At its core, the purpose of an employee timesheet template is to create accountability. Of course, it also helps with other subsidiary goals like scheduling tasks, keeping track of hours worked, creating effective payroll management, and improving the company’s overall productivity level.
Employee timesheet tracking is of paramount importance and there are multiple ways to accomplish the goal. Many companies like to create an employee timesheet template and stick to it for recording attendance data. The paper-based timesheet template has worked well for many years, but it’s quickly becoming obsolete in today’s digital world where everything moves at the tap of a finger. Depending solely on manual timesheet templates creates a horde of problems, and there are definitely better ways to handle this predicament.
How employee timesheets work
There have been different forms of employee timesheets over the years. The evolution of technology has helped employers gain a lot more control over the process. While the employee timesheet approval process may differ from one organization to another, it allows the record and submission of timesheets, automated routing for digital approval, and payroll calculation.
Disadvantages of using employee timesheet templates
At least in the U.S., employers are legally obliged to maintain records about their employee timesheets. They have to maintain the information about each individual’s work hours each day and the total number of hours completed per week.
But despite the growing impetus, a majority of the companies still rely on a traditional employee timesheet template for the purpose of accomplishing the task. And then there is a bigger problem surrounding employee attendance – everybody hates timesheets.
Manual employee timesheet templates:
- Are cost-intensive and unreliable for data collection
- Make the employee timesheet approval process cumbersome and tedious
- Cause problems while tracking individual working hours due to inflexibility
- Are subject to a serious risk of human errors and neglect
- Can result in employee time theft and other policy violations
- Leave employers to pay their employees based on guesswork
- Harden the process of compounding billable hours for remote workers
The top 5 employee timesheet apps that make time tracking a breeze
Relying on an employee timesheet app grants many advantages that make the process of dealing with the employee timesheet management process easier than otherwise.
Listed below are the top 5 employee timesheet apps that reduce the administrative burden of employee timesheet management and make time tracking a breeze.
1. TimeCamp
This advanced time-tracking app comes with an array of time tracking, reporting, billing, and invoicing features. It is perfect for businesses of all sizes which struggle with ardent time tracking problems, inaccurate payroll processing, and lack of transparency in reports.
2. Kissflow HR Cloud
Kissflow HR Cloud is a flexible HR solution that makes it easy for businesses and their employees to track and approve time. Its wide range of solutions from talent acquisition management to performance review and timesheet approvals, support multi-level approvals, ensure regulatory compliance, improve employee productivity, and automate payroll processing.
3. ClickTime
ClickTime is a web-based time tracking tool that is ideal for remote teams and freelancers who want to improve their productivity. It enables business owners to monitor the activity of their in-house and remote workforce.
4. Timely
It is a web-based time tracking tool that monitors, records, and stores personnel time in a secure private timeline. It is an intuitive time tracking platform that is user-friendly and lighting fast.
5. Toggl
It is a user-friendly time tracker that provides a comprehensive view of the overall time spent by an employee on different tasks. It works both offline and online. It is popular among SMBs, consultants, and freelancers.
Features every employee timesheet solution must have
Yes, it’s time to wave paper-based employee timesheet templates goodbye. Not because they are entirely ineffective, but because there is a better way to do it. There are a lot of innovative solutions for businesses today to make their employee timesheets a breeze.
Let’s take a look at some fundamental features that you should look for when contemplating adopting to such employee timesheet template solutions:
1. Automated employee timesheets
Business process automation is becoming increasingly popular because of the benefits that it offers. You can take any well-established process in your organization and automate it to yield great results. Creating a customizable employee timesheet app and automating the timesheet process is no exception. All that you have to do is create a template for capturing all the relevant information to begin with. You can make the form fields pre-populated, hence reducing the amount of time employees spend on typing data manually.
2. Access to the cloud
The software ecosystem in the business world is definitely heading towards a cloud-based future. A cloud-based automated app can offer great flexibility in terms of data access regardless of where a person is located. Remote employees can fill their hours through mobile phone or a laptop without having to come to the office. Similarly, managers can review the timesheet and HR can approve or take proper actions on employee attendance irrespective of their geographical location.
3. Customization
Many on-premise software options come with a very rigid software architecture that are hard to work around with. With cloud-based apps, that’s changing because these platforms allow users to choose which features they want, freedom to personalize the app interface, and options to create a workflow from scratch.
4. Integration
In today’s age of IT democratization, you can’t expect a HR software that is an island in itself and doesn’t connect readily with other software. Similarly, a solution that comes with a baggage of coding requirements is a sheer waste of time. If an employee timesheet tracking process is an HR need, so it should be easy for any HR personnel to take control of it. If they want to integrate the employee timesheet management system with the payroll software, they should be able to do it on their own and without the dependency on the IT team.
So, when automating your employee timesheet process, make sure you pick an all-in-one HR solution that gels well with your existing HR processes and makes sense to your HR team.
Test drive automated employee timesheet template today
It is inefficient and arduous to track and validate employee timesheet templates. At an age where managers typically waste more than 15 hours every month on an average to sort employee timesheets, automation is a blessing you shouldn’t ignore. Automating the timesheet approval processes simplifies data collection, validation, and saves HRs the trouble of manually updating employee records.
If you want to test drive automation for timesheet management in your organization, go with Kissflow’s HR Cloud free demo. Leave paper-based timesheets in the past and take the next logical step towards creating a smart workplace.
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