26
Feb

TimeForge is a powerful, but easy to use, labor management platform for service oriented industries (restaurants, retail, c-stores, grocers, hotels, etc…). Service-oriented businesses often have difficulties managing the complexities of their ever changing and high turnover workforce.

TimeForge can help manage labor by making labor management simple. Staff are commonly scheduled to work doubles, or back-to-back shifts. In some cases, a staff member may transition from one job (or position) to another without ever leaving the business, and may forget to switch their position in the attendance system.

To help ease administration of employees clocking in and out throughout the day, TimeForge can automatically switch staff to the correct position.

For example, a waiter or waitress (server) may work from 10:00am - 3:00pm as a waiter, and then transition to a bartender from 4:00pm - 8:00pm. Or, a lifeguard may work from 8:00am - 1:00pm, then as a swim coach from 1:00pm - 3:00pm.

Navigate to the Attendance Options

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Locate the Attendance Options tab inside of TimeForge.

Set the Auto-Switch Position Flag

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Locate the option to automatically switch positions, based on the schedule, for staff members who are clocked in.

Switch this from No to Yes, and then save your options.

TimeForge now will automatically switch jobs / positions for staff members who work back-to-back shifts.

Please note: The staff member needs to clock in to the first scheduled shift to allow TimeForge to transition between positions.

Category : Attendance Tab | Blog
25
Feb

TimeForge is a flexible, but simple to use, workforce management platform for service oriented industries (restaurants, retail, c-stores, grocers, hotels, etc…).

TimeForge can help manage the workforce by making labor management simple and intuitive. Staff often forget to clock in, causing business disruption and a loss of profits when managers are disrupted to enter a time entry for the staff.

To help ease the administrative burden of keeping accurate time clock entries for staff members, TimeForge can automatically clock staff in based on the schedule.

For example, a cook might be scheduled at 9:00am, but forget to clock in. TimeForge can automatically clock them in at 9:00am if they have not already done so.

Navigate to the Attendance Options

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Locate the Attendance Options tab inside of TimeForge.

Set up Automatic Clock In

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Locate the option to automatically clock employees in, based on their schedule, and switch the value from No (the default) to Yes.

Category : Attendance Tab | Blog
24
Feb

TimeForge can help manage your labor by making workforce management simple and intuitive for day-to-day tasks. Staff often forget to clock out for the end of their shift, causing business disruption and a loss of profits when managers are disrupted to enter a time entry for the staff.

To help ease the administrative burden of keeping accurate time clock entries for staff members, TimeForge can automatically clock staff out based on the posted schedule.

For example, a bartender might be scheduled to work from 4:00pm - 2:00am, but forget to clock out at the end of the shift. TimeForge can automatically clock them out at 2:00am if they have not already done so.

Navigate to the Attendance Options

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Locate the Attendance Options tab inside of TimeForge.

Turn On the Automatic Clock Out Option

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Locate the option to automatically clock employees out, based on their schedule shift, and switch the value from No (the default) to Yes.

Category : Attendance Tab | Blog
23
Feb

TimeForge is a powerful labor management solution for your business. Most hourly wage workers in a business need arrive at work on time - too early will cause payroll problems, and too late will cause customer service disruptions. Four clock in and clock out scenarios will create problems for your business:

1. Arriving before the scheduled in time will reduce business profits, as staff members will arrive at work before they are needed.
2. Arriving after the scheduled in time causes customer service problems, as staff will not be available to service the customer’s needs.

3. Leaving before the scheduled out time can cause similar problems as clocking in late. Customers may not be serviced properly, and other staff may be overworked.
4. Leaving after the scheduled out time will increase payroll costs for the business, decreasing profits.

TimeForge provides multiple technology enhancements that will enforce your labor schedule, ensuring that staff show up on time, and that management know of time entries that affect payroll costs and the bottom line. Enforcing the schedule will reduce your labor costs by 2 - 4% with the click of a button!

Navigate to the Attendance Options

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Locate the Attendance Options link or sub-tab (inside of the Attendance tab).

Enforce the Schedule by the Scheduled Time

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To require that employees clock in and out based on the scheduled time, without providing a grace period, set the options as follows.

Please check your local labor regulations to see which ones are applicable (and legal) for your business.

For clocking in:
1. Leave this option set to Yes, allowing employees to clock in at any time.
2. Switch this option from No, to Yes, requiring that staff members acknowledge that their clock in times will not show the actual clock in time, but will instead show the scheduled start time.
TimeForge will record the scheduled start time (not the real time), unless overridden by a manager.

For clocking out:
1. Leave this option set to Yes, allowing employees to clock out at any time.
2. Switch this option from No, to Yes, requiring that staff members acknowledge that their clock out times will not show the actual clock out time, but will instead show the scheduled end time.
TimeForge will record the scheduled end time (not the real time), unless overridden by a manager.

Example:
Using the above options, a staff member may be scheduled from 9:00am - 3:00pm. If the employee shows up at 8:30am, TimeForge will record a start time of 9:00am (not 8:30am). When leaving, if the staff member leaves after 3:00pm, TimeForge will record an end time of 3:00pm. A manager can override and change the behavior of TimeForge when the staff member clocks in or clocks out.

Category : Attendance Tab | Blog
22
Feb

TimeForge is a powerful labor management solution for your business. Most hourly wage workers in a business need arrive at work on time - too early will cause payroll problems, and too late will cause customer service disruptions. Four clock in and clock out scenarios will create problems for your business:

1. Arriving before the scheduled in time will reduce business profits, as staff members will arrive at work before they are needed.
2. Arriving after the scheduled in time causes customer service problems, as staff will not be available to service the customer’s needs.

3. Leaving before the scheduled out time can cause similar problems as clocking in late. Customers may not be serviced properly, and other staff may be overworked.
4. Leaving after the scheduled out time will increase payroll costs for the business, decreasing profits.

TimeForge provides multiple technology enhancements that will enforce your labor schedule, ensuring that staff show up on time, and that management know of time entries that affect payroll costs and the bottom line. Enforcing the schedule will reduce your labor costs by 2 - 4% with the click of a button!

Navigate to the Attendance Options

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Locate the Attendance Options link or sub-tab (inside of the Attendance tab).

Enforce the Schedule with Grace Periods

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To require that staff members clock in and out with a grace period, based on their scheduled shift, set the options as follows.

Please check your local labor regulations to see which ones are applicable (and legal) for your business.

For clocking in:
1. Switch this option from Yes, to No, requiring that employees must clock in at a predefined time.
2. Enter an appropriate grace period in minutes. This will allow employees to clock in prior to their shift starting.
Staff members who clock in too early will need a manager to approve their clock in.

For clocking out:
3. Switch this option from Yes, to No, requiring that employees must clock out at a predefined time.
4. Enter an appropriate grace period in minutes. This will allow employees to clock out after their shift ends.
Staff members who clock out too late will need a manager to approve their clock out.

Example:
Using the above options, a staff member who is scheduled from 10:00am - 4:00pm would be allowed to clock in after 9:50am, and must clock out no later than 4:20pm. Earlier than 9:50am or later than 4:20pm will require a manager override.

Category : Attendance Tab | Blog
10
Feb

TimeForge includes a powerful and flexible time and attendance management system, and is able to track time punches on an accurate minute-by-minute clock (which is synchronized with the National Institute of Standards and Technology and is always on time). TimeForge can use the clock in and clock out time punches to calculate payroll for your pay period without any problems. Accurate time tracking is part of what TimeForge does!

However, some businesses (especially in the restaurant, hotel, and hospitality industries) prefer to round time punch for easier calculations. To make time punch calculations easier, TimeForge can round each clock in or clock out time to the nearest 5, 10, 15, 30, or 60 minute period.

Navigate to Attendance Options

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Navigate to the Attendance Options tab in TimeForge.

Set Rounding Rules for Clock In and Clock Out Times

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Pick the correct rounding rule from the drop-down for time punches in TimeForge. Make sure to Save your settings.

Please note: TimeForge will not round any time entries provided by your POS system. If you want to round time and attendance in your Point of Sale system, please do so within the POS software.

Please note: TimeForge will not round previous time periods. Changing the rounding rules will only affect upcoming time punch entries.

Category : Attendance Tab | Blog
10
Feb

There are many benefits to Software As A Service (SaaS software), which is why TimeForge was built from the ground up as a web-based software solution. More specifically, Managers do not have any software to install, nothing to upgrade, and there are no worries about backups or restoring of data. However, one common concern with web based software and time card tracking is ensuring that staff members are physically at work before they are allowed to clock in.

TimeForge is able to accomplish this by limiting time punches (clocking in and out) to a specific IP address. IP addresses are unique identifiers for computers on the Internet, and are normally provided by your Internet Service Provider (ISP). In many cases, multiple computers in a single office will share a single IP address through the use of a router or firewall device (such as those provided by Cisco, Linksys, D-Link, or Netgear). Similar to a phone number, only physical location at a time can have an IP address. For example, if your IP address is 208.45.167.3, no other computer system in the world will have that IP address.

TimeForge can require that staff members must be at the physical location that corresponds to your IP address before allowing them to clock in or out. This TimeForge lesson covers the specifics of configuring your IP address inside of TimeForge.

In some cases, your ISP will provide a dynamic IP address, which changes every few weeks. Most ISP’s will allow you to get a static, or sticky-static IP address for a nominal monthly fee.

Please note: Additionally, TimeForge can require that employees must clock in and clock out using a fingerprint scanner, which will restrict clocking in and out to a single physical computer at your location.

Navigate to the Attendance Options

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Locate the Attendance Options tab inside of TimeForge.

Add your IP Address to the list of allowed IP Addresses

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Within TimeForge, you can specify one or more IP addresses for employees to clock in.

To add an IP address for employees to clock in:
1. You can type your IP address into the text box. IP addresses should be separated by a space, comma, or on separate lines.
2. Instead of typing in the IP address, you can click on the “Add this computer to allowed IPs” link, and TimeForge will add your current IP address to the list of allowed IP addresses.

Make sure to Save your settings.

Employees Will Not Be Allowed To Clock In from Restricted Computers

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Employees that try to clock in to TimeForge from a computer at a different IP address than the IP addresses you have allowed, will receive a warning similar to the above screen shot.

These staff members will not be able to clock in or clock out.

Category : Attendance Tab | Blog
27
Jan

Managing sick, vacation, and PTO time is very important for many businesses. Normally, the approval process for leave is done similarly to payroll approval - on a weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly basis. TimeForge reduces the amount of time needed to track sick, vacation, and PTO time. Businesses that track hourly wage workers, such as restaurants, retail businesses, hotels, c-stores, and many other types of businesses, profit from the speed and efficiency of the TimeForge Attendance software.

Get the Flash Player to see this movie.

With TimeForge Attendance, managing staff time sheets, sick and vacation time, and other attendance information has never been easier! Staff time sheets are always accurate, and are correctly totaled based on your payroll rules. Export payroll for a variety of payroll vendors, including QuickBooks, ADP, Paychex, SurePayroll, and other payroll companies. Benefit from TimeForge every day!

Category : Videos | Blog
19
Jan

TimeForge is an extensive and powerful time and attendance management package, and you can begin to see some of TimeForge’s power by clicking on the Attendance tab. Many, but not all, of the time and attendance capabilities occur within the Attendance tab.

After you have collected time cards for all of your employees, and have made sure that the time punches are correct, you can export your payroll to a variety of supported payroll platforms, including SurePayroll, ADP, Paychex, Quickbooks, and others.

In this lesson, we will tackle exporting payroll for SurePayroll.

Enter Employee Payroll ID’s

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SurePayroll will provide each of your staff members with a unique payroll ID which will allow you to export time card information for your staff.

Before running payroll, please make sure that each staff member’s payroll ID has been entered correctly.

Navigate to the Attendance Tab

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Navigate to the Approve / Export Payroll page in the Attendance tab.

Choose a Pay Period

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Choose the pay period you would like to export. This will normally be the most recent payroll period that has ended.

Please note: To use TimeForge payroll approval, you must configure the payroll period for your location.

Review and Approve Attendance

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If this is the first time processing the pay period, TimeForge will display a list of all time card entries for the pay period. You can review staff member time cards by date, time, employee, position, or cost.

Additionally, TimeForge will display outliers, or “Most Different” time entries, so that you can quickly and easily identify time punches that may be erroneous or problematic.

Focusing on time entries labeled “Very Different” will allow you to find missed punches, late and early clock ins, employees who forgot to clock out, and other strange data before you have approved the payroll for SurePayroll.

After approving time punches for the pay period, you will not be able to edit the time punches inside of TimeForge. Instead, you will need to make the appropriate changes in your payroll program.

Note: You will not be able to approve payroll if employees are currently clocked in for the time period.

When you are ready to Approve payroll, click on the “Approve Attendance Export” at the bottom of the screen.

Choose SurePayroll for the Payroll Provider

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Choose SurePayroll from the drop-down list of payroll providers.

Each provider has a different file format - choosing the correct provider is crucial.

Payroll Export Results to SurePayroll

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TimeForge will process the attendance entries for the pay period you selected, and will return a payroll file to you. You can then upload the file to SurePayroll for further processing.

If any problems are found, such as a missing employee payroll ID, TimeForge will prompt you to correct these problems before exporting the data.

Category : Attendance Tab | Blog
16
Jan

TimeForge is able to integrate with many different software systems, including accounting and payroll programs such as QuickBooks. QuickBooks is the most popular accounting system for small businesses in the world, and is used by small, medium, and large businesses around the globe.

The TimeForge QuickBooks integration involves installing the TimeForge Accounting Bridge software on one of the computers running QuickBooks. If you are using QuickBooks Enterprise, you can install the software on the QuickBooks Enterprise server.

The TimeForge Accounting software will read approved time sheets from TimeForge, and then import time cards and weekly time sheets into QuickBooks. With the time sheets inside of QuickBooks, you can pay your employees using QuickBooks Payroll - either by cutting your staff a check, or using Intuit Online Payroll.

Synchronize Your Time Sheets from TimeForge into QuickBooks

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After you have approved your time sheets from inside of TimeForge, you are ready to run payroll.

Make sure you have QuickBooks running, and have opened your company file.

Then, choose Synchronize Now from the TimeForge Accounting Translator to start.

Decide How You Want to Be Notified

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Synchronizing your time sheet and payroll data from TimeForge into QuickBooks could take from one to five minutes.

Decide if you would like to receive a pop-up notification when the synchronization is complete.

Time Sheet Data Imported Successfully

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If you choose to receive a pop-up reminder, TimeForge will notify you after the synchronization is successful and the timesheets have been placed into QuickBooks.

Any notes, errors, or warnings about the synchronization / import will be shown in the Messages screen.

Your Timesheets are imported!

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After the time sheets are imported, you can run payroll with QuickBooks. Using QuickBooks, you can run your own checks, or use one of their many options to do electronic payroll.

Category : QuickBooks | Blog

About Us

TimeForge builds the best management tools available for the food-service, retail, restaurant, and hospitality industries. Read more about our products ...

 

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3417 73rd Street, Suite G
Lubbock, TX 79423

Phone: 866 - 684 - 7191

info@TimeForge.com


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