Tracking Attendance for Salaried Employees

There are a number of reasons you may want to have your salaried employees use your time clock software. We've talked about them before in past time clock support blogs. Some businesses want salaried employees just to clock in so they have a record that they worked that day, but they don't need them to clock out for lunch or at the end of their work day. An easy way to handle this scenario is to set up a new shift with an auto clock out rule and assign it to the daily schedule for each salaried employee. That way, you'll have a record of salaried employee attendance without inconveniencing them by having to use the time clock more than once a day.

Jeff
Technical Support Team
Redcort Software, Inc.

Reporting Salaried Workers to Payroll

The purpose of employee timecards is to keep track of total hours worked. Time clock software does this very well for hourly employees. But what about salaried workers? Technically, salaried workers shouldn't have any hours to report because they're not punching the clock. But there may still be reasons to have your salaried employees use the time clock, like: allows you to replace your manual in/out board, improve office communication, track available and remaining vacation hours, accurately bill clients for labor hours, and make it easier to manage labor costs.

Timecard summary reports are often used for payroll processing because they contain one-line totals for each employee, but they typically exclude salaried workers. If you need salaried worker names to appear on time card summary reports so your payroll processor knows to give them a paycheck, then just create one manual entry each payroll period for zero hours (use the same start and stop time). This will cause the salaried worker's name to appear on timecard summary reports.

Jeff
Technical Support Team
Redcort Software

Including Wages On Employee Timecards

It's easy to include employee wage information on worker timecards. This is helpful for reporting hourly rates to your payroll processor, or to get an idea of your labor costs for the payroll period. It's also a great way to track labor costs across different projects or jobs with your employee time clock software. There are a couple of options for how the wage information will appear on your timecard reports, so we'll take a look at how gross wages work with both hourly and salaried workers.

Hourly Workers

Hourly workers are assigned an hourly rate in the Wages panel of the Users lists window of your Virtual TimeClock software. To include wage information on timecard reports, go to the Reports menu, choose Report Writer and select the Timecard Detail report. Click the Options tab and check Total Gross Wages. Now you'll see gross wage totals for all leave, regular, overtime, and total hours worked. There's an additional option to show the hourly rate for each worker on the timecard report as well. You can choose to show gross wages on both timecard detail and timecard summary reports that are grouped by worker. You can also include gross wages on timecards grouped by activity, department, leave category, and shift, but not the individual rate for each employee.

Salaried Workers

You may be using your employee time clock software to track time spent by salaried workers on different projects or jobs. This is helpful for tracking labor costs and trends on those projects. Here's how it works. Every employee has an hourly burden. For hourly employees, the hourly burden is equal to their hourly rate. For salaried workers, the hourly burden is calculated by dividing their salary per payroll period by their average weekly hours worked. So if their salary is $1,500 a week and they average 40 hours, then their hourly burden would be $37.50. Think of it as an approximate hourly wage for a salaried worker. Worker timecards will show just the salary amount for the payroll period, but activity, departmental, and shift reports will include the hourly burden for salaried workers in the totals if the reports are set to include them. This allows you to get an accurate reporting of your labor costs for the project. The report option for including salaried worker totals is found right next to the option for totaling gross wages in the Options panel for each report in the Report Writer.

Jeff Morrow

Technical Support Team

Redcort Software

Why Salaried Workers Need Time Clock Software

A traditional punch clock has always been used for the time tracking of hourly employees, primarily to record the time they start and end work. Employee time clock software allows you to do much more than just time tracking, and makes a great punch clock replacement. Often times when talking to our time and attendance software customers, I discover that they're still only using their time clock program for hourly employees. After a brief discussion, they realize there are huge benefits to using a time clock program for salaried workers as well. Here are some reasons why you'll want your salaried workers 'on the clock'.

Virtual In/Out Board

Virtual TimeClock software is a great way to improve office communication. The main time clock software window provides at-a-glance knowledge of who's clocked in, who's clocked out, who's at lunch, and who's on break. You can also instantly tell who's in a meeting, what time somebody will be back from an appointment, and what projects or jobs employees are working on. This is a great tool for management to keep track of employee progress. It's also a great tool for the front reception desk or the call center for knowing who's available, when they'll be back, and how to route incoming calls or walk-in appointments.

Job/Project Tracking

Have your salaried workers use Virtual TimeClock software to track time spent on various jobs, projects, or activities. This is a great way to generate labor costing reports using the built-in timecard software report writer. Since even salaried workers carry an hourly burden, adding gross wages to your timecard reports allows you to perform labor costing analysis. You'll also be able to provide more accurate client billing for your labor hours because you'll know hard labor costs for each project for any period of time.

Employee Leave Tracking

Have your salaried workers use Virtual TimeClock software so you can accurately and easily keep track of their accrued and used time-off. You can setup as many different leave categories as you need for keeping track of both paid and unpaid employee time-off benefits. Use the built-in leave categories to track time-off for holidays, personal time, sick leave, and vacation. Additional leave categories you might want to setup include funeral leave, jury duty, military leave, maternity leave, FMLA, furlough, unpaid sick leave, and unpaid personal leave.

As you can see, your time clock software can be much more than a punch clock replacement. Having your salaried employees use your time and attendance software can improve office communication, help you accurately bill clients for project hours, and easily manage employee time-off tracking.

Jeff Morrow

Time Clock Software Specialist

Redcort Software