# 4 Key Time Clock Software Features | Capterra > Are you seeking key time clock software features to invest in the right product? Check out the four features users rate as the most important. Source: https://www.capterra.com/resources/key-time-clock-software-features --- Human Resources # 4 Key Time Clock Software Features and Top Products That Offer Them Written by: Saumya Srivastava Saumya SrivastavaAuthor Writer Experience Since November 2021, I've been a writer for Capterra, providing expert insights to help small businesses find the right software solutions.... [See bio & all articles](https://www.capterra.com/resources/author/ssrivastava/) Published May 13, 2024 11 min read Table of Contents - [1\. Employee time tracking](#1-employee-time-tracking) - [2\. Payroll reporting](#2-payroll-reporting) - [3\. Attendance tracking](#3-attendance-tracking) - [4\. Calendar management](#4-calendar-management) If your current timekeeping system is as reliable as a sundial on a cloudy day, it is time to introduce automation through [time clock software](https://www.capterra.com/time-clock-software/). The tool automatically captures and tracks employee schedules through a mobile time clock app, biometric time clock, or card punch-in. With this, human resource and team managers can have reliable employee data for more effective workforce management. However, it’s not just the overall tool but its features that you need to pay attention to in order to make a wise purchase decision. To help you with your search, we’ve determined four key time clock software features based on the ratings given by verified software users. We also include the highest-rated employee time clock software for each feature. ## 1\. Employee time tracking Time clock software with an employee time tracking feature allows employees to record their start and end times for the workday or breaks. The feature offers various methods, such as web apps, mobile apps, or physical kiosks with a card reader to capture the time. Team managers can review and approve timesheets electronically or assign project work hours for employees and track the real-time progress and completion rate. ### What business problems does employee time tracking solve? Here are some business problems that the employee time tracking feature helps solve: - **Time theft:** Buddy punching (someone clocking in for a coworker) and tailgating (entering along with a coworker with their clock-in time) are common challenges of manual time tracking systems. Employee time tracking capabilities, such as location tracking, card punch-in, or biometrics clock-in, make it mandatory for employees to use their respective tools or assets to clock in and out.  - **Unproductive work habits:** Employees need to record work hours to be accountable for how they spend time. This can lead to procrastination, multitasking, and longer breaks. Managers must understand how long tasks are taking and how employees allocate time. This makes it challenging to identify areas for improvement or offer guidance on time management. Employee time tracking, especially those with project and task tracking features, can reveal where time is lost. Managers can have more constructive conversations with employees and identify areas of improvement. - **Lack of transparency:** If managers don’t know how long tasks typically take or how much time employees spend on different projects, workload distribution can become uneven. This can lead to burnout for some and a feeling of not contributing enough for others. When employees track time on specific project tasks, managers gain insights into project progress and resource allocation. This transparency allows for open discussions about workload, potential roadblocks, and identification of opportunities for additional support. ### How users benefit from employee time tracking Here are some excerpts from the reviewers of the employee time tracking feature describing how it helps them: > _“All employees can easily access their time clock to clock in and out and switch clients. You can also view your hours for the week quickly in order to insure accuracy.”_ > > _“It helps to monitor staff hours such as staff on stamp 2 who can only work 20 hours a week, staff under 18 working hours, staff on work permit 39 hours. Also it allows us to see who was late, who called in sick etc.”_ > > _“This program allows for desktop and app access to employee clock in and clock out times. Not only can I assign schedules and mark vacation on the staff calendar, I can also edit and make notes on any changes. It also includes PTO tracking.”_ ### Top 3 products with the highest ratings for employee time tracking _Analysis performed May 2024_ #### Trial/Free Version - Free Trial - Free Version #### Employee time tracking feature rating 4.96/5 #### Device Compatibilty #### Trial/Free Version - Free Trial #### Trial/Free Version - Free Trial - Free Version #### Employee time tracking feature rating 4.84/5 #### Device Compatibilty ## 2\. Payroll reporting This time clock software feature generates reports needed to bill clients and pay the employees accurately. HR managers can convert the raw data collected through employee time tracking into reports suitable for payroll processing. The reports include total hours worked by each employee for a specific pay period, a breakdown of regular hours, overtime hours, paid breaks, and sick leaves; earnings based on predefined pay rates and overtime rules, deductions for tax benefits, and other payroll withholdings. These can be filtered by department, employee date range, or other relevant criteria. Users can export reports in various formats, such as CSV or PDF, or directly integrate them with the payroll system. ### What business problems does payroll reporting solve? Payroll reporting in time clock software tackles several payroll processing and financial compliance challenges. Here is how it helps: - **Inaccurate client billing:** Without proper payroll reports on time management, it’s difficult for teams or HR managers to determine the exact cost of labor associated with a client project. This can lead to underestimating costs, resulting in lost profits for the business. Similarly, overestimating costs could make the project bids less competitive. Payroll reports show how much time employees spend on specific client projects. If a project seems to be taking significantly longer than the estimated time, this could be a sign of scope creep, where managers can discuss extended time and billing expectations beforehand.  - **Non-compliance with regulations:** Most governments mandate deadlines for submitting payroll taxes and other deductions. Without proper reporting, businesses risk missing these deadlines and incurring penalties or fines. Payroll reporting ensures deductions for taxes, social security, and other contributions are calculated correctly based on regulations. The feature also ensures correct pay rates for overtime work based on government regulations. This keeps legal troubles and employee morale issues at bay. - **Time-consuming manual reporting:** The payroll reporting feature automates tasks, such as collecting timesheet data, calculating work hours, and generating reports based on pre-set rules. Without automation, everything has to be done manually, from collecting paper timesheets from each employee to manually entering the data (hours, breaks, overtime, etc.) into a spreadsheet or system. They also have to summarize all the data and generate reports for pay calculations. This process becomes a slow and inefficient workflow and is replaced with automation using the payroll reporting feature. ### How users benefit from payroll reporting Here are some excerpts from the reviewers of the payroll reporting feature describing how it helps them: > _“Again because of the fact that the application tracks all of your payroll stubs from the time of your initial employment you are able to go back and access reports. This allows for sufficient payroll reporting on both the administrative side and for the employees.”_ > > _“Each employee can view their earnings at any given time.  It also allows that administrators to view individual and cumulative company reports. Weekly, monthly, quarterly, semi-annual and annual reports.”_ > > _“This is a mainly used service also as our clients depend on these reports to observe there payroll. This helps our clients watch there payroll and helps keeps errors out.”_ ### Top 3 products with the highest ratings for payroll reporting _Analysis performed May 2024_ #### Trial/Free Version - Free Trial #### Trial/Free Version - Free Trial - Free Version #### Payroll reporting feature rating 4.70/5 #### Device Compatibilty #### Trial/Free Version - Free Trial ## 3\. Attendance tracking This feature of time clock software allows managers to view employee attendance data in real time. Employees can submit absence requests electronically, and managers can view or approve them within the system. The attendance tracking feature tracks various leave types, such as sick, vacation, casual, or unpaid time off. Managers can get insights into workforce availability that helps with task scheduling or addressing employee performance issues in person. ### What business problems does attendance tracking solve? Here are some common business problems the attendance tracking feature helps solve: - **Poor employee engagement:** Without accessible attendance data, it’s difficult for managers to identify patterns of tardiness or absenteeism. Also, employees cannot keep track of their leaves to properly utilize them. These challenges make employees feel disengaged and undervalued. However, clear and well-structured attendance data can eliminate confusion and frustration related to leave balance, building their trust in the employer.  - **Exceeding labor costs:** Lack of or inaccurate attendance tracking can make it difficult to create optimal work schedules for employees. Managers might overestimate or underestimate workforce requirements, leading to situations where they’re either understaffed or overstaffed. This may cause delays and inefficiencies or waste labor costs by paying employees with no work. Attendance tracking provides accurate employee data on different types of time-offs for managers to allocate work and set deadlines accordingly. The attendance data also helps avoid overstaffing by providing managers with insights into the employees’ availability for urgent tasks and overall work distribution.  - **Inefficient task alignment:** When combined with project and task management, attendance tracking features can shift the focus from simple monitoring of day offs to project management. The feature allows employees to reschedule or cancel tasks without compromising their day off. This effective form of time management ensures that tasks or projects meet deadlines without overburdening the employees and making them compromise on their day off. ### How users benefit from attendance tracking Here are some excerpts from the reviewers of the attendance tracking feature describing how it helps them: > _“I really like this feature since it allows me to keep track of who's coming and who's not. This in return allows me to communicate immediately with the volunteer that is not attending the hospital. This gives the volunteer a feeling of being needed and appreciated. Creating accountability in their part as well.”_ > > _“ Attendance tracking is essential for payroll accuracy, legal compliance, workforce management, leave management, resource allocation, workload balancing, and informed decision-making. It contributes to efficient operations, cost control, and improved overall organization performance.”_ > > _“What I like about this is the geo-features, where it locates where the employee has timed in using their app. Very convenient especially in our industry where we have employees deployed all over the country.”_ ### Top 3 products with the highest ratings for attendance tracking _Analysis performed May 2024_ #### Trial/Free Version - Free Trial - Free Version #### Attendance tracking feature rating 4.89/5 #### Device Compatibilty #### Trial/Free Version - Free Trial #### Trial/Free Version - Free Trial ## 4\. Calendar management Calendar management capabilities in a time clock tool is a centralized dashboard that displays all the workforce data, including employee hours, leaves, tasks, and deadlines. Managers can create and organize employee schedules on a visual board directly within the software. This includes assigning shifts, specifying work hours, and accounting for available hours. The feature allows drag-and-drop task rescheduling or setting recurring tasks over days, weeks, or months. ### What business problems does calendar management solve? The calendar management feature in time clock tools helps address issues related to task deadlines and team collaboration. Here are some common business problems the feature helps solve: - **Inefficient project planning:** Project managers might struggle to set realistic project timelines without proper visibility into employee schedules and availability. They might underestimate the time needed for tasks due to scheduling conflicts, employee absence, or lack of awareness regarding upcoming leaves. A centralized workforce management data offered by the calendar enables managers to see upcoming staffing needs, identify potential gaps, and plan projects accordingly. This ensures sufficient resources are available during critical phases of the project. - **Miscommunication:** Manual or verbal scheduling methods, and scattered communication channels make it difficult for managers to access employee schedules. They might accidentally schedule the same employee for multiple tasks, shifts, or meetings at the same time or when on leave, disrupting workflow and decision making. The calendar management feature helps managers keep conflicting schedules at bay with quick and clear accessibility to employee schedules. This ensures effective and timely decision making with on-time projects and real-time communication among teams. - **Unofficial shift swapping:** With no formal system to display employee schedules and leaves, employees might resort to unofficial arrangements to swap shifts or tasks. This can lead to last-minute scrambling to find replacements, slowing down the workflow and client delivery and causing confusion around who is actually working on tasks. Calendar management feature sends real-time email and push notifications when there is a submission or change in date or alignment. Managers can access the audit trail to check the changes made to the set schedules using time-stamps that include the name of the team member, the name of the task, and the time of change. ### How users benefit from calendar management Here are some excerpts from the reviewers of the calendar management feature describing how it helps them: > _“"Calendar management" enhances productivity, facilitates scheduling, and ensures efficient time allocation for tasks, meetings, and deadlines within the product.”_ > > _“A great tool for organizing meetings, surveys, task, etc., and when log into the portal they can see all the meetings, surveys, etc., linked to their username on the calendars and they are able to access them by clicking on the link.”_ > > _“Allowing me to fully customise my calendar to set up breaks between appointments means I never run late for my clients and have time to do other business related work”_ ### Top 3 products with the highest ratings for calendar management _Analysis performed May 2024_ #### Trial/Free Version - Free Trial #### Trial/Free Version - Free Trial - Free Version #### Calendar management feature rating 4.72/5 #### Device Compatibilty #### Trial/Free Version - Free Trial - Free Version #### Calendar management feature rating 4.71/5 #### Device Compatibilty * * * Looking for Time Clock software?Check out Capterra's list of the [best Time Clock software](https://www.capterra.com/time-clock-software/) solutions. ### Was this article helpful? * * * ## About the Author [### Saumya Srivastava](https://www.capterra.com/resources/author/ssrivastava/) Saumya Srivastava is a writer at Capterra. She provides insights to help small and midsize businesses identify the right software for their needs by analyzing over 550,000 Capterra user reviews and nearly 48,000 interactions between Capterra software advisors and buyers. Prior to working at Capterra, Saumya wrote content related to educational and advertising domains. ### RELATED READING - [AI is Raising the Bar for Project Team People Skills](https://www.capterra.com/resources/ai-skills-for-project-managers/) - [Measuring What Matters: Setting KPIs for Help Desk Performance](https://www.capterra.com/resources/help-desk-kpis/) - [Guide to CRM Software Pricing Models](https://www.capterra.com/resources/customer-relationship-management-software-pricing-models/) - [How to Develop an Omnichannel Marketing Strategy for Customer Engagement](https://www.capterra.com/resources/crm-omnichannel-marketing-strategy/) - [Inventory Management Software Implementation: What Small-to-Midsize Manufacturing Firms Can Expect](https://www.capterra.com/resources/inventory-management-software-implementation-guide/) - [Common Project Management Software Use Cases SMBs Should Know](https://www.capterra.com/resources/project-management-software-use-cases/) - [CRM Integration Explained: Meaning, Methods, and System-Level Examples](https://www.capterra.com/resources/crm-integrations-help-your-business/) - [Choosing Project Management Software? Start With This Requirements Checklist](https://www.capterra.com/resources/project-management-software-requirements-checklist/) - [CRM cloud vs. on-premise: Which is better for your business?](https://www.capterra.com/resources/crm-cloud-vs-on-premise/) **Key features**: To identify the key features of this article, we asked users to rate, on a scale of “low importance” to “critical,” how important different features are for time clock software. The features showcased are those that the highest percentage of reviewers rated as “highly important” or “critical” over the past two years (as of May 01, 2024). **Feature eligibility**: To be included in the set of features considered, a given feature had to have at least 200 user ratings within the past two years (as of May 01, 2024), of which at least 20% must indicate the feature is “critical.” Eligible features were determined from two sources:  1. Our research team’s review of public information about time clock software usage, definitions, and associated features. 2. Reviewers’ indication of the features they use for time clock systems. **Product selection**: To identify the top-rated products per feature, we evaluated user ratings for products that offer each feature. For a given product, reviewers rate each feature on a scale of one to five stars. A given product had to have at least 20 user ratings (between May 2022-24) for the feature in question to be considered. **Review excerpts selection**: Review excerpts are passages extracted from longer reviews written by verified reviewers. We obtain these excerpts by applying an algorithm that considers factors including, but not limited to, length, sentiment, topic coverage, and thematic relevance. Excerpts represent user opinion and do not represent the views of, nor constitute, an endorsement by Capterra or its affiliates. Excerpts are not edited for clarity or grammar.