Track Staff Certifications and Qualifications

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 …

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

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

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

Posted in TimeForge Features / No Comments.

HOPE for Haiti

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.  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

HOPE for Haiti Invitation from the Century House

Related articles or pages

Posted in Blog / No Comments.

Schedule Staff the Way You Want!

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!

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

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

Posted in Blog / 1 Comment

Time and Attendance Made Easy

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

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 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

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

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

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

Posted in TimeForge Features / No Comments.

TimeForge Attendance Improvements

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.

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 most recent improvements to TimeForge Attendance include:

  • Several new TimeForge Attendance tutorials are online and available for your review! Don’t get lost or confused about how to edit time cards, modifying clock in parameters, or setting up IP addresses for restricting employee time punches.  Review the TimeForge Attendance manual (videos are coming soon), and read about all of these profit saving topics.
  • Quickly identify employee time punches and problematic time cards using the TimeForge Most Different notifications. As you process and approve / export payroll, TimeForge automatically identifies different (or strange) time punches, and ranks each shift based on how different the shift is from the other staff member time punches.  Managers and payroll supervisors can use the “Most Different” field to quickly identify potential problems before cutting checks for staff members.
  • Show the last person to edit or change time card data. All time card changes are recorded and can be viewed in the TimeForge Daily Log by qualified managers.  However, you can now easily review which manager (or supervisor) most recently modified any specific time card entry.  Reduce fraud and and identify compliance issues immediately.
View the last manager to edit a time entry

View the last manager to edit a time entry

  • Identify hours worked on the Clocked-In Employees page. You now have the choice to manage labor by scheduled or actual labor costs, or by the scheduled or actual labor hours while you are reviewing who is clocked in, or which staff members were previously clocked in during the business day.
Review Worked Hours and Total Costs

Review Worked Hours and Total Costs

  • Manage attendance and timecards by departments. When you have a large number of staff members, managing your labor can be complicated.  You can now browse and edit staff time sheets based on the department that you are interested in reviewing.
Edit Attendance by Department

Edit Attendance by Department

Look for more information about recent improvements to TimeForge Attendance very soon.  We continue to improve the software so that you can manage your workforce effectively, and go home early!

You should be using a time and attendance system to make your life easy! TimeForge can quickly and easily manage time cards, employee attendance, and export payroll for processing.  Sign up for a trial today to use TimeForge Attendance to track employee time.

Related articles or pages

Posted in TimeForge Features / No Comments.

Dinerware and TimeForge Labor Management Improvements

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. To use a fingerprint scanner, you’ll need to clock all staff members in to Dinerware one time. You need to do this step, because Dinerware requires that employees be logged in for a variety of reasons, including meal coursing and printing.  After this initial clock in, all additional clock in and clock outs can be done on TimeForge, using a separate time punch terminal with a fingerprint scanner attached.

Use a Fingerprint Reader with TimeForge and Dinerware

Use a Fingerprint Reader with Dinerware

  • Forecast sales and inventory using Menu Item Groupings inside of Dinerware. While building a labor schedule, you may want to track gross sales, individual item sales, covers, labor hours, or other metrics.  Additionally, you can now build schedules and forecast sales by grouping menu items together.  For example, you may want to schedule staff members based on the hourly sales of porterhouse steaks, crab cakes, and apple turnovers.  Using TimeForge and Dinerware, you now can.

Forecast and Record Menu Items and Menu Item Groups

Forecast and Record Menu Items and Menu Item Groups

  • You can view Dinerware sales information on your cell phone and view real-time sales and labor information at the same time. Any Menu Item or Menu Item Group that is being forecast or collected by TimeForge can be viewed on your cell phone using the secure TimeForge RSS feed.  Receive real-time labor and sales information on any compatible smartphone or PDA.  You can read more about this in the TimeForge Manual.
  • In addition, TimeForge is now compatible with Dinerware version 2.9.1 – the latest offering from Dinerware. This latest version of the Dinerware POS offers a number of improvements for Dinerware and TimeForge customers.  Talk to your Dinerware representative about upgrading today!

You should be using a labor management system with your Dinerware POS system to make your life easy!  TimeForge can quickly and easily build your employee work schedules, manage attendance while enforcing the schedule (and stopping employees from clocking in early), reduce labor costs, and streamline staff management.  Sign up for a trial today to use TimeForge with your Dinerware POS system.

Related articles or pages

Posted in TimeForge Features / 1 Comment

TimeForge Updates for December

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.

In addition to the expanded manual, many other improvements are included in our latest TimeForge release.  The most recent update, which happened about a week ago, includes more than 100 new features, improvements, and changes – and every one of our customers is already running the latest and greatest version of TimeForge.

Some of these new features include:

  • Faster page loading on all TimeForge pages. If you are on a DSL or Cable connection in the United States, most of the TimeForge web site should load in less than a second!  Get done, get out, and go home faster!
  • The Schedule Detail View is improved, and faster. Our Schedule Detail continues to expand in functionality, and you can now schedule by station or section, or swap the scheduled employees with a single click.
Schedule Detail View

Schedule Detail View

  • Create a default location for each employee. Managing staff members who can work at multiple stores (or locations) can be extremely difficult.  TimeForge makes staff management easy, enabling your management team to get done quickly and get back to business.  You can set up a default (or home) location for staff members, which will ensure that the AutoScheduler schedules the employee at their default location first, where possible.
Default Staff Member Location

Default Staff Member Location

  • Create a default department for each employee. Managing staff members who can work in more than one department can be complicated.  You can set up a default (or home) department for staff members, which will ensure that the AutoScheduler schedules the employee into their default department first, where possible.
Default Department for a Staff Member

Default Department for a Staff Member

  • Automatically approve requests when employees are “available to work” or “want to work”. Instead of spending your time managing requests for employees who want to work, these requests can be automatically approved without needing manager intervention.  For example, an employee who normally cannot work on Wednesday because of their class schedule can request to work online and will not need manager approval to request to work on Wednesday (normally, she will need approval to actually pick up a shift).
Automatically Approve Work Requests

Automatically Approve Work Requests

Check back soon, as we’ll be discussing some of the other TimeForge features that have been recently added!

You should be using a labor management system to make your life easier! TimeForge can quickly and easily build your staff schedules, manage attendance, reduce labor costs, and streamline employee management. Sign up for a trial today!

Related articles or pages

Posted in TimeForge Features / 2 Comments

Downloads

TimeForge is a web-based labor management service, and does not require any software to be downloaded or installed on your computer to work properly.  You can manage labor, run payroll, or build staff schedules from the comfort of your home, office, or pool side on your favorite cruise ship.

However, to make your life even more simple, TimeForge does integrate with popular Point of Sale, Property Management, and Accounting systems.  What kind of advantages does this provide?  With an integrated TimeForge system, you have:

  • No More Double Entry! Add an employee, job code or position, time card, or sales information into your Point of Sale system, and the data automatically appears inside of TimeForge.
  • Inventory and Sales Forecasting! Use TimeForge Sales Types and menu item forecasting to forecast sales, build work schedules, or identify upcoming inventory needs with sales data from your Point of Sale system.  Use inventory and sales forecasting to accurately predict labor and staffing requirements.
  • Remotely Run Payroll! TimeForge can pull employee timecards from your POS system, and pull the data into our powerful labor management system.  You can then approve and export payroll to a variety of payroll providers, including QuickBooks, ADP, Paychex, CompuPay, SurePayroll, and many others.
  • Manage Multiple Locations with Ease! In many cases, TimeForge’s labor management system can extend your POS system, pulling data from different stores into TimeForge.  Easily manage employees who work at multiple stores, check sales data remotely, and enforce reporting requirements across multiple locations.

Integration with your POS, PMS, or accounting system is easy!  TimeForge currently interfaces with these systems, and we are always adding more:

Aloha Point of Sale

TimeForge enables Aloha POS users to manage labor remotely, forecast sales and labor requirements, and much more!  Download the latest version of the TimeForge-Aloha Bridge software, and review the TimeForge manual for installation information.

Dinerware Point of Sale

TimeForge provides extensive labor management capabilities for Dinerware users, such as employee schedule enforcement, sales forecasting, inventory monitoring, and real time sales and labor tools.  Download the latest version of the TimeForge-Dinerware Bridge software, and review the TimeForge manual for installation information.

Micros Point of Sale

TimeForge provides extensive labor management capabilities for Micros RES users, such as employee schedule enforcement, sales forecasting, inventory monitoring, and real time sales and labor tools.  Download the latest version of the TimeForge-Micros Bridge software, and review the TimeForge manual for installation information.

QuickBooks Small Business Accounting Software

TimeForge provides payroll import capabilities for QuickBooks users. Collect time sheet entries with TimeForge Attendance, and then at the end of the payroll period, you can approve the time and import it directly into QuickBooks as individual employee time sheets. Download the latest version of the TimeForge-Accounting Bridge software, and review the TimeForge manual for installation information.

Related articles or pages

Posted in Uncategorized / No Comments.

Clock In and Clock Out Alerts

Are you tired of sitting in front of the time clock to see when your staff members show up to clock in, or clock out for their shift? Monitoring time clocks is a time consuming way to manage employees and while it can often be an effective way to reduce payroll expenses, it also increases frustration and costs among managers and supervisors.

TimeForge already supports a number of ways to manage staff members without sitting in front of the time clock including:

  • Online employee work scheduling accessible over the Internet,
  • Web-based attendance that can be viewed remotely,
  • Enforcing the schedule with a grace period for clocking in or out,
  • Identifying “most different” time punches, and
  • Allowing other staff members to act as a witness when employees show up before they are scheduled to work

We now go one step further! Fully manage your business remotely!

TimeForge can notify managers or supervisors when employees show up early or late, and when clocking in or clocking out. There are four new “Alerts” inside of each supervisor and manager account, controlling when alerts are sent to management personnel.

Alerts for early clock in and late clock out

For example, you can receive email and TimeForge notifications when staff members show up more than 10 minutes early for their scheduled shift.

To configure these Alerts, log into TimeForge, go to your Settings page, and configure the applicable Alerts.

You should be using a labor management system to make your life easier! TimeForge can quickly and easily build your staff schedules, manage attendance, reduce labor costs, and streamline employee management. Sign up for a trial today!

Related articles or pages

Posted in TimeForge Features / No Comments.

New Schedule Demo

Haven’t quite gotten started with TimeForge yet? Want to see some of what TimeForge can do for your business? Ready to see how fast TimeForge can build a schedule for you?

Please take a look at our latest demo video … in 4 minutes and 30 seconds we can show you the power of TimeForge as we add positions, create employees, build a schedule, and send the schedule to our staff members using email and text messages.

Get the Flash Player to see this movie.

You should be using an employee scheduling product to make your life easier! TimeForge can quickly and easily build your employee schedules, manage attendance, reduce labor costs, and streamline labor management. Sign up for a trial today!

Related articles or pages

Posted in Documentation and Tutorials / No Comments.

Next Page »

heartWhat some of our clients have to say ...

We are one year into it now, well past being enamored with the newness. We are married to TimeForge. It's as essential to us now as any of our management tools today, and we very happy about that.- Steve @ Hermosa Cyclery
We really like the program so far. I know that it is geared towards restaurants, but we are a real estate company and we love it because it is inexpensive and it is so easy to use.- Nicole @ Exit Premier Realty
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.- Michael @ Tiara Cafe
I would highly recommend TimeForge to anyone making work schedules. ... What used to take 1-2 hours, now takes 15 minutes. The reports section is comprehensive and useful.- Lawrence Payne @ Mid Pacific Country Club
I've been really pleased with this latest version of TimeForge. I'm really getting familiar with this program and its become a great time saver! Keep up the good work!- Loren @ Fresh Produce
Before using TimeForge, creating a schedule took 2 hours. With TimeForge, it takes less than 10 minutes.- Gail @ Kerr Drug

Quick Contact

3417 73rd Street
Suite G
Lubbock, TX 79423

Phone: 1 866 684 7191
Fax: 1 866 684 7191
E-Mail: info@timeforge.com

 

About TimeForge

TimeForge builds the best labor management tools available for the food-service, retail, restaurant, and hospitality industries. This includes employee scheduling, attendance management, and other labor management tools.

© 2009 Labor Management. NOW Simple. | All Rights Reserved