What is an attendance management system?

Attendance tracking can bring multiple benefits to an organization. One of the most important benefits is that it helps HR and payroll teams process employee payments accurately. As an HR professional, tracking and storing attendance data will help you ensure compliance with all the applicable labor laws. Streamlining your attendance management strategies also ensures you always have enough resources to complete projects on time. With employees preferring flexibility and working from different parts of the world, the traditional methods of manually tracking attendance are no longer a sustainable solution. This is where a cloud-based attendance management system comes into play. In this blog post, we're breaking down the basics of an attendance management system.

What is an attendance management system?

An attendance management software is a cloud-based HR tech tool that enables organizations to automate their attendance management operations and keep track of employee working hours. It either allows employees to mark their attendance through its web or mobile app or integrates with the biometric attendance system to sync attendance entries automatically. Some attendance management systems do come with facial recognition technology that validates employee identities whenever they check in or check out. These attendance entries are centralized in a single system and can be accessed by HR teams from anywhere, at any time.

 Why is an attendance software system important? 

Tracking employee attendance manually with paper registers and digital spreadsheets has become a thing of the past. With hybrid work and an increase in workplace flexibility and transparency, adopting an attendance management system that automates the entire attendance tracking process is key. It allows employees to mark and store their attendance online, which is especially convenient for employees who work remotely. It can also work alongside your leave and shift management system to cut down on duplicate tasks, such as converting absences into leave days. Check out more detailed information about the benefits of an attendance management system. 

When would you need an attendance management system?

If you are wondering whether or not to invest in an attendance management system, here are three signs that your organization needs one:

• You're tracking attendance manually

Using physical registers or online spreadsheets may seem useful when you only have a handful of employees. However, as you keep scaling up your business, your HR team may find it challenging to keep track of your workforce's attendance and gather data for payroll processing. Your employees may also find it inconvenient to manually sign registers every morning. They expect their organization to have a user-friendly attendance tracking system that is easy to use, just like their personal technologies.

• Payroll errors are not uncommon

When you track employee attendance manually, your attendance data is prone to human error. When you use the same errored data for payroll processing, you may end up calculating the gross pay of your employees incorrectly, and this affects employee morale and satisfaction. Processing payroll can take much longer when using this approach, since your team has to calculate the working hours, time off, and overtime data of your employees manually. As a result, you may not be able to process payroll on time.  

• Ensuring compliance seems like a herculean task

When you don't have a proper system to track employee attendance, your attendance data may be scattered in different places and may not be documented properly. This data has to be documented carefully to ensure compliance with various labor policies, including those that require organizations to provide a certain amount of days off and compensate employees for any overtime work. During audits, you may find your team struggling to organize attendance data and paying hefty fines for non-compliance.

Wrapping up

Attendance management system can truly help your organization streamline employee working hour data, as well as save your HR team from spending lots of time tracking employee attendance. Zoho People, our human resource management system, can automate the entire time-tracking process and help organizations capture employee attendance in multiple ways. Learn more about Zoho People's attendance tracker.