Labor Management. NOW Simple.

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.

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.

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TimeForge can directly control labor costs – and improve the bottom line – at your restaurant, retail store, hotel, or other business by stopping employees from riding the clock.  TimeForge can disable early clock in’s by staff members, and can also stop late clock out’s.

To enforce the employee schedule, you must be using both TimeForge Attendance and TimeForge Scheduling together.  Inside of the TimeForge Attendance Options, you will find two options:

1. Do you want to allow employees to clock in at any time, with any allowed position, regardless of their schedule?
2. Do you want to allow employees to clock out at any time, regardless of their schedule?

The first option controls staff member clock-in’s, and if set to “Yes”, employees can clock in at any time.  The second option control staff member clock-out’s, and if set to “Yes”, employees can clock in at any time.  To stop employee’s from riding the clock, change both of these settings to “No”, and then set an appropriate grace period.

Employees who are clocking in must clock in during their grace period, and if they are too early for their shift, a manager needs to let them in.  The same is true of clocking out!

TimeForge also requires that employees clock-in using the scheduled position, in addition to the time clock enforcement.

You can enforce the labor schedule using the standard time clock within TimeForge, or any other supported timeclock functionality, such as the TimeForge Online Time Clock, Dinerware Point of Sale, TimeClock Mode within TimeForge Attendance, and others.  In fact, you can also use our biometric fingerprint scanner with schedule enforcement!

Use this TimeForge enhancement to control labor costs by removing the ability for employees to ride the clock!

Are you using a labor management product to make your life easier?  TimeForge can quickly and easily build your employee schedule, manage time and attendance, reduce labor costs, and streamline employee management.  Sign up for a trial today!

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Easy Labor Management – 5 Tips to Build Better Employee Schedules

• Employees who ride the clock are draining business profits. Monitor timesheets and schedules to effectively stop early clock ins. Better yet, use a labor management system that does both attendance and employee scheduling – and can enforce the schedule – such as TimeForge

• Fingerprint scanners are delicate pieces of technology. Use them to clock in/out. Don’t use them to enter PINs.  Restaurant and hospitality staff normally must enter a PIN / id into a Point of Sale system every few minutes, and with greasy hands, fingerprint scanners become defective quickly

• Not sure where your labor dollars are going? Check your fixed / non-variable (manager) salaries and your variable hours (hourly staff). You may be surprised at what you find as many labor dollars are tied up in non-variable staff members.

• Take time to review the schedule and compare sales and customer throughput to your staffing levels. High ratios can be very costly to your business.  A high ratio of labor to sales or customer throughput implies one of three business problems:
  1. Staff members are spending a lot of time with individual customers, and are not adequately serving customers who may be waiting (who then leave).
  2. The business is over-staffed, with more employees on site than are necessary.
  3. Profit per customer / order is too low, and needs to be raised.

  Act quickly to identify which problem is occurring, and solve it.

• Make sure only one manager per department is responsible for approving requests. Otherwise, there can be confusion about time off allotments.  If one manager approves a time off request for one staff member, and another manager approves a request for another staff member – the likelihood of upset staff, higher turnover, and staff shortages is significantly higher than if one manager is responsible for handling requests.  Good communication is key to labor management success.

TimeForge labor management software is used by owners and operators of restaurants, retail stores, bars, grills, and other service-oriented businesses to increase profits, reduce turnover, and improve retention.

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TimeForge products keep business running by improving profits and reducing expenses.

Designed specifically for restaurant, food-service, hospitality, and retail industries, the TimeForge suite of products will control labor costs, improve staff communication, record key business indicators, increase the job satisfaction of employees, reduce turnover, and much more.

Get management back on the floor!

TimeForge Scheduling

TimeForge Scheduling keeps managers on the floor – not stuck in the back office trying to build an employee schedule. Online employee scheduling has never been more simple, convenient, or secure!

• AutoScheduler system builds schedules fast
• Control budgeted labor costs, improving store profits
• Automatic email and text messages to staff members
  
• Reduce employee turnover and increase retention

Read more about TimeForge Scheduling

TimeForge Attendance

TimeForge Attendance keeps your business running! Employee clock-in and clock-out times are accurately collected in a simple to use program. Real-time reports eliminate payroll headaches for both employees and managers.

• Easily Track Time & Attendance
• Automate Payroll Reporting
  
• Fingerprint Scanner Eliminates Buddy Punching
• Enforce the Schedule and Control Labor

Read more about TimeForge Attendance

TimeForge Daily Log

TimeForge Daily Log replaces pen-and-paper communication logs stored in the back office of many restaurants and retail businesses. It is a powerful and easy-to-use communication tool that saves tiime and improves store profits.

• Analyze emerging business trends
• KPI’s are easy to find and analyze
• Easily search and sort notes
• Record when notes are made and who made them

Read more about TimeForge Daily Log

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We previously discussed that employee scheduling is hard, time consuming, and costly to a business. Where possible, businesses should use software tools to automate labor scheduling – saving time and money while improving profits makes a lot of sense! Once the employee schedule or the theoretical labor schedule, is complete, it is posted for all employees to see.

What’s the Difference Between Schedules and Timecards?

The time and attendance system is one crucial aspect of managing labor. This system tracks the “actual schedule” worked by staff members. Each employee should have their own “timecard”, although computer systems have improved these paper systems over the years. At a bare minimum, this can be a paper card which has the time and date the employee arrived and the time and date the employee left, printed or stamped on the card. At many businesses, the Point Of Sale (POS) system or Property Management System (PMS) has a built-in time and attendance system which may be sufficient. More sophisticated time and attendance systems are available from payroll vendors, Human Resource (HR) software vendors, and best-of-breed labor management providers like TimeForge.

As each day of the theoretical labor schedule progresses, the following cycle likely occurs:

• An employee arrives at the business

• Before beginning any work, the employee clocks-in (or punches-in) to a time and attendance system, and management must be mindful of early and late clock-ins, and buddy-punching.

• The employee performs their work

• The employee may be given break periods, or meal breaks, some of which may be paid or required by law. These breaks should be recorded for Labor & Industries Audits (L&I Audits), corporate compliance, and to secure against potential labor lawsuits.

• The employee clocks-out (or punches-out), declaring any tips (if necessary), from a time and attendance system

• The employee leaves the business

Use Timecards for Payroll, Schedules to Plan Labor Costs

It is important to pay payroll expenses from the time and attendance system, and not the theoretical labor schedule. If management pays the employee directly from the theoretical labor schedule and the employee arrived later than scheduled, then the business is paying too much to the employee – reducing profit. If the employee arrived earlier than the theoretical labor schedule suggested, the business will not lose any money by paying from the schedule – however, a number of regulations are violated by not paying the employee for actual time worked. Employees, in all industries, are notorious for arriving to work 15-minutes earlier than scheduled, or leaving 10-minutes later than scheduled, requiring that employers pay appropriately for worked time. To ensure compliance with regulations and to reduce the loss in profits, the correct way to pay employees is with the clock in / clock out times from the time and attendance system.

Is employee scheduling complex at your business? Are you making the best possible labor schedule? How much time is thrown away while making a schedule every year? Did you know that TimeForge can reduce turnover, improve retention and increase profits through employee scheduling at your business? Sign up today for a free trial!

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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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