Organizations of all sizes use time and attendance systems to record when employees start and stop work, and the department where the work is performed. However, it is also common to track meals and breaks, the type of work performed and the number of items produced. In addition to tracking when employees work, organizations also need to keep tabs on when employees are not working. Some organizations also keep detailed records of attendance issues such as who calls in sick and who comes in late. Arun Antony Raja, Indian Excellence Centre, ISS Facility Services India Pvt. Ltd gives an account on the time and attendance system of an organizational architecture.

A TIME and attendance system provides many benefits to the organizations. It enables an employer to have full control of all employees working hours. It helps control labour costs by reducing over-payments, which are often caused by transcription error, interpretation error and intentional error. Manual processes are also eliminated as well as the staff needed to maintain them. It is often difficult to comply with labour regulation, but a time and attendance system is invaluable for ensuring compliance with labour regulations regarding proof of attendance.

Companies with large employee numbers might need to install several time clock stations in order to speed up the process of getting all employees to clock in or out quickly or to record activity in dispersed locations.

Depending on the supplier, identification method and number of clocking points required, prices vary widely. A time and attendance system protects a company from payroll fraud and provides both employer and employees with confidence in the accuracy of their wage payments while improving productivity.

Attendance problems remain because there is not a standard format for the attendance register, making the manual analysis of it inconvenient, time consuming and inaccurate. Automated attendance systems can use a variety of technology such as: electronic tags, barcode badges, and magnetic stripe cards. Electronic attendance systems enable more effective and efficient monitoring of attendance as well as allowing the identification of longer-term trends in absence. An electronic solution is a more effective mechanism to for collection, processing, storage and production of attendance reports and long-term analysis.

Automated attendance system is not only used for recording attendance of official personnel but is also used for security purposes.

Automated time and attendance systems which employees touch or swipe to identify themselves and record their working hours as they enter or leave the work area. The recorded information is then ideally automatically transferred to a computer for processing although some systems require an operator to physically transfer data from the clocking point to the computer using a portable memory device. The computer may then be employed to perform all the necessary calculations to generate employee timesheets which are used to calculate the employees’ wages. An automated system reduces the risk of errors that are common in a manual system, and allows the workforce to be more productive instead of wasting time on tedious administrative tasks.