you have a license for any of these products then please make use of them in conjunction with Time Clock MTS. If you are an existing user of Time Clock MTS you can purchase an upgrade to use them at any time, just contact us for more information. If you are considering using Time Clock MTS then please make use of the Advanced Database Support that is enabled by default in the free 30 day trial of the software.
Posted by mnemtsas at 11:51 AM | Comments (0)