Importing QuickBooks Users

We introduced time clock payroll integration with QuickBooks earlier this year with Virtual TimeClock '12. It does require a one-time setup before you export your first round of employee hours for payroll processing. Importing your users from QuickBooks into your time clock software isn't required but it's recommended. Here's why. If you don't import your QuickBooks users before performing your first time clock export, QuickBooks may create duplicate employee records if it doesn't find a name with an exact match. Trust me, it's kind of a pain to clean up.

The way to prevent this is to import your QuickBooks users first. Choose Configure from the administrator toolbar and open the Users control panel. Click Add, Import Users, and follow the instructions for importing a QuickBooks IIF File. Virtual TimeClock 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. This will ensure the user names are identical in both systems.

Jeff
Technical Support Team
Redcort Software, Inc.

Turning On Time Clock Administration

Both time clock software managers and time clock administrators need to turn administration on in order to perform administrative functions. When you first created your time clock company file, you were asked to create a program administrator. The time clock administrator has full access to all program functions and features. You can create additional time clock administrators, but they will also have unlimited access.

Time clock Managers are able to edit employee timecards and do other administration functions when they turn administration on, select their user name, and enter their password. What functions and features managers have access to is set up within the Display Groups configure panel.

When you choose Turn Administration On from the File menu, a dialog opens that asks if you want to turn on administration features. If your name is not displayed, then click on the name that is displayed to reveal a list of time clock managers and administrators. Now select your name and enter your password to open the time clock administration window so you can perform the administrative functions that have been assigned to you.

A quick way to verify who is set as an active time clock administrator or manager is to choose Security from the Configure menu. This control panel will show who has administration access without having to check each user one by one. Only time clock administrators can open the Security control panel.

Remember to turn administration off when you're all done so your time clock security won't be compromised.

Angie
Technical Support Team
Redcort Software, Inc.

Time Clock Software Printing Problems

A couple times a year we talk to time clock software users who are having trouble printing their employee timecards, or the timecards print but the format isn't correct, or they're just getting gibberish instead of employee hours and overtime. The common response is "They were printing just fine yesterday." Here are some questions you can ask and some things to check to help you determine what may have changed.

Here are some questions to ask:

• Did you add a new printer?
• Can you print from another program?
• Can you print employee timecards to a different printer?

Here are some things to check:

• Make sure the computer has a default printer set.
• Make sure the default printer isn't a label or receipt printer.

Here are some things to do:

• Update your printer driver. Go to the manufacturer website and see if there's an update to the printer driver.
• Delete and reinstall the printer.

If you're still having problems getting your employee timecards to print, then contact us and we'll be happy to help.

Jeff
Technical Support Team
Redcort Software, Inc.

Front Reception Time Clock

Here's a time clock deployment scenario that I came across recently. A customer wanted the front desk receptionist to be able to clock people in and out because sometimes staff would make it all the way to the front door before they realized they hadn't clocked out for lunch. They wanted the receptionist to be able to clock other employees in and out without having to mess around with a password, but they still wanted password protection turned on for the other employee time clocks scattered around the organization.

We created a new display group called 'Reception' that included all of the employees and turned off user passwords for just that display group. Virtual TimeClock '12 has a ton of flexibility when it comes to deploying time clocks so I rarely encounter scenarios that the time clock software is unable to handle.

Jeff
Technical Support Team
Redcort Software, Inc.

Custom Out Memos

Out memos are a great tool for updating the time clock software in and out board with temporary status changes that let others know why you're clocked out. At it's simplest, when you stop work your status changes to 'Out' and that's all anybody needs to know until you clock back in. But if you want to use the time clock in and out board as a powerful interoffice communication tool, you can create different out memos to handle different scenarios like 'Gone for the day' or 'On vacation'. You can also create one-time out memos to handle different situations like 'Dr. appt. - back by 3:00pm' or 'Client meeting- call me on my cell'. Custom out memos don't become part of the out memo selection list but are used to temporarily let others know what you're doing when you're off the clock.

How to Enable Custom Out Memos
Before you can start using custom out memos, you need to turn them on for the display group. Turn on administration and choose Display Groups from the Configure menu. Select a display group from the list on the left and click User Actions. Select Custom Out Memos from the list of user actions and save.

How to Use Custom Out Memos
Now when you stop work you can pick Custom Memo from the popup list and enter your one-time note to update the in and out board.

Jeff
Technical Support Team
Redcort Software, Inc.

In/Out Board Not Refreshing

If you're running your employee time clock software on a Mac and the in/out board list doesn't seem to be refreshing, it's probably the computer's energy saver settings causing the issue. There are two settings that we're concerned about. The first is the slide bar that puts the computer to sleep. We want to make sure it's set to 'Never'. The second setting is a checkbox that puts the hard disk to sleep when possible. This should be unchecked.

It's okay to have the computer display go to sleep. You may also want to make sure there's not a schedule set that is putting the computer to sleep when the time clock is in use.

Jeff
Technical Support Team
Redcort Software, Inc.

Future Timecard Entries

The time clock software in/out list always reflects the last employee punch status, whether that's in, on break, at lunch, or out. Sometimes the time clock shows an employee clocked out even though they insist they've clocked in. So they clock in again and end up leaving an orphaned time clock entry with just a start time. The issue is likely caused by a future time clock entry. If this happens to you, before you clock in, take a look at the date of the out entry. It's probably for some date in the future and the time clock is just displaying the last employee punch status. This is most often the result of a manual timecard entry that was added by an admin user by mistake.

All you have to do to resolve the issue is turn on administration and click Edit Entries. Select the employee name and the date range the future entry falls into. Now just delete the entry and the in/out list will once again reflect the current punch status for the employee.

Jeff
Technical Support Team
Redcort Software, Inc.