Labor Management. NOW Simple.

LUBBOCK, Texas – May 12, 2009 – TimeForge, a best-of-breed online labor management solution for the whospitality and retail industries announced its certification with Dinerware, a leading developer of restaurant Point Of Sale (POS) systems.

This move continues a key Dinerware objective, allowing customers to choose from many excellent products that interoperate with the Dinerware POS platform. “The Virtual Client in Dinerware version 2.8.2 enables third-party product integrations that allow restaurateurs to select specific functionalities for their business models and plans for growth,” said Jeff Riley, Dinerware CEO. “We are excited about our certification of TimeForge which enables restaurateurs to easily manage labor and scheduling.”

TimeForge’s online system is designed from the ground up to reduce labor costs by 3% – 5% and to keep staff members happy. Managers build labor schedules quickly with the TimeForge AutoScheduler™ – an automatic and learning tool that builds schedules in seconds.  Schedules are compared to actual costs and forecasts, providing a single solution to manage labor costs.

“Dinerware’s intense focus on the core POS system makes it one of the best systems available for the hospitality industry,” said Anthony Presley, co-founder of TimeForge. “We are excited about this partnership and look forward to providing customers with the best solutions available in the industry.”

Employees receive text and email messages about upcoming shifts, and access the TimeForge employee portal to swap shifts, change availability, or view timecards.  Information can also be accessed using Facebook, or a smartphone (such as an iPhone or Blackberry).

“I can make sure my labor is at 25-28% on a daily basis with the use of TimeForge. That makes a huge difference in this economy,” said Dinerware customer, Paul Friedman. “At Peli Peli, we are using a variety of integrated tools with our Dinerware POS system, and TimeForge makes communication and scheduling easy on management and the staff.”

The certification provides Dinerware customers with a complete labor management solution, including employee schedules, schedule enforcement, labor cost reductions, and real-time notifications for staff and management.  Dinerware continues to expand its best-in-class POS platform to provide restauranteurs a host of offerings via Dinerware version 2.8.2.

About Dinerware
Dinerware provides restaurant POS systems to fine dining, nightclubs, fast casual, bars, counter service, QSR (quick serve), hotels, casinos, cafes, golf courses and wineries. Headquartered in Seattle, Washington and sold worldwide, Dinerware provides intuitive systems for the hospitality industry. For a list of Dinerware certified solutions, or for a free trial download, visit http://www.dinerware.com or call (866) 346-3792.

About TimeForge
TimeForge helps businesses in the hospitality, restaurant, and retail industries manage labor and build employee schedules while reducing turnover and improving profits.  Used by businesses throughout the world, TimeForge is designed from the ground-up to simplify the complicated process of employee scheduling and labor management.  For more information, visit http://www.timeforge.com or contact us at (866) 684-7191.

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SEATTLE, WA–(Marketwire – May 11, 2009) – Dinerware, Inc., a leading developer of restaurant POS (point of sale) software, today announced its certification of TimeForge, an online labor management and employee scheduling system.

The certification allows Dinerware to expand its best-in-class POS platform and provide restaurateurs a host of offerings from TimeForge via Dinerware version 2.8.2, using the SOAP, XML-based Application Programming Interface (API), or Virtual Client.

TimeForge provides Dinerware customers with a complete labor management solution. Restaurateurs and other hospitality owners can quickly manage employee schedules, schedule enforcement, labor cost reductions, and real-time notifications for staff and management.

“Dinerware’s intense focus on the core POS system makes it one of the best systems available for the hospitality industry. We are excited about this partnership and look forward to providing customers with the best solutions available in the industry,” said Anthony Presley, co-founder of TimeForge.

TimeForge’s online labor management system is designed to keep staff happy and reduce labor costs by 3% – 5%. Employee schedules are built in seconds with the help of the TimeForge AutoScheduler™ — a learning and automatic scheduling tool, and more than 40 labor reports are available. Employees stay “in the loop” and receive email and text messages, swap shifts, request time off, or view their timecard through the TimeForge website, a smartphone (such as a BlackBerry or iPhone), or Facebook.

“I can make sure my labor is at 25-28% on a daily basis with the use of TimeForge. That makes a huge difference in this economy,” said Dinerware customer, Paul Friedman. “At Peli Peli, we are using a variety of integrated tools with our Dinerware POS system, and TimeForge makes communication and scheduling easy on management and the staff.”

This move continues to support a key Dinerware objective which is to allow customers to choose from many products that interoperate with the core Dinerware point-of-sale platform. “The Virtual Client in Dinerware version 2.8.2 enables third-party product integrations that allow restaurateurs to select specific functionalities for their business models and plans for growth,” said Jeff Riley, Dinerware CEO. “We are excited about our certification of TimeForge which enables restaurateurs to easily manage labor and scheduling.”

About Dinerware
Dinerware provides restaurant (point of sale) systems to fine dining, cafes, nightclubs, bars, fast casual, counter service, QSR (quick serve), hotels, casinos, golf courses and wineries. Headquartered in Seattle, Washington and sold worldwide, Dinerware provides intuitive systems for the hospitality industry. For a list of Dinerware certified solutions, or for a free trial download, visit http://www.dinerware.com or call (866) 346-3792.

About TimeForge
TimeForge helps businesses in the hospitality, restaurant, and retail industries manage labor and build employee schedules while reducing turnover, increasing retention, and improving profits. Used by businesses throughout the world, TimeForge is designed from the ground-up to simplify the complicated process of employee scheduling and labor management. For more information, visit http://www.timeforge.com or contact us at (866) 684-7191.

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The 2008 year has come to a roaring close and the staff at TimeForge would like to thank you for helping us provide powerful software that lets you compete in business, and be happy in life.

As many of you have probably discovered, TimeForge received massive updates on Wednesday and Friday.  These updates fix a number of software bugs that were reported, and it also includes more than two dozen brand new features available for TimeForge users.

Some of these new features include:

New Reporting Tools! We’ve have released a new reporting solution to provide you with greater control over sorting order, font sizes, and better reports.  All of the TimeForge reports have been re-written to give us enormous flexibility in the coming months.  Be prepared for new reports, and new ways to look at them (exporting to Excel will be available soon).

Automatic Sales and Inventory Forecasts! In addition to being able to track Manager Projections and Actual Values, TimeForge Sales will automatically predict and forecast sales and inventory values – accounting for factors such as seasonality, current staff levels, and others.

Corporate Level Employees! For our customers that manage multiple locations, you can now view employees at the corporate level – all locations in a single list.  Employee management has never been more simple!

Need to Track Certificates, Uniforms, or Employee Reviews? You can now track all of this using the TimeForge Certifications!  TimeForge Certifications can include tracking of test dates, the score received on the test, and when the test expires.  Certifications can impact the schedule, providing warnings when employees with expired certifications (or missing certifications) are scheduled to work.

Smarter AutoScheduling! The AutoScheduler has been improved to look at previous scheduling assignments, and learn how to better assign staff members.  The AutoScheduler can often build the same schedule that the manager would!  Less typing means that schedules are made faster so you can go home early.

Employee-Centric Schedules and Attendance! Need to find out when Sally or Tom works next?  Don’t want to have to go click on the schedule or search the attendance records?  No problem!  Go to your employee list, find the employee and click on “Edit”, and you will see two new tabs, “Schedules” and “Attendance”.  Find out when Sally or Tom is scheduled, or actually worked, in the upcoming weeks, or any previous time period.  Instantly change the schedule directly from here.  We even show schedules from multiple locations!

Break Improvements – Remove Breaks from Calculations. Some businesses track schedules by looking at the whole time that the employee is at work.  Other organizations prefer to ignore unpaid breaks (such as lunch breaks) in the time and cost calculations.  Both paid and unpaid breaks can now be removed from the schedule calculations by changing a few TimeForge settings.

Payroll Period Tracking – If you use TimeForge Attendance, you can now identify your payroll periods and run reports using these periods, rather than entering your own time ranges.  Payroll periods can be set up for weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly payroll.

Of course, there were numerous other minor improvements made to TimeForge, including a streamlined sign up process, easier template management, and much more!

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August 21, 2008 – Lubbock, TX – It happens on every Friday of every work week in hospitality, restaurant, and retail businesses around the world. Employees call and want to know when they are scheduled to work during the upcoming week, but the manager hasn’t posted the schedule. Staff members are not able to plan their personal lives without the work schedule which creates conflicts and leads to employee terminations and resignations as soon as the schedule is posted. With labor scheduling software tools, management can reduce schedule conflicts, minimize turnover, and improve profitability at their business.

Managing a labor force requires scheduling part-time and full-time employees properly before they are needed for work and also tracking when employees clock-in and clock-out. Good managers reduce the difference between the theoretical work schedule and the actual hours worked while maximizing sales at the business. Improper employee scheduling leads to one of two circumstances:

1. More employees are scheduled to work than are necessary – increasing payroll costs and reducing profits. Employees may be cut from the schedule without working their scheduled hours.
2. Not enough employees are scheduled to work – decreasing sales and reducing profits. Employees must be called in to work, creating frustration and high turnover among personnel.

Neither option is desirable and the key to avoiding both situations is to monitor and refine the schedule at your business. As experienced managers know, building an accurate schedule takes several hours a week and must consider all of the following items:

• Availability sheets
• Communication and request log books
• Shift swaps and trading
• Minor rules
• Scheduled breaks
• Lunches
• Employee notifications
• Training and certifications
• And many other factors …

Using TimeForge, a web-based labor management system, managers quickly build accurate schedules while reducing turnover, enhancing communication, and improving retention. The recently updated TimeForge provides more time saving features, new pricing plans, and now includes a powerful Daily Log.

With a comprehensive labor management tool, payroll expenses are reduced and employee turnover is continually monitored. TimeForge keeps managers out of the back office and puts them back on the floor where they can directly influence the profits of the business.

About TimeForge
TimeForge, www.TimeForge.com, develops easy-to-use software products to manage employee scheduling, time and attendance, and communication logs. TimeForge’s web-based product suite is designed to meet the demands of the retail and restaurant industries, providing solutions for both independent and chain operators.

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The TimeForge team has been hard at work adding to the TimeForge software product, making employee scheduling simple, and time and attendance monitoring easier.  We now offer Biometric Fingerprint scanning to all TimeForge Max users.  We have partnered with M2SYS to offer an out-of-the-box and affordable solution to all users, and are proud to be listed on the M2SYS partners page.

A joint press release about our partnership was recently issued, and can be found on the M2SYS website in full.  The interesting tidbits for TimeForge users include:

According to Anthony Presley, Founder of TimeForge, “Our customers already schedule their employees online, but many continue to use traditional time clocks to track when employees punch in and out at their business. The M2SYS biometric product allows our customers to easily track time and attendance data and compare it to existing schedules — providing important and accurate payroll information. By eliminating the need for passwords and employee identification cards, it should significantly reduce buddy punching, which will save our customers up to 5-7% of their annual payroll expenses.”

“Companies in the retail and hospitality industry are quickly recognizing the benefits of using biometrics, including the reduction of buddy punching and an overall improvement in time and attendance data accuracy,” states Michael Trader, President of M2SYS Technology. “We are excited about being chosen by TimeForge, and look forward to a long-standing relationship with them and their customers.”

For more information about pricing, or how to get a Fingerprint scanner, contact the TimeForge sales department.

Can you build a schedule in less than 10 minutes? How many thousands of dollars do you spend making schedules every year? Did you know that TimeForge can minimize costs and increase profits through effective employee scheduling at your restaurant, pizzeria, hotel, club, bar, or retail business. Sign up today for a free trial!

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Lubbock, TX – May 28, 2008 – Making a great work schedule week after week is often a painful managerial chore for businesses of all sizes. However, the increased store profits, lower turnover, and improved employee morale make employee scheduling software a worthwhile investment. Many operators in the restaurant, retail, and hospitality industries create labor schedules by hand using pen-and-paper methods that can consume up to seven hours a week in managerial time – an expense of more than $12,000 per year in manager time building and managing the labor schedule! Operators using spreadsheets still spend at least two hours a week scheduling labor.

Well-chosen software solutions can help operators control labor and increase profits, without incurring great expense. For example, TimeForge, a web-based labor scheduling product tightly controls employee labor costs and reduces turnover by providing a simple-to-use solution for scheduling employees. The TimeForge software program, available at http://www.TimeForge.com, ensures that managers spend more time “on the floor” and less time in the back office scheduling employees.

The most recent version, released on May 27, 2008 includes a number of improvements to the software and continues to build on TimeForge’s success as a quick, simple, and affordable scheduling solution for businesses of all sizes. According to Michael, the proprietor of Tiara Cafe in California, “The TimeForge scheduling system has not only increased our efficiency tremendously; decreased the errors in what is normally an error prone environment; it has also saved us ten times what it costs us each month.”

TimeForge turns employee scheduling into an automated task that can be performed in a few minutes every week – improving store profits by thousands of dollars every year for the store. Some advantages of the new TimeForge include:

• TimeForge now includes the ability to track employee tips, which can be entered when an employee clocks out, or later by management!
• Schedules and templates can be organized into departments (similar to folders) to easily differentiate between “Front of House” and “Back of House” schedules.
• New attendance reports are available for supervisors and managers.
• Managers can easily see why an employee cannot be scheduled – regardless if the employee is already scheduled at another location or in a conflicting shift, or if the employee is unavailable.
• Locations / stores / units can be organized into a Corporate Hierarchy so that managers can monitor scheduling practices for groups of locations.
• Many other improvements!

Independent and chain operators alike can benefit from the many time saving and profit improving features of labor scheduling systems such as TimeForge. Get back on the floor today!

About TimeForge
TimeForge is the premier employee scheduling software, designed to provide fast ROI benefits to the business, and to meet the growing demands of the work force. TimeForge.com is affordable software that works with both independent and chain operations in retail, hospitality, and many other industries. For more information about TimeForge, and to sign up for a free trial, visit the website at http://www.TimeForge.com

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Save Thousands Through Better Scheduling of Labor – Reduce Turnover and Headaches

Lubbock, TX – April 20, 2008 – The slowing United States economy is having a negative impact on sales within the restaurant and retail industries and operators are seeking creative methods to improve profit margins at their companies. In the absence of growing sales, a common strategy is to focus on stronger inventory and labor controls to increase profits. It’s a strategy that will not only pay during tough economic times, but will continue to reap returns when the good times return. Well-chosen technology can help operators manage both cost centers without incurring great expense or time. One such example is TimeForge, a labor scheduling product that tightly controls employee labor costs by providing a simple-to-use solution for scheduling employees.

The TimeForge software program, available at http://www.TimeForge.com, ensures that managers spend more time “on the floor” and less time in the back office scheduling employees. The most recent version, released on April 20th, 2008 includes a number of improvements to the software and continues to build on TimeForge’s success as a quick, simple, and affordable scheduling solution for businesses of all sizes.

In many cases the new version of TimeForge can drastically increase operator efficiency and reduce the errors caused by ineffective scheduling techniques. Managers without labor scheduling tools, such as TimeForge, commonly spend more than $12,000 a year in management time (based on a national salary average of $62,500) building and managing the labor schedule! The latest version of TimeForge.com turns employee scheduling into an automated task that can be performed in a few minutes every week – improving store profits by thousands of dollars every year for the store.

Some advantages of the new TimeForge include:

• TimeForge can manage meal and break periods for the schedule, and now includes break worksheets!
• Costs for schedules now include overtime, including 1.5x, 2.0x, and California Overtime and exemptions!
• TimeForge can be integrated with a number of software packages, reducing operator data entry
• New multi-location reports
• Many other improvements!

Making a great schedule every week is often a painful managerial chore for businesses of all sizes. The increased store profits, lower turnover, and improved employee morale make employee scheduling software a worthwhile investment. Many hospitality and retail owners have discovered how properly managing labor saves time and money for the business with a free trail of TimeForge.

About TimeForge.com
TimeForge.com is the premier employee scheduling software, designed to provide fast ROI benefits to the business, and to meet the growing demands of the work force. TimeForge.com is affordable software that works with both independent and chain operations in retail, hospitality, and many other industries. For more information about TimeForge.com, and to sign up for a Free Trial, visit the website at http://www.TimeForge.com

How long does it take to make a labor schedule for your workforce? It should take less than 5 minutes! Did you know that TimeForge can streamline and minimize labor costs through effective employee scheduling at your motel, bank, school, restaurant, bar, club, or retail business.

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As previously mentioned, the team behind the TimeForge employee scheduling software has been working hard on version 1.9.2 of TimeForge – released today, Jan 1, 2008. Happy New Year!

So, what’s new in TimeForge? A lot! Some of our recent improvements include:

• Messages about your schedule are available on all of the schedule views (including the daily, weekly detail, and weekly summary views). You can see which “rules” have been broken by your management team while building the schedule, whether the shifts were created by the AutoScheduler or by management.

• Day Parts are now displayed in the schedule (on the day view), and can be used to segment your day into different parts (for instance morning, afternoon, and evening shifts).

• Day Parts are also visible when looking at employee availability. You can quickly see what shifts employees are available to work.

• When editing an availability request, you can click on the day of the week to make an all-day request.

• A new report: On the report page, there is a new 7-day schedule, called “Condensed 7-day schedule, sorted by position.” This new report is a variation of the Condensed 7-day schedule, where all of the employees are grouped by the position / department.

• Templates have been updated to look like the Daily Schedule View, including graphing and different views of the day (sort by position or employee).

• Additional numerous small improvements were made to the software ….

How long does it take to make your labor schedule? It should take less than 5 minutes! Did you know that TimeForge can streamline and minimize labor costs through effective employee scheduling at your retail business, restaurant, bar, club, or hotel?

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It’s been one day since the release of TimeForge Version 1.9, which introduced a number of new features such as easy-to-use calendar availability, improved multi-location (multiple unit) scheduling, and many other improvements. And we’re excited to announce that more than 800 businesses have signed up for the most simple and powerful labor scheduling tool on the market: www.TimeForge.com

Although we are obviously excited by the number of TimeForge users, we are more excited about the time savings and cost savings that have been provided to our users. For example:

• On average, managers spend more than 2.64 hours making the schedule, every week with a spreadsheet program such as Excel, by hand, or with an inefficient scheduling system (like most Point of Sale systems).

• On average, managers spend 15 minutes making the schedule, every week using TimeForge.

• On average, managers in retail and hospitality businesses receive an annual salary and benefits package equivalent to more than $62,500. That’s more than $31 per hour.

• TimeForge is directly saving our users more than $59,272 every month! That’s more than $710,000 a year.

Of course, there are dozens of other benefits like reporting, employee notification, reduced employee turnover, less time fragmentation (employees calling your business), etc… which are more difficult to calculate in a direct dollar-to-dollar return on investment (ROI).

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We are pleased to announce TimeForge version 1.9 – the easy-to-use employee scheduling program for food-service (restaurant, bar, club), hospitality (hotel, motel), and retail companies.

Thank you to our users who provide priceless feedback about the software can make their lives easier!

This version provides significant enhancements to all TimeForge users, and includes several dozen new and improved features. Some of our time-saving improvements include:

• Many areas of the scheduling system, including the creating schedules from templates, publishing a new schedule, and deleting schedules are significantly faster.

• A new field is available for employees, which allows managers to enter an identifier for tracking the employee (such as an internal employee number).

• Internationalization! TimeForge now works in Canada, the United Kingdom (England), Australia, Ireland, France, Spain, Scottland, and many other countries. The best labor scheduling system from the US is now available to anyone, anywhere. In fact, if you are a multi-location (or multiple unit) operator, with stores in different countries or locales, TimeForge will appropriately manage notifications for the whole team.

• Do you schedule more than one location from within your TimeForge account? The improved scheduling system in version 1.9 will automatically disable employees that are already scheduled to work at other locations. TimeForge already disables employees that are scheduled to work on other conflicting schedules.

• Day parts have been renamed “Work Periods”, which is … simple. More improvements with “Work Periods” and “Day Parts” are coming in Version 2.

• A number of minor bug fixes, improvements to Internet Explorer 6, and other changes.

Of course, we look forward to your ongoing comments about changes to the TimeForge scheduling system.

How long does it take to make your employee schedules? It should take less than 5 minutes! Did you know that TimeForge can streamline and minimize labor expenses through effective employee labor management at your retail business, bar, club, or restaurant.

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