The Payroll Solutions Blog

Time theft is an often overlooked problem that many businesses face and it is costly.

Time theft is when an employee gets paid for more hours than they worked.

Time theft occurs at many times during the day. The main places time theft occurs is when employees falsify time sheets by changing start time and end time as well as breaks. Tardiness also affects time theft as the employee is not actually working at the time that they are supposed to. This means that you are paying for your employees to be late! Extended breaks and unauthorized overtime are also considerations that must be looked at for time theft. If you give your employees a 30-minute paid lunch and they take a 45-minute break you are losing more money. Buddy clocking is also one of the major ways that time theft occurs. Let's think of this scenario:

Mechanic Martin is supposed to be at work by 8am. It is 8am and he hasn't left home yet. Martin calls fellow employee Doug and explains that he will be late. Doug then finds Martin's timecard and clocks him in to work so Martin doesn't get into trouble. Martin finally shows up at 8:45 and begins working. The problem? You just paid Martin for 45 minutes of work. Lets say that Martin makes $16/hour and he is late once a week: That $12 x 52 weeks a year, that's $624 just for Martin, and he isn't the only one.

Time keeping software can solve this problem. Timekeeping requires the individual to login, and it is all electronic and documented. An employee has many options for timekeeping including; mobile phone login, swipe card login, online login, as well as a variety of biometric login capabilities. If your employee is required to swipe a card to clock in as well as provide his fingerprint, he cannot be paid while still at home.

Time keeping software is affordable, especially considering how much money companies lose due to time theft.

How can FlexChecks help? We offer the most up-to-date time keeping software with a variety of options. Check out our website or call us today! 

www.flexchecks.com

• Payroll check fraud is one of the largest challenges facing businesses and financial institutions today.  Advancing computer technology is increasingly easy for criminals to access and enables them to easily duplicate a paper check with a simple printer.  Blank check stock is easy to obtain and even fonts, like those found on the bottom of paper checks is easily downloadable.  
• Bank service charges on one extra business account can be as high as $1000 per year.  Because of check fraud, businesses often operate a separate checking account so only payroll related expenses clear.  This limits exposure to just one payroll period when a business transfers the total payroll expense each pay period. 
• Reconciliation of payroll checks against the bank statement takes time.  With paperless payroll, one debit for all net pay is the only item on the bank statement each payroll.
• Reissuance of lost checks takes time.  Employee's often misplace or damage checks, requiring paper checks to be reprinted.
• Postage and delivery of checks is expensive.  With first-class postage now at $0.45 per envelope, a business with just 50 employees can add expense of $1,170 per year in postage alone.  If a business uses a payroll service provider who ships UPS or other ground shipping, the cost of delivery of the payroll package is approximately $520 annually.
• Decreased productivity can be experienced by business who do not offer paperless payroll when employees are required to leave the business to cash payroll checks.
• Environmental costs for paper checks can be very high.  It is estimated that paper checks use over 674 million gallons of fuel and add 3.6 million tons of CO2 to the environment.