Case Study: Time Clocks to Manage Payroll
This case study explains how a landscaper used time clocks to manage payroll and saved big in the process.
Accuchex has a payroll client with anywhere from 100 to 150 employees depending on the season of the year. This is a commercial landscape company with crews that work at different jobsites each week.
When we first began to manage the company’s payroll in 2009, they chose not to use our time clocks. The office staff recorded their time using an “honor” system and the crews in the field kept their time manually based on the job they were working. Management felt that asking staff to punch a clock would change the culture and in some cases, would be difficult and “too techy” for many of their staff.
Time Clocks – Problem and Solution
Shortly after we began processing their payroll, they decided to at least begin collecting time electronically with their office staff. We installed a single clock in the office for the 4 or 5 people to use and shortly after that they changed to the web-clock which the office staff could access from their own desktops. Needless to say 2 of them quit shortly after the time clock system was implemented as they had been caught “red handed” reporting excessive time worked. Since implementing the time clock in the office, they have had no more issues with the office staff “pilfering” time. With a very simple web-based time clock system Accuchex solved one of their problems.
Another Problem
Their second issue was more complicated and was brought to our attention about six months later. The crews that would go to the job sites were keeping their time on paper by job number. On payroll preparation day, the payroll clerk would collect all of the hand written paper time sheets (could be 50 or more), decipher and enter the information into a spreadsheet. This information is then re-keyed in to Time2Pay, Accuchex’s proprietary payroll management system. For one department this process took all day Monday; it was very time consuming. A second department was entering all of the job numbers along with the days of per diem. This took most of Tuesday. Due to the time consuming manual process, they were unable to report and submit the payroll until late Tuesday and sometimes even Wednesday.
Management was mildly concerned about employees exaggerating their time worked on their time sheets. For example, writing down the time they left their house and not the time they actually started working at the job site.
Suggested Solution
After discussing options, it was decided to test a single clock with a single employee. At the time, the crew supervisor was issued a hand-held time clock device into which employees “punched in & out.” The crew supervisor was prompted to also enter a job code (location) number. We tested this for 2 weeks to see how it worked and it seemed to get the job done so we rolled it out to all the crews. The results were amazing!
Results of Solutions Implemented
Today, one department only enters vacation time and corrects the missed punches and edits in the system. This process now takes less than an hour instead of all of Monday!
The second department only fixes any incorrect job numbers, which used to take all of Tuesday, so the time savings alone for this company is 8-16 man hours per week.
The big savings, however, is in the total labor hours recorded. The company estimates that the time clocks are saving them over $200,000 per year in labor costs because they are only paying their employees based on actual hours worked!
Conclusion
At first, the company was hesitant and assumed the monthly cost to use the time clocks would be too high, but after seeing the dollars saved, the monthly cost is irrelevant to the client.
This company has issued each crew supervisor in the field a hand-help time device that can plug into the cigarette light in his vehicle and also has battery backup. Needless to say the culture was indeed changed and management is extremely happy with the solution!