Every day, the nightmare that is employee timesheet lurks in every single office corner across the world. Ask any random professional who is supposed to punch in and punch out of their work daily, and they will univocally say that they find timesheet approval process to be unsophisticated and a waste of their time.
Of course, we can’t deny the importance of recording an employee’s hours and the amount of labor they put in during those work hours. But although the intention is noble, the execution is very much homespun.
Thankfully, many workplaces are waking up to the new reality and seeing hope in timesheet automation. These automated HR tools are becoming a norm across all organizations because of the simplicity and convenience that they offer. But before examining the benefits of automated timesheets, let’s dissect a few reasons why traditional employee attendance tracking fails.
What is timesheet approval automation?
Timesheet automation is the process of capturing and tracking employee working hours easily through an application that works on multiple platforms seamlessly (mobile phones, desktop, and browser extensions). Employee timesheet automation simplifies and speeds up timesheet processing and changes the way timesheets travel through the organization to the payroll process.
Timesheet approval process flow
The workflow for a timesheet approval process is straightforward as well.
The first step is initiating the employee timesheet app by the employee and filling the work log before submitting it to the manager for approval. Once the manager approves the timesheet, it will be then forwarded to HR for review/approval and finally for payroll processing.
That’s it. Each employee can get a simple, no-nonsense result. No papers, no Timesheet Templates, no complaints, no lost time.
How to fix your timesheet approval process using automated timesheets
Let’s consider another example to understand the inefficiency of employee timesheet management. A 2015 survey suggests that manual timesheet management and errors cost American employers over 50 million work hours, or about 7.4 billion dollars a day in lost productivity.
Obviously, it isn’t an intentional act on employees’ part. They simply don’t have the eagerness to proactively fill their timesheet cards.
Here are some of the most common reasons that employees cite as their excuse to not fill timesheet tracking cards which uses a boring timesheet template:
- A timesheet template unintentionally lives up to its name because it’s time-consuming. It’s laborious, slow, and tedious.
- Proper timesheet tracking is not indicative of productivity. Going by the book, your best employees might look like they are slacking during work hours, while freeloaders might appear to be the brightest employees.
- Timesheet tracking doesn’t do justice to the long hours that project managers, remote workers, on-site employees, and freelancers spend at work.
- Organizations that impose rigorous timesheet approval process as part of their workforce management might actually be killing employee motivation.
- Employees procrastinate to fill their timesheets all the time. They come back to it right before the month ends and bulk-fill their hours, which leads to inaccurate entries.
Approved! Effortless timesheet approvals using Kissflow HR Cloud
Kissflow HR Cloud is a flexible HR solution that enables businesses to change set up needs over time. It allows organizations to validate timesheet entries, speed up the approval cycle, reduce payroll errors, and reduce administrative burden. Kissflow HR Cloud has a lot of features that makes approving timesheet effortless.
Listed below are the major features used by Kissflow HR Cloud automates the employee timesheet approval process
1. Customizable templates
Kissflow HR Cloud offers businesses an array of timesheet templates which are pre-built based on industry standards. Organizations can either choose and customize the pre-built timesheet template or create their own from scratch with formulas, conditions, exceptions, and more.
2. Multi-level approval workflows
Kissflow HR Cloud enables businesses to create custom digital timesheets with multiple approval levels. Organizations are free to customize the timesheet approval workflow to meet their existing business process needs. Using dynamic workflows, it not only notifies but also retrieves necessary approvals from managers to the HR and finance team in a single click.
3. Seamless integration
It syncs seamlessly with existing payroll, accounting, and ERP systems automating the end-to-end employee timesheet approval workflow.
4. Approvals on the go
Kissflow HR Cloud empowers employees to create, submit, and approve/reject timesheets on the go right from its mobile app or web-based application.
5. Reports
Managers can get a clear picture of their employee working hours and productivity levels using Kissflow HR Cloud’s arsenal of customizable, visual-rich reports.
Try Kissflow HR Cloud today for a free demo and see how you can crush some chaos around the timesheet approval process.
Top benefits of using automated timesheets
It’s time for all forward-thinking organizations to digitize and automate their timesheet approval process. When all business processes are moving at breakneck speed, there’s no reason to leave your timesheet approval process to suffer through the snail’s pace of manual paperwork.
Automation is neither rocket science nor does it demand expensive IT investment or hi-tech robots; automating timesheet approval process is actually very easy. All you have to do is find the cloud-based HR management software that allows you to create forms, replicate your timesheet culture, and make the employee timesheet module for your teams to start using it.
Listed below are the top benefits of using automated timesheets for employee time capture. Automated timesheets:
- Increase employee productivity
- Eliminate disputes regarding pay
- Accelerate payroll preparation
- Eliminate favoritism of the timekeeper
- Enforce workforce schedule and policies
- Provide legible records of hours worked
- Enforce wage-hour legislation compliance
- Establish respect for working hours
The best kind of cloud-based HR automation solutions will inadvertently have a drag-and-drop form designer that allows app admins to create form fields. You can design these fields as data computed through formulas, pre-populated items, or as drop-down menu options.
Once you finish the groundwork of modeling the app, you can automate the entire process without having to come back to it every day. You might need to re-configure certain things as your process scales up or the norms change, otherwise you can just sit back and let the system handle the mundane job of tracking employee hours automatically.
You can also create exceptions or conditions for employees whose timesheet calculations are complex compared to office employees who report daily at their physical office. The automated timesheet app can take care of overtime and holiday work calculations once employees make their entry to the app.
Employees have the advantage of submitting their time hours from their mobile devices while managers can review and approve the timesheet approval requests regardless of where they are and what time of day it is. Automated timesheets approval process reduces the amount of time needed for timesheet completion by large and hugely eradicates the risk of human error.
If you want to sample how a timesheet automation app can redefine your timesheet management process, sign up for a free demo with Kissflow HR Cloud. In addition to getting full customer support during your trial period, you can also integrate the app with your existing range of software to see how the app fares for your business.
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