It is important to keep track of daily notes, task lists, todo items, and sticky notes in every business – big or small, independent or chain. The task of managing all of these items is quickly cumbersome for all but the most disciplined staff members.

Scheduling human resource tasks, upcoming maintenance events, human resource tasks, management meetings, and other necessary items across multiple shifts (where the manager or staff member that created the event may not be the person responsible for the event) quickly becomes a management nightmare.

And, as your business grows, keeping up with the pile of paperwork and small notes can quickly become a nightmare.

Many businesses tackle the tornado of paper and notes by raiding the local office supply store – lab notebooks, 3-ring binders, and other similar products. While these paper products are very cheap, the disadvantages are obvious:

• Paper products will tear and can be destroyed with any mild abuse.
• Writing with pens or pencils can be smudged or unreadable by spilling a drink, or with wet hands
• Searching through dozens of paper notebooks for historical data is impossible..
• Staff who use ink pens will scratch out notes from other employees, making notes unreadable.
• Notebooks are easily be lost in a back office under piles of other notes.
• Handwriting that is made in a hurry can be unreadable minutes, or months, after the note is made.
• Organizing notebook or 3-ring binder notes into categories on a day-by-day basis is cumbersome at best.
• Multiple location / multi-store operators have no insight into the day-to-day operations of individual locations without faxing and scanning pages back and forth.

In most cases, the paper log book is simply insufficient for modern businesses. Many niche businesses provide organized paper notebook equivalents of the 3-ring binder or lab notebook, like Red Book Solutions and CommLog. While these product are somewhat better than the paper notebooks available at your local office supply store – all of the disadvantages of the paper process remain. In addition to the paper problem, these pre-printed log books are organized in a format that may, or may not, work for your business.

The TimeForge Daily Log is a superior solution to organize the notes and todo tasks at your business.

Use the TimeForge Daily Log for easy notes and communications

Use the Daily Log as your manager log and staff log – and for much more.  Read more about the TimeForge Daily Log!

Related articles or pages

• Track Staff Certifications and Qualifications (0)
• Daily Log (1)
• Clock In and Clock Out Alerts (0)
• TimeForge Updates for December (2)
• TimeForge Newsletter – November Edition (Part 3) (0)

• HOPE for Haiti
  Posted on Monday, February 1st, 2010 in Blog – Comments: (0)
  As everyone knows by now, Haiti is recovering from a devastating earthquake with the help of nations and individuals from around the world.  It truly is a worldwide relief effort.The Century House in New York, a recent TimeForge customer, is hosting a HOPE for Haiti Benefit this week.  The hosted event, the Capital Region HOPE for Haiti is being held on February 6th at the Century House.
• Time and Attendance Tracking Overview
  Posted on Tuesday, February 16th, 2010 in TimeForge Features – Comments: (0)
  TimeForge is an easy to use workforce management solution for your business, and includes many powerful features designed to improve your business. These include: Go home early and stop fussing with payroll and time card mistakes with easy time tracking (electronic time sheets and time cards) and staff monitoring. No more worrying about break laws and meal management with easy one-click break sheets and meal management.
• Track Staff Certifications and Qualifications
  Posted on Monday, February 1st, 2010 in TimeForge Features – Comments: (0)
  As operations managers and HR professionals know, managing labor is much more than building staff schedules and managing time and attendance for employees.  There are many other aspects of human resources and labor management, including: Talent management Tracking staff training and continuing education credits Skills tracking and ranking Onboarding and hiring processes Background verification and skill assessments Certifications and qualification tracking Raise requests and workflow And much more .

TimeForge may be unavailable for a short period of time between 5:00am and 6:30am Central Standard Time while we perform the upgrade.  We are always working to improve the performance of TimeForge, and will be expanding some of our computer systems to accommodate some upcoming features, and brand new products as well!

Sorry for any inconvenience!  Enjoy the newly upgraded system!

• Go home early and stop fussing with payroll and time card mistakes with easy time tracking (electronic time sheets and time cards) and staff monitoring.
• No more worrying about break laws and meal management with easy one-click break sheets and meal management.
• Get done with payroll with a single click with our one-click payroll exports to popular provides like SurePayroll, CompuPay, QuickBooks, and more.
• Rest easy with automatic reminders when staff are late, show up early, late, or start approaching overtime.
• And much more…

Here is a brief overview of some of the features of TimeForge Attendance …

TimeForge Attendance is a powerful replacement for your traditional time clock, or the limited punch in / out included with many Point of Sale systems. Use TimeForge Attendance by itself, or combine with TimeForge Scheduling for a powerful workforce management solution.

TimeForge can also integrate with many Point of Sale systems, stopping employees from clocking in early, or leaving too late.

Use TimeForge Attendance to make your life easy! TimeForge easily manages time cards, staff attendance, and payroll exporting.

Related articles or pages

• Grocery Stores (0)
• Dinerware (0)
• Track Staff Certifications and Qualifications (0)
• TimeForge Updates for December (2)
• TimeForge Provides Labor Management and Online Employee Scheduling to Dinerware Customers (0)

• Talent management
• Tracking staff training and continuing education credits
• Skills tracking and ranking
• Onboarding and hiring processes
• Background verification and skill assessments
• Certifications and qualification tracking
• Raise requests and workflow
• And much more …

In many of these HR areas, we recommend that our users utilize a best of breed solution to ensure the best results for our customers.  For example, Corvirtus is simply the best company around to perform skills assessments in the hospitality and restaurant industries, and we recommend our customers look at Corvirtus for any unmet assessment needs.

However, a few of the these HR areas are easily managed inside of TimeForge’s best-of-breed labor management solution.  Historical raise requests, qualifications, skill tracking and ranking, and others are already available in TimeForge, and more will become available in the near future.

Let’s review employee certifications …

Did you know that TimeForge can track certifications for staff members?  Using TimeForge, you can track any number of certifications (staffing qualifications), testing dates, renewal dates, and test scores.  Each certificate can also include a note about the staff member’s qualification.

Specifics of a Certification / Staff Qualification

TimeForge allows savvy managers to set up certifications which are required before the staff member can be scheduled.  TimeForge can then stop you and your management team from scheduling employees who are not qualified for the job position.

For example, in the state of Texas, a server (waiter) that serves alcohol needs to have taken an alcohol awareness and training course.  Serving alcohol, of any kind, without this certification can land the employee and the responsible manager in jail for the evening.  With a single click inside of TimeForge, managers can ensure that staff are only scheduled if they are qualified to be scheduled.

Add a Certificate, Restrict who can be Scheduled

As an added bonus, TimeForge will notify managers and employees 6 weeks before the certificate expires, so that managers and staff members both know that it’s time to renew the qualification.  The certification reminder also appears inside of the Daily Log.

Use certifications to make your life easy!

Related articles or pages

• Your Manager’s Log Doesn’t Work (0)
• Improper Labor Staffing (0)
• Grocery Stores (0)
• Dinerware (0)
• TimeForge Provides Labor Management and Online Employee Scheduling to Dinerware Customers (0)

The Century House in New York, a recent TimeForge customer, is hosting a HOPE for Haiti Benefit this week.  The hosted event, the Capital Region HOPE for Haiti is being held on February 6th at the Century House.  For more information about the event, pricing, donations, or directions, please contact the Century House at 518-213-0951.

Below is the invitation to the gala.

HOPE for Haiti Invitation from the Century House

Related articles or pages

• Your Manager’s Log Doesn’t Work (0)
• Workforce Labor Scheduling Updates (Part 2) (0)
• Workforce Labor Scheduling Updates (Part 1) (1)
• What’s New in TimeForge? (Part 1) (0)
• What’s New in Employee Scheduling? (Part 2) (0)

• Schedule Staff the Way You Want!
  Posted on Sunday, January 31st, 2010 in Blog – Comments: (0)
  TimeForge is both powerful and flexible!  We provide a stable and simple labor management platform that gives you, the user, the power you need to manage your workforce.One way that TimeForge provides simple labor scheduling is by providing you, the user, with the ability to schedule staff any way you want to.  That’s right – schedule your labor based on the requirements of your business!
• Time and Attendance Made Easy
  Posted on Monday, January 4th, 2010 in TimeForge Features – Comments: (0)
  Over the last few months, we have been improving all three of our hospitality and retail labor management products, including TimeForge Attendance.TimeForge Attendance is a powerful time and attendance software system that for employee time cards and managing payroll.  Using TimeForge Attendance, staff members can clock in and out, managers can review employee time cards, and then management can approve time punches for third party payroll processing.

One way that TimeForge provides simple labor scheduling is by providing you, the user, with the ability to schedule staff any way you want to.  That’s right – schedule your labor based on the requirements of your business!

TimeForge supports building schedules in many different ways, and provides flexible, powerful, and easy to use tools to make sure you can get done building the schedule, communicate with your staff members, and go home early!  For example, you can build schedules:

• One shift at a time, using day parts (Work Periods) or specific time periods
• Bulk copying of shifts from one day to another
• Copying work shifts from one employee to another
• Using daily templates with predefined shifts
• Utilizing weekly templates with dozens or hundreds of shifts
• Bid shifts, which allow staff members to help build the schedule
• Copying a previous schedule to create a new schedule for next week
• Daily, using a gantt chart to oversee your exact staffing needs
• Weekly, using an Excel-like interface to quickly and easily schedule staff

And all of these staff scheduling options can use “fixed employee” scheduling … where you, the manager, choose the employee you want to work.  Alternatively, you can build labor schedules using the automated power of the TimeForge AutoScheduler.

Edit a Shift in the Detail View

In addition, you can build schedules using departments, where you can appoint a supervisor to oversee the schedule, availability changes, and staff communication.

Related articles or pages

• Improper Labor Staffing (0)
• Dinerware (0)
• Workforce Labor Scheduling Updates (Part 2) (0)
• Workforce Labor Scheduling Updates (Part 1) (1)
• What’s New in TimeForge? (Part 1) (0)

TimeForge Attendance is a powerful time and attendance software system that for employee time cards and managing payroll.  Using TimeForge Attendance, staff members can clock in and out, managers can review employee time cards, and then management can approve time punches for third party payroll processing.

TimeForge Attendance can perform many other time management duties, including:

• Tip tracking and mileage reporting
• Record staff notes about each shift worked
• Stop buddy punching with biometric fingerprint scanners
• Interface attendance and time punches with your favorite Point of Sale system
• Track time off, sick time, and PTO time for quick processing
• Allow staff to check their time cards using the TimeForge employee portal

If you are using a standard time clock, or are having staff write their arrival, departure, and lunch breaks on a piece of paper, switching to TimeForge Attendance will save you hours of headaches each and every week!

Some of the recent improvements to TimeForge Attendance include:

• Automatically switch positions if an employee is already clocked in. Staff members are occasionally responsible for working back-to-back shifts with different departments or positions.  For example, an employee might be scheduled from 10:00am – 2:00pm as a Cashier, but from 2:00pm – 6:00pm as a Delivery Driver.  To ensure that they remember to clock out as a Cashier, and in as a Delivery Driver, at 2:00pm, TimeForge can automatically do this for your staff members.  This feature can be configured on a per-location or per-department basis.

Automatically Switch the Clocked-In Position for an Employee

• Clock out staff members at a specific time each day. To ensure that staff members are all clocked out by a certain time, you can set a department-level or location-level clock out time. For example, if your business closes at 11:00pm, and no one should be at work beyond 11:30pm, you can set TimeForge to automatically clock out all staff members at 11:30pm.  This feature can be configured on a per-location or per-department basis.

Automatically Clock Out Employees Out At A Specific Time

• Automatically clock employees in based on their posted schedule. Sometimes staff members forget to clock in, even though they are scheduled to work and arrived on time. TimeForge can automatically clock staff members in based on the posted schedule, if they have not yet clocked in.  For example, if an employee is scheduled to work at 8:30am, TimeForge can automatically clock them into the system at 8:30am.  This feature can be configured on a per-location or per-department basis.

Automatically Clock In Employees Based on the Schedule

• Receive an email message during the day showing which staff members are clocked in. If you’d like to know which employees are clocked in at your business during an important part of the day – before a dinner rush, just before closing, or after the first morning shift – you can!  Update your alerts and set the time you’d like to receive notification of who is clocked in.

Receive a Daily Email of Clocked-In Staff

• Automatically clock employees out based on their posted schedule. Sometimes staff members forget to clock out at the end of the day.  TimeForge can automatically clock staff members out based on the posted schedule, if they have not yet clocked out.  For example, if an employee is scheduled to leave work at 8:30pm, TimeForge can automatically clock them out of the system at 8:30pm.  This feature can be configured on a per-location or per-department basis.

Automatically Clock Out Employees Based on the Schedule

Use a time and attendance system to make your life easy and improve profitability! TimeForge can quickly and easily manage staff timecards, employee attendance, and export payroll for accurate processing.  Sign up for a trial today to use TimeForge Attendance.

Related articles or pages

• Employee Schedules are not Payroll. Payroll Must Always be Paid from a Time and Attendance System (2)
• TimeForge Attendance Improvements (0)
• Attendance Benefits (0)
• TimeForge Improvements (0)
• Grocery Stores (0)

• Dinerware and TimeForge Labor Management Improvements
  Posted on Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009 in TimeForge Features – Comments: (0)
  Some of TimeForge’s November and December updates included improvements to scheduling and enhanced multi-unit capabilities, as well as new training videos (available on the TimeForge Manual).In addition, we have improved our Point of Sale connectivity and integration, with our POS vendors, including Dinerware, Aloha POS (from Radiant Systems), and Micros.Some of the Dinerware improvements with TimeForge include: Use a fingerprint scanner with your Dinerware system to stop buddy punching and keep employees from riding the clock.
• TimeForge Attendance Improvements
  Posted on Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009 in TimeForge Features – Comments: (0)
  Many of TimeForge’s November and December updates included improvements to scheduling, enhanced multi-unit capabilities, additional Point of Sale capabilities, and new training videos.We have also been hard at work on many improvements to TimeForge Attendance.  TimeForge Attendance is a labor management software tool that focuses on employee time cards and managing payroll expenses.  Employees can clock in and out using the system, managers can review staff timecards, and then managers can approve the employee time punches for third party payroll processing.
• TimeForge Updates for December
  Posted on Sunday, December 20th, 2009 in TimeForge Features – Comments: (2)
  It’s been a while since we’ve written on the blog about TimeForge improvements, but we have been hard at work adding features, improving functionality, and otherwise making TimeForge a better tool for your staff and your business.Some of these improvements include training videos, which can be found on TimeForge’s Manual – the videos cover many aspects of TimeForge, including attendance and time cards, scheduling, employee management, and much more.