Importing New Time Clock Employees

You can import your new users into your employee time clock software by either creating a comma separated value (CSV) text file or exporting your employee list from QuickBooks. Let's talk about importing a CSV file. You can use a spreadsheet program like Excel and Numbers, or a text editor like Notepad and TextEdit to create and format the import file. You accounting program may also be able to export a list of employee names. Each line within the file represents a user and each comma within a line represents a field for that user. Fields are imported in the following order:

Last Name, First Name, Middle Name, Address, City, State, Zip Code, Home Telephone, Employee Number, Social Security Number, Password, Wage, Department Name

Unused fields may be empty as long as each line contains exactly 12 commas separating the 13 fields. Passwords must be unique. Virtual TimeClock will check the import file for duplicate passwords and compare passwords in the import file to the passwords for existing time clock users. If you're importing users into departments, the departments must already be set up in Virtual TimeClock with the exact department name.

Happy importing!


Jeff
Tier 2 Tech Support
Redcort Software Inc.

How to Import QuickBooks Time Clock Users

Rather than having to maintain two separate entry points when you hire new employees, Virtual TimeClock allows you to import QuickBooks time clock users. This means you only have to enter the new employee information one time before importing the new data into your time clock software.

First, export your QuickBooks employees. Go to the File menu of QuickBooks and select Utilities, Export, Lists to IIF Files. Check Employee List and OK. You may change the file name, but you must keep the .IIF extension.

Next, import your QuickBooks users. Choose Configure from the administrative toolbar of Virtual TimeClock and open the Users control panel. Click Add, Import Users and follow the instructions for importing a QuickBooks IIF File.

Existing Virtual TimeClock users will be updated with the personal information from QuickBooks if a matching social security number is found. For users with no social security numbers, you’ll be prompted to merge records for those users with the same last name. If you don’t import your QuickBooks users before performing your first time clock export, QuickBooks may create blank or duplicate employee records if it doesn’t find a name with an exact match.

All the steps needed to integrate QuickBooks with Virtual TimeClock can be found in our QuickBooks Payroll Integration Guide.

Jeff
Tier 2 Tech Support
Redcort Software, Inc.

Does Your Time Clock Admin Need to Punch In and Out?

When you first create your time clock software company database, you're also required to create an administrative user account. This time clock administrator account is not automatically added to the time clock list for punching in and out. So if this initial admin user needs to use the time clock to punch in and out, you'll need to add them to the list. We don't recommend creating a second non-admin user with the same name to use when clocking in and out because that could be confusing. Instead, you'll want to add the admin user to a display group.

Go to Configure, then Users, select the admin user name and click Groups. Select the display groups that you'd like the admin user to be a part of, like TimeClock Users. Now the name of the admin user will appear on the In/Out Board list so they can clock in and out like everyone else.

Jeff
Tier 2 Tech Support
Redcort Software, Inc.

Tracking HR Compliance and Employee Discipline

Employee time clock software is a great way to keep track of your employee HR compliance and discipline issues. You can centralize just about any kind of employee related information. This includes things like wage history, annual review dates and outcomes, safety and other job related training, dates and types of professional credentials or certification, and dates of disciplinary actions. And since only an administrator can access the Users Configure panel, you know this sensitive information is always electronically secure.

Launch your Virtual TimeClock software, turn administration on and go to Configure, and then Users. Select a user and click the Notes tab.

Jeff
Tier 2 Tech Support
Redcort Software, Inc.

Timecards for Inactive Users

We've always recommended making old employees inactive rather than deleting their user record. Deleting a user removes all of their timecard history, whereas making them inactive just removes the user name from any display groups they belong to. It's nice to have historic timecard data at your fingertips if you need it.

It's easy to view timecards for inactive employees. Turn on admin and select All Users from the display group popup menu in the bottom right corner of the Administration window. Now you can run a timecard for any past employee.

Jeff
Technical Support Team
Redcort Software, Inc.

How To Track Late Employees

Employee tardiness can be a real source of frustration for business owners and managers. Very few employees are likely to mark themselves as late when filling out paper time sheets. That's why time clock software is such a great tool for tracking the real time arrival and departure of your employees. It holds employees accountable and gives business owners several ways to monitor late employees.

Real-Time Monitoring
With Virtual TimeClock Network Edition, it's easy to see when employees are showing up and leaving in real time. Anytime an employee clocks in, goes on break, heads out for lunch, changes activities, or clocks out at the end of the day, their status is instantly updated on every time clock on the network. This makes it convenient for managers to monitor when employees are coming and going.

Late Arrival Report
Using the new shifts feature in Virtual TimeClock '11 is a great way to track late employees. Once you've configured and assigned your shift rules, the time clock will be able to compare when employees are scheduled to start work to when they actually start work. Run the Late Arrival Report from the Reports menu to get a list of who's been late, when they actually arrived, and how many minutes they were late. You can quickly run the report daily, weekly, monthly, or even for an entire year. This is a great report to have handy when conducting employee performance evaluations.

Jeff
Technical Support Team
Redcort Software

Employees Come and Go

Employees come and employees go, that's just the nature of business. Virtual TimeClock has an elegant solution for staying on top of old employee records. Changing a user's employment status is sometimes overlooked as an alternative to deleting a user that's no longer employed. Instead of deleting a user, you can change their status to 'Inactive' or 'Terminated'. They both accomplish the same thing, the only difference is that one allows you to enter a termination date.

This allows you to keep all the previous timecard records for the employee while at the same time removing their name from the main time clock software window and other worker selection lists. You can change an employee's status by going to the Lists menu, choosing Users, selecting the employee, and clicking the Employment tab.

Blair Crump
Technical Support Team
Redcort Software

Importing Time Clock Users

It's easy to add new Virtual TimeClock users when you have the appropriate security privileges. You may need to add a new employee to your time clock software so they can start recording work entries, or you may need to add a new manager to the time clock so they can begin to monitor their worker's activities. Of course, time clock administrators have unlimited access to all time clock functions. So what do you do if you want a manager to be able to add new users but you don't want to give them full administrative access? Importing users may be the solution.

You can import users at any time by creating a CSV (comma separated value) file. You can use Excel or a text editor to create and format the import file. Each line within the file represents a user and each comma within the line represents a field for that user.

Fields are imported in the following order:

Last Name,First Name,Middle Name,Address,City,State,Zip Code,Home Telephone,Employee Number,Social Security Number,Password,Wage,Department Name

Unused fields may be empty as long as each line contains exactly 12 commas separating the 13 fields. Each password must be unique, and in order for the new user to be assigned to a department, the department must already exist.

Now a manager can set up a new user so they can begin using your employee time clock without giving them access to the Users list window.

Jeff Morrow

Technical Support Team

Redcort Software

Importing New Time Clock Software Users

For most companies, it takes just a few minutes to get their new Virtual TimeClock software setup and ready to use. New users can be added manually at anytime. If you have lots of users, you may want to import them directly into your new time and attendance software.

Remember, Virtual TimeClock users include anyone who uses and manages the time clock software. This includes anyone who uses the employee time clock to clock in and out, managers who need to keep an eye on worker activities, and administrators who have access to all time clock software functions.

You can import users by creating a comma separated value (CSV) text file. You can use Excel, Numbers, or a text editor to create and format the import file. Each line within the file represents a user, and each comma represents a different field for that user. Unused fields may be empty as long as the line contains exactly 12 commas separating the 13 fields. Each password must be unique and the department name must already be setup in your time clock program. Create a CSV file using the format below.

Fields are imported in the following order:
Last Name,First Name,Middle Name,Address,City,State,Zip Code,Home Telephone,Employee Number,Social Security Number,Password,Wage,Department Name

1. From the File menu, choose Import.
2. Click the Select button and browse to the CSV file you've already created.
3. Select the file and click Open.
4. Now click the Import button.
5. Click OK to confirm that the import was successful.
6. Add additional user information in the Users list window.

Virtual TimeClock '10 Release 1.1 includes some huge optimizations, including user imports. I saw a user import of 15,000 records go from 2 hours to about a minute. You can take a look at other enhancements in the latest time clock software release notes.

Jeff Morrow

Time Clock Software Specialist

Redcort Software

Time Clock Software User Maintenance

Since we recently covered the necessary steps for adding new time clock software users, I wanted to briefly describe what other optional information can be stored in the user record.

There are six other panels for recording user information in Virtual TimeClock. Each panel can be accessed by clicking on its corresponding tab and must be saved before moving on to the next panel. Here's a brief description of each.

Personal

The Personal panel is used to store basic user information. This includes the user's name, street address, telephone number, and other contact information. This information can be included in exports of your timecard data, or included on employee telephone and contact lists.

Access

The Access panel stores the user's unique password. There's a checkbox to show the user's password as plain text. This allows the time clock software administrator to quickly lookup forgotten user passwords. A user can be assigned to any number of display groups, or assigned as a manager for the different display groups, which allows you to more effectively view and manage users by department or location.

Employment

The Employment panel is used to record user information that may be helpful when processing payroll like the user's employee number and Social Security Number. You can also store the employee's department, phone extension, hire date, and current employee status. Marking an employee as terminated allows you to enter a termination date and will automatically make the user inactive.

Wages

The Wages panel stores the employee's classification, wage type, and rate. This is also where overtime and time deduction rules are assigned to each individual worker. The hourly burden will automatically be calculated when gross wages are enabled for job costing analysis on timecard reports.

Leave

The Leave panel is used to record the user's leave awards for each leave category. Awards are given to each user as either an annual award (80 hours per year) or a calculated award (1 hour leave per 40 hours worked). Overtime hours can be optionally included as hours worked for the calculation of awards. You can also enter the anniversary date for the user's leave award benefits.

Notes

The Notes panel is used to record free text notes. Employee notes can be used to record such things as training, safety compliance, wage history, and employee reviews.

Only users with appropriate security access can modify or delete user records.

Jeff Morrow

Redcort Software

Adding Time Clock Software Users

Virtual TimeClock software users include anyone who uses and manages the time clock. This includes employees who actually use the time clock to punch in and out, managers who need to monitor their worker's activities, and time clock administrators who have access to all time clock functions. Here's how to quickly add a new user.

First Step: Create a new user record

From the Lists menu, choose Users. Click the + button beneath the list of existing users. The last and first name are the only required pieces of information. The other fields are optional and can be useful when printing employee telephone or contact lists. Click Save.

Second Step: Assign an overtime rule to the user

Since you're still in the new user record you just created, click on the Wages tab. This is where overtime rules are assigned to each individual worker. Select the appropriate rule from the Overtime drop-down list and click Save. You can close the Users window now.

Third Step: Have the new user create their password

Select the new user's name in the main time clock window. Now from the Tools menu, choose Change Password. Leave the Old Password field blank because there isn't one. Now enter the new password and confirm it before clicking Change.

Fourth Step: Add the new user to your export

If you export your timecard data for analysis or payroll processing, then you'll need to add the new user to your export. From the File menu, choose Export. Select the export you use and then click the name of the new user to check them off for inclusion in the export. The settings will automatically be saved when you close the window.

Refer to the User's Guide for your Virtual TimeClock software for instructions on importing new users into your time and attendance software.

Jeff Morrow

Redcort Software

Got Overtime?

If your business is required to track daily and/or weekly overtime, you'll need to make sure you assign an overtime rule to new workers. After creating the new user record in your Virtual TimeClock software, click on the Wages tab. You'll be able to select an overtime rule from the Overtime drop-down list.

Need to setup a new overtime rule? No problem, we've got instructions posted in a recent newsletter.

Merry Christmas from the entire time clock software support team!

Jeff Morrow

Redcort Software

Time Clock Software Users: To Delete or Not to Delete

You have several options when it comes to dealing with Virtual TimeClock software users that are no longer part of your organization.

You can remove them from any display groups they belong to. This will remove their name from the time clock worker list, but they'll still appear in all timecard report selection lists for admin users.

You can mark their user record as inactive or terminated. This will automatically remove them from any display groups they belong to, and remove them from all timecard report selection lists. The historical record of all hours and overtime worked will be maintained and can be easily accessed by simply making the user active again.

You can delete the user. This should be a last resort as all of the historical timecard entries, leave awards, and messages are completely and permanently removed. A hard copy of all hours for the worker should be printed before deletion. Deleting a user is irreversible, so use it with care.

Jeff Morrow

Redcort Software