What Are The Different Types Of Time And Attendance Systems?
29 Dec 2020Time and attendance systems are used to track entrance and exit of the people in buildings or at the workplace. It helps in monitoring the clocking in and clocking out of the employees, schedules, working hours, and total work time. With the advent of technology, attendance system has moved from the paper prints to time attendance machine records. Let’s find out different types of latest time and attendance systems!
What Are Time And Attendance Systems?
Time and attendance systems permit the employees to get in and out of the workplace electronically. Different types of time attendance machines are connected with the internet, computers, time clocks, and mobile phone system. These systems help in transferring data of the employees in an instance to the software and punch their in and out time.
These time and attendance systems work in more ways than marking the entrance and exit of people. They can also monitor and track the location and working hours of the people working remotely. Moreover, they provide the data on schedules, detailed reports, manage time, record hours, communicate the data, and integrate it. Also, it helps with keeping a tab on who is coming in and who is absent.
Some of the time and attendance systems help the people in tracking their progress. It keeps the working environment transparent, and the employees handle their time-based tasks. Many of these systems are accessible on mobile phones and offer self-service. Most of them also have on-premises or cloud-based solutions.
Types Of The Time And Attendance Systems
Time attendance machines have evolved with the advancement of technology. It started with card attendance system; now face recognition and fingerprint attendance system has been created. Following are some of the types of time and attendance systems:
Time Card System
The latest and advanced version of manual punch time clocks is the time card system. These time cards are similar to the credit cards with almost the same size and type. People are issued these cards, and they have to swipe it on a time attendance machine. Also, this machine is the same as that of the credit card machine.
With the help of these machines, people can register entrance and exit time that is saved automatically in the timesheets. These machines remove the need to work manually or register time through the paperwork.
However, there is one drawback of using a time card system: anyone can swipe the card in the machine. This phenomenon is also known as buddy punching. That means someone who has your card with them can clock you in by swiping the card in the machine. So, anyone can easily cheat this attendance system with the help of the card.
Contactless Cards Or Key Fobs
This system is similar to the time card system. People get cards with barcodes or radiofrequency for the recognition by the machine. However, in this case, they do not need to swipe the card into the machine. There is no need for the physical connection to mark the attendance or exit.
The employees only have to place the card, fob, or badge in front of the machine that works like a reader. So, the device reads the card from a distance; hence, eliminating the need for swiping or inserting the card in the machine.
These types of cards communicate with the time attendance machine at a distance. Hence, in some situations, these cards can track the employee’s movements within the workplace, other than the attendance. However, these cards pose the risk of buddy punching as well. Any person in your place can carry the card and clock in and out of the facility.
Biometric Attendance System
Biometric system is based on the latest technology and is quite expensive as compared to the time card system. However, biometric attendance system eliminates the risk of buddy punching or any kind of cheating. This system is efficient because of the use of any human component for clocking in and clocking out the person.
Biometric system uses any unique identification mark of the employees for their attendance. For example, fingerprints, handprints, face recognition, voice recognition, or eye scanning. All of these identification elements are unique for each human, so only that specific person can get himself in or out of the facility with his identification mark.
The most common and popular types of biometric technology used in time attendance machines are fingerprint and face recognition.
Fingerprint Attendance System
As the name indicates, in the fingerprint attendance system, the machine uses the fingerprint of the person for marking attendance. Multiple fingerprints of the person are added into the database before installing the system. Thus, once the system is operational, people have to record their fingerprints into the system.
When someone wants to enter or exit, they put their thumb or finger onto the sensor. The sensor machine scans their fingerprint and compares it with the fingerprints added into the database. Once the device finds and identifies the fingerprints from the system, people can enter into the facility.
Face Recognition Attendance System
Same as fingerprint scanning machine, face recognition devices are also available for the time and attendance system. These face-recognizing devices identify the face of the person to guarantee their attendance.
Several photos of the face, from different angles, are recorded in the database. At the time of attendance, the device captures the facial features of the person and compare them with the images saved into the system. Once the machine identifies the face, that person can enter into the building.
To know more about time attendance machine and to install latest time and attendance systems, you can contact Efficient Systems Pte Ltd in Singapore.