Introduction:

Having a proper HR solution is a key task for the HR executives to manage their employees.

The primary job of HR manager is to manage employee’s daily attendance, i.e. the employee’s every day Time IN & Time OUT. There are various ways for it. Traditionally the companies using manual punch card machine, later proximity card system / bar code card system was in place. But still there was a problem of buddy punching (making proxy attendance for other employees). To address the issue Biometric Fingerprint system has introduced which is very fast / accurate & efficient.

Once employee’s TIME IN & OUT timing captured by any type of machine then it has to be linked to a Time Attendance Software to generate the useful attendance reports. Those calculated attendance details needs to be linked to payroll software for the employee salary calculation. In addition to that there is a need to maintain employee leaves like annual leave, medical leave, unpaid leave, etc…

If a HR manager has all the above solutions with different vendors / different platform then it will be very difficult to maintain and operate. There will be lot of hiccups to integrate the different software’s and more importantly being the database is not integrated the newly join / resign employee details need to be entered multiple times in different software’s.

So it very efficient and cost effective to have an integrated HR solution which comprises of fingerprint time recorders (preferably), time attendance, leave, Payroll & HR software’s.

Fingerprint Time Recorder:

It is very efficient to have a fingerprint time recorders to track the employees attendance instead of having manual punch card. The biggest advantage of using the fingerprint system is the employees can’t do the buddy punching (making proxy attendance for other employees).

Usually in most of the fingerprint time recorder, Up to 3 fingers per employee can be registered. While doing attendance the employee can use any one of the finger to do clocking. The purpose of registering 3 fingerprints is if any one finger has problem due to injured / cut / dirty then the employee can use alternative finger. So it is better to have a fingerprint time recorder with higher capacity. Usually the time recorder will have the capacity of 1500 / 3000 / 5000 fingerprint templates.

It takes about one second to verify the employee finger, once verified the employee id, Date & time will be recorder into the device internal memory. Also it is good to have a device which can store more records. In general most of the fingerprint time recorder can store 20,000 / 30,000 / 50,000 records. Once the records reach the limit the new record will automatically overwrite the very first record. Those records can be downloaded to the Time Attendance Software via built-in Network card or via Thumb Drive.

Time Attendance Software:

Information from fingerprint time recorder can be transferred to the Time Attendance Software which will calculate the useful information like Lateness, Overtime, allowances, etc...

A good time attendance software should have the option for different shift patterns, Supports unlimited rotation duty roster, Auto-shift feature (System auto-assign working hours group based on IN time), Flexible working hours feature, Scheduling working hour’s group feature (No fixed working pattern)

Companies are paying daily allowances like shift allowance, meal allowance, transport allowance to the employees based on some conditions. For an example a company may like to pay $5 for night shift workers or a company may like to pay $2 who is working more than 5 hours of overtime. So the time attendance software should have all the above features.

A good software should come with nicely designed useful reports like Daily attendance report, Individual attendance report, consolidated reports which consolidates the Late comers, Early Leavers, Absents & missed out punching, Lateness summary report and Working hour’s summary report

Payroll Software:

Payroll software is the one which computes the employee salaries. A well written payroll software should have the below options.

The employee may be paid by hourly rate / daily rate/ monthly fixed basis. Other than the employee basic salary, the employee’s overtime, daily allowances needs to be linked from the time attendance software. The employee may have some additions or deductions in every month salary like advance payment, medical claim, special allowance, etc… And the employee unpaid leave, lateness & early leaving needs to be deducted from his salary.

Different countries have their own computation for taxation & provident funds. So the payroll system should comply with the local government regulation for salary calculation.

Finally the payroll should able to generate a pay-slip for individual employee with all his salary details which can be printed in an A4 size paper or sealed pay-slip paper.

And payroll software must have useful reports like, Monthly Salary Summary Report, Overtime Payment Report, Taxation Report, Yearly Summary Report, and Monthly Reconciliation Report.

Leave Module:

A leave module either can be built in with the payroll system or it can be a separate Electronic Leave Application Portal.

Leave Module built-in with payroll system: The HR Executive needs to update the employees Annual Leave, Medical Leave, Unpaid Leave, Maternity Leave, etc in to the system manually.

Electronic Leave Module: The employee can apply their leaves electronically on line via web browser. Those applied leaves can be approved by respective approving officers via on line. This is paperless, convenient fast & easy.

A good leave system should have the option to set Leave Eligibility for different group of employees and the Annual leave & Medical Leave earned until today should be prorated automatically.

There must be an option to carry forward the balance annual leave to the next year. And the leave module should have the useful reports like Leave History & Leave consolidate report to view all kind of leaves taken.

Conclusion:

Instead of having the above system in different platform / with different vendors, having an integrated HR solution will be easier for maintenance & cost effective.