subject: Fingerprint Attendance Can Eliminate Buddy Punching [print this page] Fingerprint Attendance Can Eliminate Buddy Punching
One of the latest buzzwords that came out of this recent recession amongst small business owners is buddy punching. As businesses were looking for ways to shred overhead costs, many took the easiest route with layoffs and reducing payroll hours. One of the trends that many businesses identified was buddy punching.
If you're like most small business owners, maintaining your payroll is the largest cost associated in doing business. It's a tough decition, many businesses typically eliminate their personnel in order to maintain their business. But is that 100% necessary? Maybe not says John Stetson of Avid Biometrics.
One option to eliminating staff is to look for opportunities to make your business more efficiently. Well if you have workers who punch a time clock, you may not realized the wasted costs your company occurs when workers cheat the system. Buddy punching is the new word that has been coined for dishonest employees taking advantage of your business. In fact it is reported that this can cost a small business (with less than 10 employees) tens of thousands of dollars annually in wasted payroll.
How is buddy punching defined?
Buddy punching is the term for when a worker has a friend or another coworker punch their time card for them allowing them to add increased 'worked hours' to their time card.
Maybe its an worker leaving 30 minutes early, or taking an extra twenty minutes for a scheduled break, but the fact of the matter is that when you add up all of those wasted minutes, the exposed costs accumulate very fast.
Buddy punching can also occur for employers who use electronic based or PIN based time and attendance systems. In fact, a very recent study of SMBs showed that a shockingly high percentage either knew their colleagues digital password and admitted to punching a friends PIN in on their behalf.
Now that we have explained this whole buddy punching phenomenon, I'm sure your concerned with what you can do to prevent it. Fingerprint Attendance Clocks are the most popular ways to eliminate this fraud and they are more affordable than ever.
By using a biometric time attendance system, workers can only punch in and out when they are standing in front of the time clock.
The new clocks are easy to use and all workers have to do is swipe their fingerprint on a biometric scanner and the clock will register them as entering or leaving.
If you are buying a fingerprint attendance system, be aware that although biometrics has quickly evolved, some biometric systems that features a fingerprint scan only, may not be compatible with a small percentage of your employees - usually under five percent. The main reason for this is that some employees may have worn fingerprints which prevents them from getting reliable]fast punches. It never hurts to make the investment into a biometric time clock that comes with additional login features such as an HID card or electronic PIN system.
By taking a step against buddy punching, your company can cut down your payroll expenses and help your business save thousands of dollars each every year!
