Finance and accounting professionals are realizing many benefits from management's decision. This is for fulfilling automated time and attendance solutions for salaried and part-time employees. As these solutions reduce re-keying mistakes, they help lower costs. Moreover, by removing the temptation to manipulate time captured through paper-based systems, they can eliminate fraud. They also improve the accuracy of bills submitted to clients for work done on their behalf.

An immediate audit trail is also offered by automated time collection solutions for producing detailed reports pertaining to a certain job, certain day, or even certain department, which is extremely helpful for evaluating performance or preparing budget estimates. Lastly, the amount of time it takes to issue an invoice for employers who bill employee time to a third party is reduced.

There are many automated solutions on the market today. That's why, some operate as in-house systems and others are contracted through an outsource service provider. Employees have various options to access any solution and enter time through the Internet, interactive voice responses (IVR) telephone systems, automated time clocks, biometric devices that scan fingerprints or handprints, badge scanners, and personal digital assistants (PDAs), among others. Employees have an opportunity to enter data from anywhere, at any time. It is easy to store and retrieve data for helping management make main decisions at any time.

Automation in Action
In the last years the staffing industry in particular has seen an increase in the number of organizations that have adopted automated time and attendance solutions. The reason is that their business relies on how rationally they collect time from employees on assignment, issue invoices, get paid, and pay their employees. But money is saved with lessening the overhead involved in this process.

Giving employees the tools to enter time into a system as it is amassed on a job allows companies to immediately generate reports that clients can review and approve online without exchanging paper. It also allows the client to correct the found mistake quickly. An invoice can be generated and submitted into the billing cycle without missing a beat.

Automated time solutions are also strong management tools. An employee enters his or her time on different jobs, and in this way all of the appropriate business rules automatically apply. The billing rate for one job can be different than another or a person's time may have been extended to another shift. In this case the system automatically calculates these changes and assures they are reflected properly in the invoice.