Very often a return on investment (ROI) can be realized fairly quickly when the investment is in time clock software - primarily in the form of saved ancillary expenses. A number of different studies and reports have summarized the expenses associated with payroll miscalculations and fraud that occur in any system on a yearly basis. These types of expenses can be essentially eliminated with an efficient time and attendance system, connected with appropriate time clock software.

It has been reported that simple human mistake in manual timekeeping and payroll systems can cost a company somewhere between 1 and 8 percent of its annual gross payroll. That figure does not include the estimated seven minutes per time card that it takes for someone to process time cards in a manual system or the actual expenses of the paper time cards themselves.

The cost of 'buddy punching' has been estimated at up to 5 percent of gross payroll per year. Moreover, the expenses that result from employees arriving a few minutes late and leaving a few minutes early can be staggering.

Nevertheless, those mistakes and fraud expenses can be virtually eliminated from a company's payroll system when an electronic system is substituted for a manual one. Manufacturers of time clock systems affirm that substantial improvements can be made in many cost areas. And this is when such systems are installed, and their claims are substantiated by companies that use their products.

So, when an electronic system is used, paper time cards become a tool of the past, as do mistakes in computing time worked. Overtime can be more closely controlled and incompetent overtime can be virtually eliminated. That's why, buddy punching becomes impossible, particularly with a biometric system in which the employee's hand must be presented to clock in and out of work. When an electronic system has already compiled variables like hours worked and profits amassed, it doesn't take as much labor to process payroll.

The reason of accruing ROI is not through money that a time clock system produces, but through excess expenses that are eliminated. However, when both error and fraud are eliminated from the company's timekeeping and payroll system, there are substantial savings to be realized, within most companies.