What is timekeeping?

Timekeeping is the business process of controlling and recording the working time of employees. This is also the basis for employees to manage their legitimate rights. Therefore, timekeeping should always prioritize accuracy to ensure fairness for both employees and businesses. Along with the development of technology over the years, the forms of timekeeping have also gradually become more diverse. The most popular timekeeping methods today can include:

– Attendance by paper card

– Fingerprint timekeeping

– Time attendance by face recognition camera

– Wi-Fi/GPS

By the time, the timekeeping forms has been improving to increase the speed and convenience for employees, while enhancing transparency and reducing the workload for the human resources department.

How have timekeeping methods evolved?

Attendance by paper card

Time attendance by paper card is done by inserting a paper card into the timekeeping machine so that the machine can print in/out time for daily work. This is a traditional manual method that was used quite commonly more than 10 years ago. Although this form is low cost and easy to apply to most types of businesses, it has a high potential for errors and fraud because it depends entirely on the compliance of employees. At the same time, the monthly statistics of working time will also take a lot of effort and time because the human resources department has to summarize data from paper cards, and this work will face a lot of inadequacies for businesses which has a large number of employees.

Fingerprint timekeeping

One of the most popular methods today is fingerprint timekeeping. In addition to the speed, convenience, and high transparency, this solution is also integrated with security management (doors opening/closing) and reminding employees to perform timekeeping. However, quite a lot of fingerprint machines currently only stop at exporting raw data to Excel files, so processing data for payroll work still requires a lot of time. In addition, during the time of occurrence and after the Covid-19 pandemic has been controlled, limiting manual contact with public devices is also a priority and concern, so this form is also being consider replacing.

Attendance by image recognition camera

Over the past few years, image recognition and processing technology has become increasingly popular and commercialized with increasingly reasonable prices. The development of hardware (camera) and software (facial recognition algorithms) has gradually been completed with almost absolute accuracy to ensure the requirements set forth for timekeeping. On the current market, there are also many smart camera products that are suitable for many specific requirements with very reasonable prices, high quality and abundant features so that businesses can not too concerned about the cost when converting to timekeeping by camera. Another advantage of this form of timekeeping is that the cameras have been developed to store data on the Cloud and can connect to many other systems automatically, so it is easy to link and process time attendance results on other human resource management software.

Wi-Fi Validation

Developed in parallel with time attendance by camera is Wifi validation. Users will access the Wifi access points specified by the enterprise (for example, Wifi at the company’s office) and check-in on smartphone software. This solution is highly appreciated because it does not cost equipment investment and saves a lot of time for both employees and businesses when data is easily integrated online with payroll software. However, the accuracy of this method is not high compared to Camera because the coverage of Wifi is relatively wide.

Approve by GPS

The disadvantage of fingerprint, camera or Wifi timekeeping solutions is that it is difficult to apply to businesses that operate outside and do not have fixed working locations, such as management at construction sites. Therefore, one of the other solutions for these businesses is timekeeping by GPS (locating by coordinates). This solution eliminates reliance on fixed devices, but still requires workers to have smartphones for location. Similar to the way of time attendance using Wifi, the GPS timekeeping solution has a relative accuracy because the location confirmation range still has certain errors.

terra’s group of timekeeping solutions

As a comprehensive human resource solution group, developed on the basis of modern technology, terra provides businesses with integrated timekeeping solutions on terra HR System human resource management software, including: timekeeping solution by Wifi and timekeeping by entering in/out time on the system. Users will access the terra HR System software and check-in/out, the way to do it is extremely simple and fast.

In addition to the above timekeeping methods, terra also offers an automatic linking solution with the image recognition camera. In addition, if the business is using fingerprint timekeeping, terra can still support. Similar to the solutions provided by terra, for linked solutions, the data from the timekeeper can be easily integrated on the terra system, so the attendance information of each employee will be synchronized and updated. updated on their own personal accounts, making it easy for users to monitor and manage.

With a variety of timekeeping methods, businesses can choose method suited their business type. The only thing that businesses are still concerned about when applying new and modern timekeeping methods is cost. However, this is no longer a big problem because as technology advances, the cost of applying these solutions has begun to decrease. With the goal of putting user experience first, saving manpower and time, and solving cost worries, terra offers a 6-month trial offer of terra HR System human resource management software. . Enterprises can use all the functions that terra HR System provides completely free of charge, including: time attendance, personnel data management, leave and overtime management, social insurance management , recruitment management, labor contract management,…

Register here to get a free trial