How You Can Benefit from real-time GPS tracking

How You Can Benefit from real-time GPS tracking

Time theft can cause a significant dent in a company’s bottom line. Indeed, a study has shown that employees steal around 4.5 hours from their employer every week on average. And while companies can take steps to monitor their employees in the workplace, it becomes even more difficult when employees are working out in the field. 

Field workers are typically trusted to spend their time productively instead of doing something not work-related. Unfortunately, it is not uncommon for field workers to abuse that trust. For example, some people might choose to do some shopping on their company’s time, or maybe go for a meal. In some cases, field employees might not even leave their homes at all but still charge for time that they did not spend working.

It should also be noted that time theft is not always deliberate. Employees can make mistakes and forget details about their working week if they don’t fill in their timesheets straight away. 

The main headache with monitoring fieldworkers has long been the fact that you just cannot know where they are. It’s often easy for field workers to lie about their location or their timing with no way to check up. However, GPS has provided an effective solution to the problem. 

Modern Tracking Apps are the Solution

 

In the past, GPS tracking hardware would have been prohibitively expensive for most companies and would not represent a solid return on investment, if at all. However, GPS hardware is now very affordable and can be installed on smartphones. Indeed, modern smartphones typically come with GPS already installed, meaning the technology is already available for companies to use.

Of course, having the hardware that tells you where somebody is great, but it’s not of much use without software that helps you make use of information. The good news is that apps like those from PK4 Tech are available on the market that integrates GPS technology to offer valuable information for managers regarding their employees’ whereabouts and behavior. 

Time tracking apps can use a smartphone’s GPS to place the phone’s location at any time. Simply put, a time tracker, in conjunction with a smartphone’s GPS can tell managers where their employees are and where they have been. As a result, the solution helps prevent time theft because employees can no longer lie about their location, while it also helps prevent honest mistakes on timesheets. 

An Effective Deterrent

Not only does GPS time tracking software help prevent time theft, but it also helps to prevent it from happening in the first place. It can otherwise become too easy even for dedicated employees to start taking liberties, so it makes sense to let all your employees know that their location is being tracked.

Remember that it’s also important to educate your employees on why such technology is required so they understand why it is being implemented. Otherwise, it could be easy for them to feel as though they are not trusted and are being spied on, potentially causing morale and productivity to take a hit. Ensure that your employees know that using the technology is not an attempt to spy on their every move but to protect the company overall and provide reports that help improve efficiency.

In-Depth Reports

GPS time trackers can do so much more than just inform managers of their employees’ geographical location. For example, trackers can also keep records on which tasks an employee was working on, such as travelling to a location or carrying out a site survey. You can then use this information to see how efficiently employees are spending their time and what you can do to improve their efficiency further.

Comprehensive dashboards are also available that help management to see key information at a glance, helping them make fast and impactful decisions. Reports can also be created and distributed automatically, removing much of the manual work that would otherwise be involved.

Summary

GPS time tracking helps to remove many of the issues associated with time theft and employees working in the field. Not only does the technology help managers monitor and record employee data, but it also helps to act as a deterrent. The technology can help prevent deliberate time-theft, while it can also help avoid genuine errors. Remember that it’s important to educate your employees on why the technology is important to prevent a loss of trust.

With GPS time tracking apps, managers are also equipped with information that can help them make informed decisions that will help boost efficiency. Overall, the technology can help prevent time theft, increase productivity, and improve the bottom line. 

 

 

5 reasons to go green with mobile time tracking

5 reasons to go green with mobile time tracking

Eliminating paper timesheets, physical time reports to your payroll agency/department, physical paychecks and paper pay stubs are huge steps towards a green organization. In fact, most studies reveal that employees prefer receiving their checks and payroll stubs electronically.

Done right, implementing an end-to-end green path from time tracking to payroll deposits is a win-win for everyone. Let’s start with just the time tracking side of the process.

The endless paper trail

Have you looked closely around your office lately? How much of that paper lying around is for paper timesheets and paper Paid Time Off (PTO) requests? Chances are that it’s quite a lot. And have you ever looked through some of those time cards and thought that it looked worse than your doctor’s squiggles? And have you had your payroll supervisor complain on payroll day that they don’t have all the paper timesheets back from employees? You could suggest using hours from memory, but you could end up over or underpaying employees, which isn’t good for anyone. So what do you do?

Sustainable time tracking

If you are stuck in that frustrating cycle, then making the move to a mobile / web-based time tracking system can eliminate many of those frustrations. Think about how much you spend on buying the paper every year. And how much more on filing, finding, and searching for relevant documents. This is where a huge amount of time, energy, and paper (and therefore money) is wasted while increasing the amount of garbage that your company generates.
PTO on different platforms - Mobile, web, SalesforceA simple mobile time tracking system helps reduce the headaches and wasted effort involved with paper timesheets. Here are some terrific benefits that you get with a mobile/web time tracking system:

  • Save employees and businesses time and effort with 100% accurate online timesheets
  • Decrease payroll errors with always available timesheet data
  • Eliminate time and effort in the PTO request and approval process
  • Reduce the cost of paper supplies and waste generated
  • Eliminate rounding errors, buddy punching, and illegible time cards.

Increase payroll and invoicing efficiency

Most certainly, you have a payroll budget. So how can you reduce the errors that

inevitably creep in? How can you make the process as smooth as possible. Accurate time and PTO tracking is a major factor in eliminating payroll errors. You want to make sure that your employees are paid accurately for the time that they’ve worked, But you also want to make sure that you are not paying for the time that was not worked. A mobile time tracking system ensures that all employee time is tracked accurately at the time that it was done and that all-time tracking data is automatically synchronized in the cloud. So your payroll team and managers have access to the data immediately, right within your office, regardless of where your employees may be working.

With all data in a single centralized repository, you can easily export simple time tracking reports to your payroll system, ensuring that there is no dropped data or errors in data entry. And you can make sure that every minute is accounted for and billed because you have all the time tracking data for your employees in the same repository.

And all this with no paper anywhere. From your employees mobile phone/webpage to your central repository to your invoicing and payroll systems. All electronically! And because it’s all in the cloud, you are not increasing the carbon footprint within your premises.

Going green makes perfect sense!

Sometimes making sustainable changes in your company is difficult. But signing up for a mobile and web time tracking solution on the cloud is easy and effective. The TimeTracker is designed to make life easier for small and medium businesses while accurately tracking employee hours, wherever they may be working. And helping the environment at the same time.

Save time, save money, and save the earth! Now that’s an easy decision, isn’t it?