6 Best Online Timekeeper Software for Teams (2024)ย
A great timekeeping software for employees allows you to:
- Save hours on payroll (through features that automatically calculate regular hours, overtime, time off, and other information thatโs needed at the end of each payroll period).
- Increase employee accountability (through features that restrict employee punches to specific locations).
In addition, the timekeeping software you choose should be:
- Easy-to-use for employees (so thereโs minimal training and onboarding time required on your end).
- Provide a great customer support experience (if you have any questions, they should be answered promptly and by a knowledgeable rep who knows the ins and outs of the software).
In this article, weโll start by discussing how Buddy Punch (our employee timekeeping software) excels in the above areas. Then, to help you make a more informed decision, weโll list other timekeeping apps for employees.
Note: Sign up for a free trial of Buddy Punch or request a 1-on-1 demo to learn more.
Table of Contents
1. Buddy Punch
Brief Overview: How Does Our Employee Timekeeping Software Work?
While you can see a detailed breakdown Buddy Punchโs features in this 11 minute demo video, hereโs a brief overview of how our timekeeping software for employees works:
1. Your employees can clock in and out through the device of their choice: whether it be a mobile app (iPhone or Android), tablet, or desktop.
2. At the end of each pay period, you can download an Excel report that includes regular hours worked per employee, overtime, PTO, and any piece of information thatโs needed to run payroll.
Instead of doing manual calculations, everything is automatically added up for you, which saves hours of work and makes the payroll process more accurate (since human error is out of the equation).
Detailed Overview: See a Demo Video of Buddy Punch
Above, we briefly covered how Buddy Punch works. However, for a more detailed look at key features, see this 11 minute demo video:
Features Built to Increase the Speed and Accuracy of Payroll
Buddy Punch was built to help you avoid the seemingly endless amount of time and inaccuracies that come with running payroll manually. We did this by building out these integrations and features:
Integrations with Payroll Providers
To make payroll as easy as possible, weโve integrated Buddy Punch with practically every major payroll and accounting provider. That includes:
- ADP
- QuickBooks
- Paychex
- Paylocity
- Gusto
- PayPlus
- SurePayroll
- WorkDay
- And any others you can think of, utilizing Zapier connections with over 3,000 apps.
It only takes a few clicks to grab a payroll summary from Buddy Punch and move it to the payroll provider of your choice โ including automatically populating employee PTO and hours.
Click here to get instructions for integrating your payroll provider with Buddy Punch.
On-Demand Payroll Reports
While our payroll provider integrations can save you a lot of time, you can also download an on-demand payroll report in the form of an Excel file, as shown above.
This report includes regular hours worked per employee, overtime, PTO, and any piece of information thatโs needed to run payroll.
Time Off Tracking
Because of Buddy Punchโs built-in Time Off Tracking, itโs easy for employees and employers to keep track of time off, paid or unpaid, within the Buddy Punch app (iOS or Android).
Correspondingly, administrators on the platform (employers or managers) can immediately see time off requests as theyโre submitted.
From their administrator dashboards, they can then reject or approve them as they come in:
If employers need more details about an employeeโs time off, Buddy Punch also offers a summary of time off within the app:
Tracking Employee Hours by Locations, Projects, or Jobs
For even more detailed reporting, employee hours and reports can be run and segmented by position, department, or location.
Accruals
Buddy Punch makes it easy to manage time off accruals. In just a few clicks, you can create accrual rules based on a specific pay period and number of hours worked, or you can set them up based on an annual period of accrual.
Features Built to Increase Employee Accountability
Employee accountability is a common struggle across many businesses and teams, which adds up to a lot of wasted money. To solve this, we created the following features:
Geofencing
Geofencing allows you to create a radius around the physical area where youโd like employees to punch in and out. Employees are then served an error message if they attempt to punch in or out from outside of that geofence.
This feature is useful for managing employees that typically punch in at the same location each time.
GPS Tracking
Unlike Geofencing, the GPS Tracking feature is best for employees who are constantly on the move from place to place (i.e. salespeople).
Administrators can see the location stamps of where employees were each time they submitted a punch. This allows easy location-based verification of punches even if your employees are never in the same place twice.
IP Address Locking
The IP Address Locking feature is best suited for in-office employees.
By setting up Buddy Punch to only allow clocking in and out from a specific IP address, any attempts to punch in by employees when not connected to the Wi-Fi network or device of your choice will serve an error.
Photos on Punch
With Photos on Punch, employees take a photo of themselves on each punch in and punch out, whether theyโre on a tablet, desktop computer, or mobile device.
These images are then time stamped and available for administrators to view from their dashboards in Buddy Punch, which allows them to ensure it was the intended employee doing the punching (and not one of their coworkers).
Additional Buddy Punch Features
Buddy Punch offers many other featuresthat arenโt listed above. That includes:
- Scheduling
- Overtime Calculations
- Alerts & Notifications
- Multiple Punch and Login Options
- Adding, Editing or Deleting Punches
- Job Codes / Project Tracking
- Time Card Approvals
- And more โ view our full list of features here.
Online Reviews
At the time of writing, Buddy Punch has garnered over 900 reviews and 4.8/5 stars on Capterra (a widely-used online software review service).
And if you read through our reviews, Buddy Punch is commonly known for its:
- Ease of use.
- Customer support.
Thatโs because we set out to excel in those specific areas, and it makes us both grateful and proud to know weโre getting noticed for those efforts.
How Is Our Customer Support Different?
Buddy Punch uses live chat as its main channel for customer support communication, and we maintain a median first response time of 54 seconds during business hours, so you can expect a very quick response.
In contrast, as one of our customers stated in a review: โSome companies have no chat or phone number, and you wait days to hear back through email.โ
Additionally, we place a major emphasis on training, so our customer service team has an extremely intuitive, deep understanding of how the software works and how to help customers navigate it. These reviews allude to this:
Why Buddy Punch Is So Easy to Use
Here are some of the most commonly asked questions we get about Buddy Punch:
- Could someone who isnโt tech-proficient easily use Buddy Punch?
- Is it going to take a large time investment on my part to get employees trained on it?
We created Buddy Punch with those concerns in mind from the outset.
To use Buddy Punch, employees log in and are greeted with a โPunch Inโ or โPunch Outโ button (which changes depending on their current status). They can also view their current timecard.
Because what employees see on login (the option to punch in or out) is so simple and distraction free, itโs much easier and more intuitive to use.
This is in contrast to many other time clock apps, which often have very cluttered homepages that make the punch button difficult to find.
For employees who arenโt great with technology, this can make something as simple as clocking in and out of work confusing and overwhelming.
The ease-of-use theme was applied throughout the software, and weโre thankful and proud to see reviewers mention this:
Learn More About Buddy Punch
If youโre interested in seeing for yourself how Buddy Punch can increase employee accountability and save hours on payroll, sign up for a free trial here, or request a one-on-one demo.
2. TimeKeeper
TimeKeeper is a good option if youโre working with UK-based company.
You can use TimeKeeper to let your employees clock in and out of work. It also has a:
- GPS tracker
- Leave management system
- Rota planner (so you can schedule your teamโs shift online)
- And integrations with various payroll systems, like Xero and Sage
At the time of this writing, TimeKeeper has over 12 reviews with an average star rating of 4.9 out of 5.
Click here to read all of TimeKeeperโs reviews
3. Connecteam
Connecteam has over 320 reviews on Capterra, with an average rating of 4.8/5 stars (at the time of writing).
Here are a few of its key features:
- Employee Time Clock
- Employee Scheduling
- Checklists & Forms
- Employee Communication
- Employee Training
- Employee Task Management
4. Clockify
Clockify has over 4700 reviews on Capterra, with an average rating of 4.7/5 stars (at the time of writing).
Here are a few of its time management features:
5. When I Work
When I Work has over 1057 reviews on Capterra, with an average rating of 4.5/5 stars (at the time of writing).
Here are a few of its key features:
6. DeskTime
Desktime has over 519 reviews on Capterra, with an average rating of 4.5/5 stars (the time of writing).
Here are a few of its key features:
- Shift Scheduling
- Automatic Time Tracking
- Invoicing
- URL and App Tracking
- Absence Calendar
- Document Title Tracking
- Idle Time Tracking
- Automatic Screenshots
- Project Time Tracking
Note: If you would like to know more about Buddy Punch, you can click here and schedule a demo or sign up for a free trial. If youโd like to know more about our pricing options, go here.
FAQs
What is a Timekeeping Application?
A timekeeping application is something that helps you track time.
This can be individual time tracking. For example, you may want a productivity tracker, like Clockify or a Pomodoro App. These are time tracking apps that are common amongst employees or freelancers. It helps you see how long youโre taking on a project, and also helps you send accurate billable hours.
But thereโs also timekeeping for teams. You can have productivity trackers for teams, but you can also have timekeeping software for businesses.
This type of software โ like Buddy Punch โ is used to:
- Create schedules
- Let your team track hours worked by clocking in and out
- Manage paid time off (PTO)
- Run payroll
What is the Most Accurate Way to Keep Time?
The most accurate way to keep and track time is to use time-keeping software, or a time-keeping app. This is because manual time tracking comes with the chance of making errors, such as clocking in late, forgetting to clock out, not taking your breaks, and more.
But there are still risks involved when using software to keep time. For example, if youโre using a productivity time tracker (something like Clockify) and you start your shift, but then spend that time not on task, youโre keeping inaccurate data. Your reports will show you spent so many hours on a project, when in reality you spent that time doing something else.
If youโre trying to manage employee time (both time worked and time off), then you can use a timekeeping software like Buddy Punch.
Buddy Punch works to eradicate all types of inaccurate time records (wehtehr through intentional tme theft or accidents).
For example, with Buddy Punch, you can:
- Set up accountability measures, such as asking for a photo when someone clocks in (to make sure the right person is clocking in for their shift), setting up geofencing area (to track where your employees are when they clock in and out, as well as where they are during their shift, and more.
- Set up time clock rules, that prevent employees from clocking in too early or out too late.
To learn more about how Buddy Punch can help you and your employees keep accurate time, start a free 14-day trial.
What is TimeKeeper App?
The TimeKeeper is a UK-based time tracking application. It can be used to track time worked and time off. It also integrates with several different payroll providers โ so you can use accurate time tracking to pay your team.
You can set up a clock in and clock out kiosk using the TimeKeeper App, which also has advanced features like geofencing, so you know your employees are where theyโre supposed to be when theyโre clocking.
You can download the TimeKeeper app from both the App Store and the Google Play Store.
