The attendance monitoring system begins tracking attendance on the first day of the schedule period, which could be a semester, quarter, month, or other time period defined by the organization. On the first day, as employees swipe in at the beginning of their scheduled shift using an RFID badge or fingerprint scanner, the system records the exact timestamp of their check-in. It also retrieves their scheduled shift times from the employee database to know what time period they are expected to be working.
Throughout the day, the system continues monitoring check-ins and check-outs. As employees swipe or scan to leave for a lunch break, it notes their checkout time. Then when they return, it logs their check-back-in time. This allows it to ensure break times are properly deducted from the daily attendance calculation later. If an employee forgets to swipe or scan back in from lunch, it can automatically detect that as exceeding the allotted and scheduled break time.
At the end of each scheduled shift, the system looks to see if the employee has swiped or scanned out to officially end their work day. If they have not, it will consider them still clocked in until they do so. This helps ensure employees are not able to extend their shifts without supervisor approval which could impact overtime pay rates. It also helps locate employees still in the building if needed for emergency purposes like fires or security threats.
Each night, the system runs an automated attendance calculation process on the data collected throughout the day. For scheduled full days, it confirms the employee checked in within an acceptable range around their scheduled start time, such as 5 minutes before or after. It then verifies their checkout was after their scheduled end time, minus any approved absences submitted through the leave tracking system. Partial absences can be pro-rated accordingly.
For absences such as sick, vacation, or personal time, it checks that a prior approval request was submitted through the leave tracking system and approved by a manager or supervisor. Without approval, it would count the time as unexcused absent. Some organizations have policies allowing employees to request approval after the fact for emergency situations, which the system can accommodate.
The system also accounts for any applicable time off policies such as accruing paid vacation or sick hours over a period of employment. As employees reach thresholds like 90 days worked, it updates their available leave bank balances nightly based on their hire date and any usage. Managers can then see these balances through the administrative dashboard when processing new requests.
Weekly, it generates attendance reports that can be automatically distributed or made available online. These detail total hours worked with any overtime, as well as absences taken both approved and pending. Exceptions where data is missing like lacking check-in or check-out times are flagged for follow up. Payroll staff can import data dumps from the reports to pre-populate time tracking in their payroll system for faster processing of pay checks or direct deposits each pay period.
Monthly, more in-depth attendance analytics are generated. These include metrics like the percentage of total scheduled time attended by each employee and department averages. It flags outliers that may need coaching, such as high rates of unexcused lateness or absenteeism. Advanced analytics can even calculate estimates of lost productivity costs from these exceptions. Managers gain powerful visibility to identify and address attendance issues before they worsen.
At tax time, it assists with requirements like generating W-2 wage statements. By automatically tracking all hours paid at regular and overtime rates, it removes manual errors prone to occur when re-keying figures. Integrations allow seamless transmission of pay data to third-party tax filing services. For required reporting, it expats data in standardized formats for agencies.
By centralizing accurate attendance data collection and powerful yet user-friendly analytics, managers save thousands of hours annually that were spent on mundane manual tracking tasks. Employees face fewer issues getting paid correctly on time. And overall productivity and cost control are dramatically improved through more proactive attendance management across the organization. This illustrates just some of the key capabilities a comprehensive attendance monitoring system can provide to optimize time and attendance functions for any size employer.