Why Small Business Organizations Need to Have Attendance Management System

Small business and organizations are constantly looking out for ways to reduce their costs and improve their productivity. As small businesses often run on thin profit margins, the need for having good internal resources that help in minimizing costs and being able to survive competition are always welcome. One such neglected area where costs can be easily cut is employee attendance management. And one easy way to manage employees is having an automated Attendance Management System.

attendance management system

attendance management system

Yes, the idea of using a manual attendance system does seem tempting and easy, but the actual time going towards maintaining it, turns out to be more than the costs incurred to implement an automated attendance management system. The operational costs for any business are pretty taxing, and having to manually do attendance reconciliation can be very time-consuming and expensive too. HR departments that depend on manual attendance systems invest a lot of valuable time each month to generate accurate reports. Having an automated attendance management system saves the HR department from this laborious task, thus creating time that could be utilized towards other productive tasks. Intelligent investments not only reduce costs but improve the overall productivity of a business. By correctly and efficiently managing the time of your workforce, you can make a considerable difference in leveraging your human resources to the maximum potential.

Studies recommend all organizations with more than 10 employees to have an automated attendance management system. The attendance software industry today offers a wide variety of automated attendance management system, for small businesses as well as organizations with thousands of employees. This way the business can plan their spending as per its needs, budget and yes, as per the number of employees.

What does an Attendance management system do?

It regularly calculates the employees' attendance. It records their arrival and departure time. Such data is saved in a computer database. This data is then used for generating reports about individual workers by the HR department. Having an Attendance management system makes it easy and quick to calculate leave balances, create time sheets, generate paychecks, etc.

Types of attendance management system

There are wide variations of attendance management system available in the market. For example,

Web-based attendance management system- these are to be used on a computer on a web browser. They have become well accepted because of their ease of accessibility and convenience.

Biometric system- these increase accuracy and cut practices like buddy punching and proxy attendance. Some of the types of biometric systems used are fingerprint recognition, retina scanning or facial recognition.

Basic things to consider while deciding on an attendance management system

When a small business organization decides to go for an attendance management system, it should keep in mind the following things. The first and most important thing is obviously the cost of acquiring the software. The second thing to decide is whether to have biometric traits or not. The next important thing to look out is the kind of reports and calculations you wish the software to generate. The software should be able to accommodate your industry-specific requirements. For example, a service providing company would have different types of wages and salary calculation than a manufacturing company.

How does it work?   

The word attendance management system may sound complicated and a hassle to use, but in reality, it is very simple. All employees would be able to use this software with ease. Once the software is installed, all employees are given a personal and unique identity through an identifier. This identifying mechanism recognizes the employee when they enter the office. Each employee is also given a card with a barcode, which is to be scanned by a barcode reader installed at the entrance of the office premises. That's the simple version of the software. Today loads of advance versions are also available in the market that uses Face Recognition and Access Control. A Face Recognition software uses an employees' face to identify him while an Access Control software uses the employee's unique fingerprint for the same.

CuckooTech

CuckooTech is your single stop solution to all your time attendance management requirements. We have world-class attendance software that is perfect for the global workforce needs of the 21st century. Our wide variety of T&A projects can cater to every need of your business. But, if you are still in doubt, get in touch with us, and all your doubts are sure to fly! You can reach us either through our website www.cuckootech.com or through a phone call on 022 4036 5432. Provide us a chance to show you our software and see it for yourself! So what are you waiting for? Go ahead book your free demo with CuckooTech now!

The Importance of an Automated Biometric Attendance Software in Current Times

When you are a business owner, you come across thousands of different kinds of business management software that are designed to help you get your work done. Some are actually good, some not so good, and the task of deciding which one you need is quite complicated. So, how do you know where to begin? The answer is simple. Start with something which is more critical, like installing a new biometric attendance system. It's a widespread myth--complex and expensive software program is usually more effective. This is certainly not true for the Time and Attendance software Industry. A Good Time and attendance systems are clear, straightforward, and accessible, both for implementation and in actual use. A business is made of two elements- a set of employees and certain machinery. They work together to achieve a common goal. So a businessman's primary responsibility is the optimum utilization of all his assets- machinery and human resources. With the help of biometrics, one can keep tabs on employee movement and productivity in all departments. Biometric attendance system is easy to install and uses a mechanism that either reads the fingerprints or individual special access cards. Such systems are genuine solutions to make your workplace safe and optimum.

Let us see how:

Limited access and physical safety

The software makes it possible to completely reject the entry of unwarranted people in the office premises. This ensures the safety of your business and your staff too. By limiting unwarranted individuals in the premise, the physical safety of your staff and premises is preserved. Such unwarranted people may include your ex-employees, unwelcomed salespeople, and people trying to gain illegal access to your business related information or for that matter any unauthorized person. It even helps in limiting access across departments. Certain departments of an organization could be highly sensitive, where you may not want to give access to all your employees. Such scenarios can be easily handled by establishing a biometric access control, thus limiting access into that department only for certain people.

Corruption free and no scope for a proxy

There is almost zero human intervention in the maintenance of attendance records, time in / time out and other time details when it's done by Biometric attendance system. Hence the chances of persuading, corruption and thus, change of records are zero. Biometric attendance systems are fingerprint/ face recognition based attendance readers. So the chances of marking the attendance by a co-employee, or incorrect time marking by the employee himself is not possible. Your employees may not be able to log in false work and incorrect working hours. As the employee’s unique fingerprint is required each time, the chances of proxy attendance are zero.

Transparent system

Having a biometric attendance system lets everyone have clear access to his/her attendance details. Such a thing avoids clashes, miscommunication, and ambiguity. Transparent credit of working hours and work achieved by the employee ensures a fair salary credit process. Salary slips can be generated instantly at any point of the month. All this ensures fair, correct, and appropriate business process and makes your business a good place to work at.

biometric attendance system 

Stores and consolidates all employees data

All data related to each employee-from their date of joining, designation, remuneration, leave calendar, future scheduled leaves to personal identity details- everything can be stored in one single location, accessible to the HR department at any point of time when required for informed decision-making. The HR department can know the needs of employees, their training requirements, promotion/ appraisals and provide them the same. All in all, an aware and systematic HR department immensely helps to retain employees too.

Elegant and Efficient

The beauty of establishing a new biometric attendance system is that you need not sacrifice any of your existing business proceedings to be able to make use of it. Biometric attendance software let you customize reports so as to meet the rules and regulations of your particular business, hence helping you achieve your exact business need. Such software makes all information quickly and easily available and things like figuring out job costing or project management details or business estimates, everything can be accessed on your fingertips. They give you the liberty to customize and present reports on exactly what, when and how you want to see them. Never again would you have to waste precious hours of your time sifting through irrelevant details till you reach any pertinent information.

Ultimately, with a biometric attendance system in place, you can get to see the complete and comprehensive picture of your employee efficiencies and your business profitability, instantly. Implementing a good biometric attendance system can spur you and your organization on to greater efficiencies and productivity.

Looking for best in class attendance software that is best suited for the global workforce needs of the 21st century? CuckooTech is your best bet. They have a T&A project for any and every need your business. Everything is available in real time through cloud integration. CuckooTech seamlessly integrates with IoT, cloud and all the latest technologies and subsystems taking in the best qualities from each. But, if you are still doubtful, do not wait, schedule a quick demo!

attendance software

attendance software

Biometric Attendance Systems

Biometric attendance systems have brought more precise ways of monitoring the employee’s attendance and an individual’s activity in the organization. This type of system is mainly useful in large organizations and business firms where the management has to deal with a large number of employees and monitor their duties and responsibilities. 

Biometrics is the most ensured and precise strategies for gathering participation information, be it any industry. All methods of monitoring attendance and performance prior to this technology ended up in excessive and unreasonable tedious activities for the management and the HR team. They would initially need to check, regardless of whether the information gathered is exact and accurate and afterward experience the extensive procedure of circulating compensation to workers. These methods of attendance posed a lot of difficulty and challenges for the firm. 

How do biometric attendance systems work?

Biometric Attendance System catch your one of a kind organic/physical/biological element, for example, your hand fingerprints or unique mark, iris design and even your voice as a record for personality check and verification. It enables you to perform something that you are approved and authorized to do by your employee. 

biometric attendance system

biometric attendance system

What makes a biometric attendance system more effective?

The right attendance system creates the positive environment among the employees as it can ensure that people are coming on time. The regular biometric systems are used only for payslip generation as managers cannot see the real time attendance data any time they want.

Though there are lots of solutions available in the market, we have tested various products and based on the research we’ve gathered, only a select few could make it to the top. One of them is CuckooTech. Their biometric attendance systems have a curated patent technology as it is an independent gamified time attendance system, with biometric attendance sensors that are installed on the cloud that monitors real-time data, and is great at handling multi-location, shift-planning, geo-location demands. 

The Attendance Software has been successfully stress-tested by some of the most challenging HR managers, in industries, like Retail, Hospitality, manufacturing, and production. 

attendance software

attendance software

At CuckooTech, push technology is utilised that transfers data to the cloud as and when it happens. This type of technology helps to capture the real-time performance of employees. As it helps to monitor their data, it alerts the employer as to when the employee has checked in to the job, the activities he does and his whereabouts. 

Some of the advantages of the biometric attendance software are:

Real-time information: As cuckooTech is based on push-based technology systems, so all of the biometric data of the employee is pushed and transferred to the cloud directly. The transfer of this data is instantaneous.

Increase in efficiency: Efficient Workforce and employee management systems.

Fake-Finger technology: Fingerprints are unique to all individuals. They fit the criteria as one cannot lose their fingerprints, they cannot be shared, and neither can they be forgotten or damaged in any way. Most of the biometric devices not only identify fingerprints, but they often get deviated and falsely led by fake fingerprints. The patent technology of CuckooTech uses multiple recognition features such as algorithms and infrared lights to identify the fingerprints thus eliminating the fake ones.

Gamification: This system gamifies the entire process and makes it more engaging for the employees. It reduces the stress levels of the workers. With each correct attendance, the employees receive awards for adherence to rules. These points can be later redeemed for more rewards and coupons. It motivates them to work more and enhances their engagement as a team. 

Absence of specialised software: No extra software is to be installed on the client’s side.

SAP integration: The biometric tech comes with various API and web-enabled services which integrate seamlessly with ERP solutions. The Sap and cuckootech go hand in hand with different types of ERP software.

Secure: Zero data leakage as all of the information and employee data is instantaneously pushed to the private attendance cloud. It uses ADIS which works as the ultimate artificial intelligence solution to work according to situations and capture real-time data.

Final Words

There are many different types of technologies that have been created to cater to the needs of the people. At CuckooTech, only the best patent designs are curated to suit the needs of the organisation. The technology is successfully implanted in various firms and have only delivered the best results so far. 

Why CuckooTech's Biometric Attendance System is the Best

Time is money, well if you are the employer then you will definitely believe it too. It goes without saying that capturing the right time data for employees is as important for the company as it is for the employee himself. With a plethora of services and apps available in the market, the onus is on the management to select a software that helps them to capture accurate and precise data without much effort. This is where CuckooTech, comes into the picture. The biometric attendance system from CuckooTech not only ensures the accuracy of the data but also helps in seamless integration with the cloud, allowing instantaneous data access across the globe.

Biometric Attendance System

Biometric Attendance System

With the increased usage of cloud-based services, many new companies are joining the bandwagon with their own attendance software. Yet CuckooTech continues to be the preferred choice of many owing to its expertise, exposure and experience (3 E’s) in the HR automation and biometric attendance system on cloud domain. They have established themselves in this volatile market with their quality and cost-effective products.

Some of the key features of the biometric attendance system which makes the software from CuckooTech stand out among the other attendance software in the market are:

Attendance Software

Attendance Software

Central Template Management

This feature enables employees to accurately capture their time entry data even if they are working from different offices in the same and different cities and countries. Once the biometric data of the employee is captured, it can be shared and used across all the locations using the central template management system.

Push based attendance system

This push-based technology enables the instant transfer of the attendance data (captured from the employees) to the cloud. Biometric data clubbed with the push technology is the best combination to receive accurate and real-time attendance data of the employees. This is very important for many strategic policy formulations and changes that the company may want to make.

Zero Error Probability

CuckooTech biometric attendance system comes with a special ADIS interface platform which connects it to the cloud server. It is configured to capture the attendance data from multiple devices like iPad, mobiles, desktops, tablets and many more. This ensures that there is almost 100% data accuracy in attendance data captured. Having this data instantly available from the cloud enables the management and stakeholders to get a better picture and understanding of the attendance pattern of its employees.

40% cost savings on installation

Most of the CuckooTech clients have recorded a whopping 40% cost saving on device installation and operational costs with the biometric attendance system. The plug and play technology and ADIS interface have worked together to make this happen for prestigious clients.

No extra software needed at the client side

Once the biometric impressions are captured by the biometric devices, these are transferred and stored in the cloud. This eliminates the need for any more software on the client-server or other machines.

Attendance device monitoring dashboard

All the biometric devices are connected to the ADIS interface which constantly monitors the health of these devices and publishes them on the monitoring dashboard. In case any biometric device goes offline due to some reason, it will populate an alert in the dashboard, so that it can be taken of care of at the earliest.

Plug and play system

There are no major installations needed for the biometric attendance system. Any layman can mount it on 4 screws and it is ready to get started. These devices come with pre-configured data and information, hence the minimal installation.

Patented finger matching algorithm

The biometric attendance system comes with a patent finger matching algorithm, which gives accurate data with the high speed. The algorithm is designed to match actual prints with the template at unmatched and unparalleled speed and precision.

Live and fake finger detector

This is especially useful in places where extremely high security is needed like airports, bank lockers etc. In these cases where security is at stake, the live and fake finger detector from CuckooTech ensures only legitimate data is captured, processed and uploaded or pushed to the cloud.

Time Attendance System

Time Attendance System

With all these features and many more too, CuckooTech is slowly and steadily becoming a much sought after player in the biometric attendance system market. So if you are looking for the best time attendance system suited for your upcoming 21st century needs, then CuckooTech would be your best choice. The products and services provided by CuckooTech are in line with international standards and aim to provide the clients with the most accurate data anytime and every time.

CuckooTech Has Good News For Employers

Whether yours is a large organization or a small business, if you pay your employees by the hour, then the importance of having accurate timekeeping is of utmost importance. To take effective decisions in an organization, it is essential to have accurate data on employee's attendance and movement. In today’s time, you might have definitely implemented some time tracking system, where your employees check in and check out. But without a truly effective time tracking solution in place, there are high chances of errors creeping in. Incorrect time capturing by the Human timekeeper or employee time theft through ‘buddy punching’ are not very uncommon in today's world.

What actually is ‘Buddy Punching?

Buddy punching in simple words is an employee punching time (in the system) for another co-worker who may be absent, or late, or could be planning to leave early. With a simple time tracking mechanism like a sign in a register, he could ask his buddy co-worker to help him out and punch on behalf of him.

Let’s say yours is a fairly large organization, then it may be difficult for the supervisor to not notice an occasional 1-2 employees slipping in late or leaving a little early. For example, one fine day one of your employee Vinith’s bike breaks down when he is on the way to the office. Since he knows he would be a little late, he calls his co-worker Sumit to do him a favor and sign on his behalf into the company time tracking system. Signing in on Vinith’s behalf won't affect Sumit's attendance, and Vinith can return the favor the following week when Sumit plans to leave a little early from work due to a family function.

Imagine: how much resources such as time, money and efforts are getting wasted, if such a thing has been happening often with multiple numbers of employees? Even if it happens just once with 50% of your workforce then buddy punching shall cost your company dearly.

But don't worry, with time attendance software from companies like CuckooTech, such things can be easily eliminated and you can pay your employees for their actual worked hours and not a manipulated number.

How to Foil Time Theft

The best tool to combat buddy punching is to introduce Biometric Time Clock that has a robust time and attendance software. Employees have to use their unique fingerprint, facial features or hand geometry to clock in or out. This is definitely a foolproof means to track employee attendance accurately.

What Else Does Time Attendance Management Software Do?

Apart from foiling time theft, time attendance software also helps in tracking employee attendance and managing leaves. It helps in tracking day-to-day employee work hours, deriving project costing, and scheduling employees, to name a few.  One can generate standard attendance reports, with just a click of the mouse. Some systems even have the option wherein employees can clock in time even when they work from remote locations, or work from home and other such change in circumstances.

attendance software

attendance software

Another significant advantage of automated time attendance software is the elimination of the administrative burden that happens due to handling paper time sheets. Such automation automatically enhances productivity and reduces inaccuracy. This software is an absolute boon in an organization that has multiple processes and shifts wise working patterns. Time and Attendance Software also allows administrators to set break times, lunchtime, overtime, and other management processes.  It also helps track late coming and early leaving.

The Functioning of a Biometric Time Attendance Software

biometric attendance system devices recognize a person with their intrinsic physical characteristics like a fingerprint, palm, face, iris, etc. However, a fingerprint is the most commonly used characteristic.

biometric attendance system

biometric attendance system

Superior Features of CuckooTech

CuckooTech offers multi recognition technology and can easily detect a fake finger impression from a true one. The automatic finger scanner is quick, easy and accurate. Our intelligent software lets time and attendance managers to set levels of authentications across the organization. It also lest you choose between various authentication combinations from only card, card + PIN, finger + PIN, face + PIN & loads of such combinations as desired. So to experience a highly endorsed consultative approach do not hesitate to get in touch with CuckooTech today!

We promise a world-class service & support. We have a widespread network of our service team all over India, across various locations, which makes sure you get prompt and proper services, whether it is installation or commissioning or support. Our devices are managed over CLOUD on a special technology platform ADIS. This reduces the turn-around time and ensures that the possibility of a software failure is negligible. All our devices are patented from Korea.

To conclude, maintaining pen and paper-based attendance process may be inexpensive but is quite time-consuming. Replacing it with biometric time and attendance devices is apt, hassle-free, efficient and accurate. Whether running a large business or a small one, it is advisable, entrepreneurs move to biometric time attendance system. As it facilitates the HR department to accurately perform payroll functions of its employees.

time attendance system

time attendance system

What Are The Various Options To Capture Attendance?

It is been a while that I am writing on-why attendance system has to be treated not just as an HR function. But an enterprise solution which needs sophisticated automation.

In my blogs on attendance system, I tried to cover in depth the criticality of various attendance functions.

Ranging from how to select the right attendance software to what are the selection parameters of an attendance system, and how to identify the right attendance service provider. I have discussed in detail, which biometric fits the best for your attendance system, and also created infographics on the difference between basic attendance system & Enterprise attendance system. 

In an earlier post I also emphasised how fake finger mechanisms causes financial loss to an organisation.

Enterprise Attendance system

Enterprise Attendance system

Today I am writing on multiple modes of time and attendance capturing for your employees as per business requirement. Ranging from desk jobs to field jobs, remote location working to work from home. I am sure it will be interesting to find what type of jobs people do & how challenging it is to capture their attendance.

Let me first define what is a Time and attendance system?

It seems common sense: Time Attendance system is a process by which one identifies whether the employee has attended to work at the said time.

But for doing this, we must take into account all the time attendance policies, practices, statutory compliance. Inputs for attendance, scheduling tools, record maintenance & payroll generation. This combination makes it complex.

time attendance system

time attendance system

Let us list down the various options to capture attendance.

Biometric Devices

How the biometric can be implemented for various work profiles.

Biometric devices for office / desk staff attendance.

Biometric devices is best option to capture attendance for staff. Installing a biometric device near the entrance, makes it accessible to all employees to mark IN & out punches. Thus making it a full proof attendance marking system.

Biometric devices for factory workers / labourers working in manufacturing units.

Facial recognition biometric device is the best option, with the nature of work that may vary from a manufacturing unit to another unit. In our experience, most of the worker’s finger- texture keeps changing, because of nature of their work. It eliminates the option of finger based biometric. The facial recognition technology has enhanced over the period & it is a safe bet to use these devices now.

Biometric devices for retail stores employees.

biometric attendance system again is the best option. As we all understand the environmental difference between an office, factory, hospitality business & retail outlet. The type of biometric device will vary for retail stores.

The selection of the biometric hardware to be deployed also depends on the employee strength & number of shifts on the floor.

biometric attendance system

biometric attendance system

For a hypermarket format a finger based biometric with one device for check-in & another for check- out is a must, as this helps to find deviation against planned roaster / schedule for employees. You can refer to my case study on retail attendance.

For smaller retail outlet less than 20 employees, an office type biometric set up works. For still smaller size retail, mobile based solution works fine, refer to mobile attendance capturing section.

Biometric devices for attendance of students and learners.

Portable biometric devices is the best option to mark attendance inside the classroom. These devices are sleek, rigid & tough, come with power back up, work with SIM based internet technology to transfer data real time. Attendance marking for school & college students have never been so easy.

Mobile based attendance capturing solution

List of job roles where it is perfect to use a mobile attendance system.

Mobile based attendance for sales & field employees.

App based solution with option to geo tag the employee attendance has been a boon for organisations with people on field. Let me put this in other words, any business where employees have to travel out of office for service calls, support, sales, customer relationship management needs mobile based attendance capturing system. The recent apps are highly sophisticated & take care of high level of accuracy including any misuse, it even has selfie mode to reconfirm someone’s presence at the location.

The mobile apps work in remote locations & basements with no internet connectivity. It still captures the time & attendance in an offline mode, allowing to sync once the employee is in the network coverage area. This attendance app is available in both IOS & Android version.

Mobile based attendance for smaller retail outlets / employees deployed at client site.

This has been an area of pressing challenge in recent times. As outsourcing business is flourishing and retail chain outlets are expanding at a fast pace. These organisations needs a cost effective mode of attendance capturing because the number of employees at each location is handful. But spread across various locations. These organisations work on high volume & low margins. Hence creating a cost effective attendance solution was the need of the hour.

Mobile based attendance with geo fencing is the best solution currently available in the attendance market space. The solution allows to geo fence the store location or a client location where the employee is deployed. The employees are restricted to mark attendance using the registered mobile device only from the geo fenced location.

We have heard about the resistance of employees in accepting this system, but a correct employee orientation, attendance guidelines & processes have seen good success.

Traditional options for attendance capturing

Proxy attendance marking is alive even today, maybe because of practical reasons, in many organisations. In small, as well as some big organisations. There are cases where due to compliance reasons biometric devices can’t be installed on client site, mobile phones are not allowed in. The only way to mark attendance in such scenarios is, manager approves it over the attendance screen on behalf of the onsite resources. So at least manual efforts are gone & data is available in digital format. It even has an essence of manager taking the ownership of employee attendance.

Attendance upload scenarios where companies have depots / satellite offices with 5-6 employees, biometric or mobile are not possible because of cost, security, infrastructure challenges. In such cases either the site in-charge or HR coordinator manually consolidates the data in a specified XLS template to upload this on the HRMS system.

Future ready time & attendance capturing features

Contactless attendance is a new technology corporates are using. The employees are given mobile based digital key installed on their smart phones. As they come in the proximity of the office door it automatically marks the attendance. Giving a great user experience.

Hamster devices TABs and OTG capable smart phones can attach to small biometric device called hamster, this is handy & portable device which can be carried to the employee desk for marking. Or can be kept on a manager’s desk inside a parking lot where employees can come to mark their attendance. These small biometric hamster devices do not need its own power, storage & internet. They use resources of the smart devices. The best feature: the software can geo-tag & click a selfie.

Timesheet has been used for many years by IT & engineering companies. But it still continues to feature in future technologies. Though modern timesheets have become sophisticated, it help in clocking employee’s productive hours and approval by the concern team manager, and also connects with billing, expenses, and project management tools.

SSO: Commonly known as single sign on. Technologically progressive company now host their complete solution over the cloud. Since all the solutions are on cloud, it becomes a challenge for employees to remember login credential for so many different apps. But with single-sing-on, employee only logs into the cloud. The rest is taken care of using active directory.

The 1st login to the day is treated as the IN & the last log out is the end of the day punch. Employees will not have to login separately in the attendance system to mark their attendance. Hence SSO comes handy & the employee does not miss a punch in any case.

As we all know & I strongly believe, life is a journey of learning & growing. If you come across any other modes to capture attendance apart from the listed ones, or a system your time office has implemented, please share. I will be happy to add to this list.