The Payroll Book

CHAPTER 9Collecting Time

How do you collect the time that you need so that you can calculate the pay for each person, and why do you need to? The tradition in this country and the way most employment is paid is normally by the hour. So, you have to collect the hours that your staff works. We will talk about nonhourly pay a little later in his chapter. The best way to collect hours for hourly employees is a time clock.

TIME CLOCKS

It is estimated that a company that does not use time clocks overpays the hours worked by about 10%, and that is a lot. There are a number of types of time clocks. Let's look at a few.

Manual Punch Time Clocks

This is the classic factory time clock that we see punched in the old movies. Picture a line of workers taking a paper time card and inserting it into a gray box with a clock face on the front. If you think these are no longer used, you would be wrong. These kinds of clocks are still sold and there are lots of companies that still make punch cards for time clocks. Google it and you will be surprised.

The card is taken by the employee whose name is on the top of the card from a rack and dropped into the time clock when they start work, to punch in. The time clock stamps the time on the paper card in a sequential fashion from the first punch of the week (or other period) till the last punch of the week. The employee replaces the card in a similar rack on the other side of the time clock, to allow the line of workers to flow smoothly as they ...