Expired Time Clock Software Licenses

If you receive a license key verification failure when launching Virtual TimeClock for the first time after upgrading, the most common cause is from not entering your most current license key. Your employee time clock software will run as an evaluation until your current license key is entered. Just let us know if you need another copy. It's important to enter your new license key after we process your software maintenance & support renewal so you can take advantage of free time clock software upgrades and updates.

You'll also get a license key verification failure if you upgrade your time clock and you're not enrolled in our software maintenance & support program. Once again, your employee time clock software will run as an evaluation until a valid license key is entered. A member of our customer service team would be happy to send you discounted upgrade pricing for the latest Virtual TimeClock release.

Maggie Hofer

Redcort Software Customer Service Team

Preparing Employee Hours for Payroll

One of the main reasons businesses invest in employee time clock software is to help them cut down on the amount of time and effort spent processing payroll. A good time clock program will automatically total employee hours and overtime based on your business rules. Those hours can then be easily entered or imported into your payroll software, or sent over to your accountant or payroll service. Processing payroll is just one of the steps of closing out a payroll period in Virtual TimeClock. Here are the others:

• Review employee timecards
• Edit employee hours
• Process payroll
• Close payroll period

If you've never processed a payroll period, you'll want to verify your payroll settings first. Go to the Tools menu and choose Payroll Period. The first setting determines the first day of the work week for calculating weekly totals on timecard reports. The second setting determines your payroll period cycle.

Closing the period will automatically advance the current period starting and ending dates to the next payroll period based on these payroll cycle settings. We've got complete end-of-period instructions as part of the free time clock software resources available on our website.

Jeff Morrow

Technical Support Team

Redcort Software

How to Track Premium Pay for Worked Holidays

Do you need to track premium pay when employees work on a recognized business holiday? Since the premium rate of pay is handled by your payroll system, you just need to know how many hours to pay at the premium rate. That's where your employee time clock software can help you.

First, you'll want to set up a new activity. Go to the Lists menu in your Virtual TimeClock software and choose Activities. Click the + button to add a new activity. You can give the new activity a name like 'Worked Holiday' and save. Now when employees work on a recognized business holiday, they'll choose 'Worked Holiday' from the Activity drop-down menu when starting work.

When you print employee timecards for the payroll period, you'll see the 'Worked Holiday' hours subtotaled separately so you know under what category to input the hours into your payroll system to award premium pay for working on the holiday.

Jeff Morrow

Technical Support Team

Redcort Software

Upgrading to Virtual TimeClock '11

If you're already running Virtual Timeclock '09 or '10, the upgrade process to Virtual TimeClock '11 is really quite straight forward. There are a couple of things to keep in mind before starting the upgrade process.

• If you're running the Network Edition, you'll want to upgrade your time clock software server first, then the clients. The old version time clock clients won't be able to connect to the new version server until they're upgraded, so if you have a lot of clients you may want to plan your upgrade when employees aren't actively using the time clock.
• Make sure you've entered your latest license keys. Follow the activation instructions included in the license renewal email we sent you. Otherwise, you may receive a license error after first launch of the software after upgrading. You can continue with the upgrade, but your time clock software will run in evaluation mode until your current license key is entered.
• Upgrading or uninstalling the previous release of Virtual TimeClock will not overwrite or erase your time clock data.

We've got complete time clock software upgrade instructions and resources available on our website.

Jeff Morrow

Technical Support Team

Redcort Software

Troubleshooting Remote Computer Time Clocks

Just like time clock clients can connect to the time clock server software over the local area network, remote clients can connect to the time clock server over the Internet to provide the same employee time clock software functionality from a different location.

Troubleshooting Existing Remote Time Clock Client Connections

If you've been running Virtual TimeClock for some time and your remote time clock client stops connecting, there are a couple of easy troubleshooting steps you can take.

• Verify the time clock server is up and running at the main location.
• Make sure your Internet is still working.

If the time clock server software is still running at the main location and you've tested your Internet connection, then you'll need to look deeper.

The IP address of the time clock server may have changed. This will invalidate the port forward that's part of the router configuration at the main office. If the port forward is broken, local clients can still connect but not remote clients.

Troubleshooting New Remote Time Clock Client Connections

If you're having trouble connecting remote time clock clients for the first time, then there are a couple of things to check.

• The number one culprit is likely the built-in firewall on the time clock server computer. You'll need to set up a couple of port exceptions within the firewall configuration.
• The second possibility is that the port forward was never set up in the router configuration at the main office.

We've got full instructions for setting up your Internet time clock on our website.

If you're still having trouble connecting your time clock clients, contact time clock software support for assistance.

Jeff Morrow

Technical Support Team

Redcort Software

Using Time Clock Software with Windows 7

If you've installed Virtual TimeClock Server on a Windows 7 computer and are not able to connect your time clock clients, the Windows Firewall is likely blocking your Virtual TimeClock software from communicating through the firewall.

The quickest way to resolve the issue is by opening a couple of ports in the firewall.

1. Open Windows Firewall by clicking the Start button, and then clicking Control Panel. In the search box, type firewall, and then click Windows Firewall.
2. In the left pane, click Advanced Settings. If you're prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.
3. In the Windows Firewall with Advanced Security dialog box, in the left pane, click Inbound Rules, and then, in the right pane, click New Rule.
4. Follow the instructions in the New Inbound Rule Wizard. Select Port for the rule type. You'll need to set 2 rules, one for TCP port 56777 and one for UDP port 56778. Set the action to Allow the connection. Allow the rule to apply to all situations. Give the rules names like 'VTC TCP' and 'VTC UDP' to make them easy to recognize later.

Now try and connect your time clock clients again. As always, if you need further assistance please contact a member of our time clock software technical support team.

Jeff Morrow

Technical Support Team

Redcort Software