8 Best Mobile Attendance Systems for Businesses
When you’re looking for a mobile attendance system, you want software that:
- Is easy to set up and customizable. You should be able to tailor your attendance tracking system to your specific business. For example, customizing how early your employees can clock in for their shift.
- Works across multiple devices, such as smartphones, tablets, and computers. This makes it easy to set up attendance tracking at multiple job sites (or for remote workers). Plus, you don’t need to deal with learning any new hardware.
- Tracks time accurately. This includes paid time off, which is a key part of employee attendance.
- Promotes employee accountability. With features like GPS tracking, geofencing, and biometric attendance tracking, you know that someone clocking in is actually at the right job site.
Plus, you want your mobile attendance system that streamlines your payroll process, so the accurate hours you track help you run accurate payroll.
In this post, we look at the 8 best mobile attendance systems that help with the above, starting with Buddy Punch.
8 Best Mobile Attendance Systems
1. Buddy Punch
Buddy Punch is an all-in-one mobile attendance system that works simply from an app (on all devices, from Android to iOS). You can use Buddy Punch to track attendance (including time worked and paid time off), set up employee accountability features, run payroll, and much more.
Here’s a quick, high-level overview of how Buddy Punch works as your mobile attendance system.
1. Employees use their preferred mobile device, such as a smartphone or tablet to clock in and out. These actions are tracked in real-time.
2. All regular hours, time off, and overtime are automatically calculated through our attendance system. You can also easily log into an employee’s time card and make edits. For example, if someone clocked in for their shift, but forgot to clock out.
All this information can be an exported PDF or Excel report.
3. You can use this info to run payroll. You can run payroll directly from Buddy Punch, using it as your payroll provider. Buddy Punch will handle all local, state, and federal taxes. Plus, your employees can use a self-service portal to set up direct deposit.
All of your team’s attendance is properly tracked (including paid time off) and your team is paid accurately and on time. All without having to use more than one tool.
Alternatively, you can export payroll reports or set up integrations with your current payroll provider, like QuickBooks or ADP.
Let’s take a closer look at some key Buddy Punch features.
Increased Employee Accountability via Our Mobile Attendance Management System
Buddy Punch offers several ways to increase employee accountability — that is, making sure your team is clocking their time worked accurately and honestly, cutting on issues such as buddy punching and time theft.
A quick note: All of the employee accountability features mentioned below are turned off by default, and you can turn on the ones that best fit the needs of your business.
Photos on Punch
Our Photos on Punch feature uses biometric technology to help prevent buddy punching — taking advantage of the fact that most mobile devices now have a camera.
With Photos on Punch, you can require employees to upload a photo of themselves every time they clock in, to ensure it is really them who is doing the punching.
As an administrator, you can review all uploaded photos using the dashboard, as shown above.
Geofencing
Utilize Buddy Punch’s mobile compatibility to ensure your employees are punching in honestly. With geofencing, you can designate a certain radius (say, 500 feet within your business address) within which employees must clock in and out.
If an employee attempts to punch in outside of the designated geofence, they will be met with an error message and asked to try again at the correct location.
Buddy Punch’s geofencing feature helps to ensure that employee time is recorded when they actually arrive at work and not 10-15 minutes before, helping to facilitate accurate reporting.
This feature also supports multiple locations, and allows you to set as many geofences and punch locations as you see fit for your particular business needs.
IP Address Locking
Buddy Punch’s mobile attendance system allows you to limit punches to a particular network or device at your workplace.
If your business utilizes a central smartphone or tablet, you can use the IP Address locking feature to limit all punches only to that particular device.
Similarly, if you have a centralized WiFi network, you can use this feature to require users to be connected to it before punching in on their mobile device.
Buddy Punch has several other accountability features you might find useful, which includes but is not limited to:
Save Time on Payroll
When you’re tracking attendance, you’re also using running payroll.
Buddy Punch has several ways of making your life easier:
You can either use Buddy Punch as your payroll provider, or you can integrate Buddy Punch with your current payroll system.
Buddy Punch Payroll
Using Buddy Punch as your payroll provider means that you only have to use one software for:
- Clocking in and out
- Tracking work hours
- Tracking time off
- Submitting payroll
This saves you time because you don’t need to toggle through different programs to manage and review attendance data and reconcile it with payroll and PTO. It also saves you money, as you’re cutting out how many tools you need to pay for.
Here’s a brief overview of how Buddy Punch payroll works:
First, use the payroll dashboard to review payroll information that is relevant to your business. This can include regular employee hours and time off, preferred payment method, gross and net pay, and more.
Next, simply hit the “submit payroll” button and allow Buddy Punch to take care of the rest. Our system can help you with:
- Providing pay stubs to employees, accessible at all times through a self-service process.
- Sending out direct deposit payments to your staff.
- Filing and paying your state and federal taxes.
For more info, check out our post on finding payroll software for a small business.
Payroll Reports on Demand
As mentioned before, all regular hours, time off, and overtime are automatically calculated through our system and you can access this information as an exportable PDF or Excel report at any time, saving you countless hours of manual entry and error-prone calculations.
Payroll Provider Integrations
Use Buddy Punch to seamlessly integrate your preferred payroll provider into our attendance system, helping you increase accuracy through less need for manual data transfer.
We offer integration support with:
- QuickBooks Online (See setup instructions.)
- QuickBooks Desktop (See setup instructions.)
- Paychex (See setup instructions.)
- SurePayroll (See setup instructions.)
- ADP Workforce Now (See setup instructions.)
- Paylocity (See setup instructions.)
- Workday (See setup instructions.)
- Gusto (See setup instructions.)
- iSolved (See setup instructions.)
- Wagepoint (See setup instructions.)
- Justworks (See setup instructions.)
- Payment Evolution (See setup instructions.)
- And more…
Time Off Tracking
Use our attendance system to easily track time-off and manage time-off requests right within the app.
Employees submit their own time-off request through Buddy Punch, and you can choose whether this needs to be approved by an administrator.
You can then view a report of all paid and unpaid time off, which can also be exported to PDF, Excel, or CSV.
For more information, check out our post on PTO tracking software.
Accruals
Accrual management is an easy and intuitive process with Buddy Punch. Check out our help doc article and demo video to get a better sense of how this works.
Learn More About Buddy Punch
Above, we looked at how Buddy Punch is a mobile attendance system that your team can use to clock in and out easily from a smartphone, tablet, or computer.
We also looked at how you can increase employee accountability, prevent time theft, streamline your payroll processes, and manage employee PTO.
There are plenty of other features Buddy Punch offers that can help you manage your team, including:
- Employee Scheduling
- Overtime Calculations
- Job Codes / Project Tracking
- Time Card Approvals
- Multiple Punch and Login Options
- Adding, Editing, or Deleting Punches
- And more
If you think Buddy Punch’s mobile attendance system is right for your business, start a free trial or schedule a one-on-one demo call. You can also check out this demo video for a closer look.
Buddy Punch Reviews
As of this writing, Buddy Punch boasts 4.8 out of 5 stars on Capterra (a widely used software review site) with 780+ reviews.
Here are some reviews from our customers:
“This app allows employees to manage their time cards from a mobile device. In doing so, if an employee has to leave directly from their house to report to a site, the employee does not have to go by the office first. Employees can also edit their time cards from any mobile device.”
Click here to read the full review.
“Most folks pick up on it right away. The system is intuitive and those who do have difficulty only need a quick tutorial and they are good to go.”
Click here to read the full review.
“The area I am most impressed with is with their support — they respond quickly, accurately and offer real solutions.”
Click here to read the full review.
“I found Buddy Punch was easy to use and very well done. I found the software very easy to work in and love the facial recognition feature.”
Click here to read the full review.
“We signed up for the trial period, and our employees were impressed immediately. They were able to start… immediately with zero training or assistance, which was a priority for us. The system is also very easy to use from an administrator end.”
Click here to read the full review.
“Minimal training for end users (employees or managers). The back end (admin) features are just as simple and intuitive. We wanted a product that was simple to use, cost friendly and allowed us to customize — all of these areas were met. Very impressed!”
Click here to read the full review.
Click here to read what other Buddy Punch customers have said about their experience.
2. Connecteam
Connecteam is a mobile attendance system with various options, including features such as:
- Mobile time kiosk app
- Timesheets and payroll
- Geofencing
- Overtime tracking
- Time off management
- And more
Connecteam currently has 4.8 stars on Capterra with 200+ reviews.
“The software is easy to use, even for those who are not tech savvy. We have a couple employees who do not do computer stuff and they are able to view updates and chats on the mobile app. There is so much more to this than first expected and all has been good so far.” Click here for the full review.
Click here for the full review.
For more information, check out this video below:
3. Timely
Timely offers a variety of mobile attendance system features, including:
Timely currently has 4.7 stars on Capterra with 200+ reviews.
“Timely allows for effortless management regarding your appointments with clients and staff. The software is very simple and easy to understand. You can also access it on both mobile and desktop.”
Click here for the full review.
For more information, here’s a brief video:
4. Harvest
Harvest is another mobile attendance system. Check out a few of its features, which includes but is not limited to:
Harvest currently has 4.6 stars on Capterra with 530+ reviews.
“It’s really easy to use and set up. I’ve been using it for a few years now and it always works great. Harvest has a web platform and also a mobile app, both of them work great with no issues so far. The mobile app is very well done and has most of the features you can find on the desktop version.”
Click here for the full review.
For more info, here’s a brief video:
5. QuickBooks Time
QuickBooks Time mobile attendance system Features include, but are not limited to:
QuickBooks Time currently has 4.7 stars on Capterra with 6,000+ reviews.
“The mobile app is intuitive and very easy to use for employees. It takes a few minutes to teach them how to clock in and out. Our client uses Intuit Payroll, which TSheets syncs with. All the time data that appears in TSheets sync pretty quickly with QuickBooks Desktop and from there it’s just a matter of creating the paychecks.”
Click here for all reviews.
For more info, here’s a brief video:
6. Avaza
Here’s a few of Avaza’s mobile attendance features:
Avaza currently has 4.6 stars on Capterra with 400+ reviews.
“Avaza is an incredibly powerful and comprehensive project management and accounting software. It provides all of the features I need to manage projects and track finances, including time tracking, task management, invoicing, expense tracking, and more. The user interface is intuitive, enabling me to quickly and easily get up and running with the software.”
Click here for the full review.
For more info, here’s a brief video:
7. Toggl
Toggl has many useful mobile attendance features, such as:
Toggl currently has 4.7 stars on Capterra with 2,100+ reviews.
“I think our team has gotten better at tracking time thanks to the overall ease of use. Especially the timer function which means you can track time on the fly instead of having to go back and manually enter it.”
Click here for the full review.
For more info here’s a brief video:
8. ClickTime
ClickTime offers a variety of mobile attendance system features, including but not limited to:
ClickTime currently has 4.6 stars on Capterra with 200+ reviews.
“ClickTime is intuitive to use and set up. We use the following modules: time tracking, expense reporting, time off management and resource planning. The mobile app makes mileage, expenses and receipts a breeze to track paperlessly. Time tracking, time off management and resource planning empower our account managers to use our clients’ dollars wisely and our team members to manage their time appropriately.”
Click here for the full review.
For more info here’s a brief video:
Next Steps
If you want to learn more about using Buddy Punch as your mobile attendance system, you can:
For more articles about attendance tracking and time management, check out:
