The 6 Best Time Clock Software for Small Business Owners To Streamline Their Payroll

ByEric Czerwonka Last Updated
best time clock software small business

Small business owners work, on average, a whopping 52 hours a week. And, for nearly 90% of them, this is a fair price to pay to own and run their enterprise. But it is not the number of hours that make a successful business – but what these hours are dedicated to. And, successful small business owners know that there is a drastic difference between working “in” their business and working “on” their business!

Business owners only dedicate around 30% of their time towards actively driving their business forward and creating a growth strategy – while the rest of the time is taken up by admin, compliance, and routine tasks.

Luckily, there is a lot that the right software can help you wish for. For example, the best time clock software for small businesses can help entrepreneurs and business owners automate the entire payroll process and manage their workforce.

Learn about the best options for your small business below.

6 Best Time Clock Software for Small Business Owners

Buddy Punch

At a Glance: What to Expect from Buddy Punch

Save or innovate? This is one of the most common dilemmas for small business owners. If you are running a local enterprise, the chances are that you are doing so on a tight budget and within an economy that is just starting to bounce back from the pandemic-induced economic crisis.

At the same time, without innovation, your business can quickly become obsolete and fall by the wayside. Luckily, with the right payroll software, you don’t have to choose between the two options. Buddy Punch offers a wide range of automation, time-tracking, and employee management features that are fully adaptable to your business’s needs and budget.  

Before diving into the details of Buddy Punch’s features and how they can serve your business, here is a snapshot of the platform.

  • Buddy Punch is accessible via any device, including laptops, smartphones, and tablets. So, you won’t need to buy additional hardware. 
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  • Thanks to the Payroll on Demand Feature, Buddy Punch automatically tracks and records employee timing, time off, overtime, and other vital data. The easy-to-read reports are easy to use, understand, and export to Excel or Word.
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Buddy Punch Features To Save Time and Effort on Payroll

While you might be prepared to spend over 50 hours a week on your business, you should not waste a minute on tasks that can be easily automated!

Buddy Punch allows you to streamline all payroll operations, eliminate the chances of error, and save valuable time – which you can now dedicate to strategizing! Here are just a few of the features worth exploring.

Payroll Integrations with Buddy Punch

The right software can help you automate multiple aspects of your small business, including employee management, accountancy, delivery, and logistics. But without seamless integration among the different software, you might end up spending a lot of your valuable time transferring data from one app to another, thus increasing the chances of error and inaccuracies.

Buddy Punch offers a range of integrations with some of the most popular systems, including QuickBooks, SurePayroll, and Paychex.

Payroll Excel spreadsheet.

By extracting data from connected devices, Buddy Punch automatically records every employee’s time at work, time off, and overtime. The app organizes all of this information in easy-to-use reports that can be easily exported and used for HR, taxes, accounting, and payroll purposes.

PTO summary report.

Keeping up with the vacation days and time-off of each employee is challenging – especially as your team begins to grow. However, without the right time management system in place, you might end up short-staffed or without the right resources to run your business.

Buddy Punch can help you organize your employees’ time off while ensuring that you have enough manpower to run your small business.

Manage time off accrual rules.

Time-off accrual rules might vary from one company to another, according to each enterprise’s specific needs. Buddy Punch is fully customizable and allows you to easily modify your policy and accrual rules.  

Buddy Punch Functionalities For a Better Workplace Culture

Time theft schemes are among the most common types of occupational abuses carried out by fraudulent employees and affect around 75% of companies. Thanks to the wide range of features of Buddy Punch, you can easily track your employee clock in and out times, overtime, and time off, thus preventing issues like time theft and buddy punching.

All of this can help you create a better workplace culture and a more efficient business. Here are just some of the best features of Buddy Punch worth looking into.

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Thanks to Buddy Punch’s latest update, employees can now punch in and out using the face recognition feature. If you have been dealing with episodes of buddy punching, this tool can help you prevent time theft by verifying the identity of the employee clocking in or out.

Geofencing feature.

The Geofencing feature allows you to set a maximum radius within which employees can punch in and out. Depending on whether your employees are desk-based or remote, this feature allows you to check their activity.

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While the GPS tracking feature allows employees to clock in and out from anywhere, Buddy Punch delivers real-time information about where the employee is using the app. This is an excellent option for businesses that involve frequent travel, such as delivery and logistics.

Require a picture to be taken on punch in.

The Photos on Punch feature is similar to the facial recognition tool. When an employee attempts to clock in or out, the device will take a photo of the employee’s face and record it. This allows administrators to check who is clocking in and out while avoiding incidents like buddy punching and time theft.

See all punch in pictures in the timesheet.
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The IP Address Lock feature allows employees to only clock in and out using a certain WiFi or connection. This means that they can’t clock in while they are still at home or in a cafe.

Other Features and Functionalities For Small Businesses

The features seen above are just some of the best ones for small businesses. But Buddy Punch offers a wide range of functionalities that can help business owners automate other aspects of their small businesses. These include, but are not limited to, the features below:

Looking for more features? Click here to explore our comprehensive feature list.

Buddy Punch Online Reviews: Here’s What Small Business Owners Say

As of the writing date, Buddy Punch has 4.8 out of 5 stars and 669 reviews on Capterra.

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Below, we’ll list just a few reviews that speak to Buddy Punch’s ease of use and great customer support service. (Click here to explore the full list of reviews.)

As the below testimonials of small business owners, Buddy Punch is ideal for small and local enterprises looking to save time and effort on payroll while also improving their workplace culture.

“We tested out several online timecard systems and have been extremely happy with BuddyPunch! We’re a small office that has owners out of state so leveraging technology and having visibility on the team when the owners are out of town is very important. BuddyPunch has been easy to set up and use. Win for all!”

Click here to read the full review.

“Buddy Punch brought my small company out of the stone age! Since the beginning of time, we’ve used paper time card templates, which is fine for a small business just starting out. However, as we’ve grown, we’ve felt the need to implement something electronic that allows us to log time more accurately. “

Click here to read the full review.

“BuddyPunch has been an amazing tool to have. Being a growing small business, it’s been seamless to integrate and has taken a huge workload from my plate. I like that employees have the option of clocking in and out remotely, and I have the accessibility to log in anywhere.”

Click here to read the full review.

Try Buddy Punch for Free   

If you feel that Buddy Punch might be the right fit for your business, sign up for a free trial. You can also book a one-on-one demo, or view a pre-recorded demo video.

DeskTime

DeskTime is a comprehensive solution that provides businesses with all-in-one time tracker features and workforce management capabilities. Unlike some of the options we are about to see, DeskTime is especially suitable for desk-based or remote employees, as well as small businesses who are looking to grow their teams.

Some of the key features of this software include:

You can find out more about DeskTime in the video below:

 

At the time of writing, DeskTime has a total of 238 reviews on Capterra (see here), with an average of 4.4 out of 5 stars. Here’s what other small business owners say about DeskTime:

“Light and simple, does what it has to do. This software is an essential part of our performance evaluation mechanism, allowing users to track their time, and classify it based on the tasks they are working on.”

Click here to read the full review.

Hubstaff

With nearly 600,000 active users, Hubstaff is a highly popular productivity platform that comes with a wide range of features including workforce, employee timing, and project management functionalities.

This clock in and clock out software works well on multiple devices, including smartphones and tablets, as well as Windows and Mac OS computers.

You can find out more about Hubstaff in the video below:

Hubstaff offers various features and functionality, some of which include:

As of the writing date, Hubstaff has 4.6 out of 5 stars and 1238 reviews on Capterra.

“This software makes my work a lot easier. It tracks worked time, counts what should be paid to employees, shows the productivity of each user, and a lot more extras. The interface is easy to use. The support is quick and qualified.”

Click here to read the full review

Timely

Timely is an excellent alternative for small business owners looking to save time and effort on payroll tasks. This app is particularly suitable for small businesses looking to expand and manage, at the same time, teams, projects, and timings.

You can find out more about Timely in the YouTube video below:

At the time of writing, Timely has a total of 207 reviews on Capterra (see here), with an average of 4.7 out of 5 stars. Some of its key features include:

“As a business owner, it is fantastic to get accurate and ‘timely’ submitted time sheets from staff each and every week. For the user, once you find your preferred method of capture, it is a breeze from there in.”

Click here to read the full review.

Homebase

Serving hundreds of businesses across a variety of industries, Homebase is one of the most popular time clock and payroll apps. Thanks to the high versatility of this software, employees can clock in and out from almost every device.

At the time of writing, Homebase has a total of 824 reviews on Capterra (see here), with an average of 4.6 out of 5 stars. Some of its key features include:

“It is so easy to schedule, add time off and availability and it is so nice to have that show up when building a schedule. Just the entire scheduling altogether makes life so much easier. I don’t know what I would do without this! We have an outdoor workplace, so it is extremely convenient for me and my employees just to use the app on our phones. The communication features are amazing.”

Click here to read the full review.

Sling

Established in 2015, Sling is a relatively new addition to the world of automatic employee time tracking and payroll software. However, the company provides a range of unmissable employee management features worth exploring, including:

While you can visit Sling’s website to explore a full list of features, here are a few:

Looking for more? Learn about Sling in the YouTube video below:

Sling has 108 reviews and 4.6/5 stars on Capterra (as of the writing date). Find an extract below:

“This has been an eye-opening experience. I didn’t know such an awesome scheduling solution existed and is perfect for small or large businesses. Everybody with a team should be using Sling.”

Click here to read the full review.

Try Buddy Punch for Free   

If you feel that Buddy Punch could be the right fit for your business, sign up for a free trial. You can also book a one-on-one demo, or view a pre-recorded demo video.

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