In an ever-evolving technological world, it can be extremely challenging to stay on top of business best practices. If there is only one technological upgrade you do this year, upgrade your time and labour practice to an automated time and attendance software and eliminate “Buddy Punching”.
Recent studies have shown Buddy Punching can account for up to 5% of total payroll costs a year – it is important to understand exactly what buddy punching is, and how and why it can be eliminated with time and attendance software.
Buddy punching is when an employee punches the time clock on behalf of another employee, who is leaving early, arriving late, absent from work or not scheduled for work that day. This is a time and attendance issue that allows employees to get paid for time in which they are not on the job, and is the basis for payroll fraud or time theft.
Buddy Punching occurs with manual punch cards. Not only do punch cards allow for payroll fraud, they also reduce employee productivity and efficiency; employees take time to punch in and punch out, day after day. The HR department then manually calculates employee hours while equating vacation pay, overtime, etc. to determine the accurate amount due to the employee. Both of these processes are highly prone to human error – costing you thousands or even millions of lost dollars each year.
Upgrading your payroll system to an automated time and attendance software will eliminate Buddy Punching while saving you 2-5% of your payroll costs annually. Reduce human errors and tracks employees’ attendance by using advanced methods such as biometrics, completely eliminating the risk of Buddy Punching.
Upgrading to an automated time and attendance system can not only save you money, but increase your productivity through a variety of workforce management solutions such as activity costing, labour forecasting and absence management.
Take the first step to a more profitable and organized business by upgrading your manual time cards to an automated time and attendance software and put an end to ‘buddy punching’ once and for all.
