Employee time tracking: lateness, timesheets and 1C

Ten minutes late seems like a small thing. Let’s do the math: a company has 50 employees, and each one is late by 10 minutes a day on average. Over a month of 22 working days, that adds up to 11,000 minutes, or about 183 hours. That is a full month of work for one employee, and the company pays for that time.

The problem is that without tracking, nobody sees these minutes. A manager notices late arrivals only by coming in before everyone else, and the timesheet at the end of the month is put together from memory and the front desk logbook.

Why manual time tracking doesn’t work

• Front desk logbook. Times are written by hand, they are easy to change, and a coworker can sign in for someone who is absent.
• Cards and passes. A card can be handed to someone else to “clock in for a buddy.”
• Excel spreadsheet. HR or a department head keeps it, the data comes from what employees say, and reconciling it takes several days at the end of the month.
• Payroll disputes. Without accurate data, deductions for lateness are hard to justify, so they simply don’t happen.

Types of time tracking systems

There are four main ways to record when employees arrive and leave:

• Paper logbook. It costs nothing, but it guarantees nothing either.
• Access cards. Convenient if the site already has access control (ACS), but a card can be handed over or lost.
• Fingerprint. You can’t hand it over, but scanners struggle with dirty or wet hands, so they can cause problems in manufacturing and warehouses.
• Face recognition. An employee walks up to the terminal, and a second later the check-in is done. Nothing to tap or touch. Nobody can check in for someone else.

For offices, warehouses and manufacturing sites, we recommend face recognition: it is fast, contactless and rules out “buddy punching.”

How face-based tracking works in UKEY Time

UKEY Time is our time tracking system built on face recognition terminals. A terminal is installed at the entrance; it recognizes the employee and records arrival and departure times. Recognition accuracy is 99.9%, and time is recorded to the minute.

The data then goes to the client portal. In the morning, the “Where now” screen shows the whole company:

• who arrived on time;
• who was late and by how many minutes;
• who didn’t show up;
• who is still expected according to the schedule.

If the company has several offices or sites, the terminals at all entrances work in one system, and the manager sees the full picture.

Work schedules: lateness is counted from the employee’s shift

To count late arrivals fairly, the system needs to know when a person is supposed to arrive. In UKEY Time, you set a schedule for the whole company and can adjust it for a department or a specific employee: for example, accounting starts at 8:00 and sales at 9:00. The official work calendar with holidays and moved days off is taken into account.

You can choose a tracking mode for each department:

• strict: the system flags late arrivals and absences and builds reports on them;
• flexible: late arrivals are not flagged, and the system only counts hours worked. This suits, for example, employees with flexible hours.

You can also set an allowed lateness limit, turn on overtime tracking and get a notification if an employee is away for a long time.

Lateness control without manual checks

A manager doesn’t need to log in to the system every day: the key information comes to them.

• Telegram. The bot sends a daily summary (arrived, late, absent), a message about each late arrival and a list of no-shows. Optionally, you can receive every entry with a photo.
• Email. A daily summary for the day and a weekly one for the past seven days, with trends and a list of violators. There can be several recipients.
• Reports. For any period, you can build the “Discipline,” “Top late arrivals,” “Most absences” and “Top overtime” reports. They can be printed or exported to Excel.

Late arrivals are visible the same day, so the conversation with the employee happens right away, based on accurate data from the terminal.

Timesheet and export to 1C

A timesheet for any period is exported to Excel with one click. If payroll is calculated in 1C, hours worked can be transferred there automatically: accounting doesn’t need to reconcile timesheets by hand or re-enter data.

What about personal data

Photos and recognition data are used only for the terminals to work. When an employee leaves the company, this data is deleted from the terminals and from the system after a set period, 30 days by default. Only the people you grant access to can use the portal.

Who it’s for

• companies with 5 to 500 employees;
• offices and business centers;
• warehouses and manufacturing sites with shift schedules;
• chains with several branches;
• schools: for tracking students and notifying parents, there is School Tracker on the same platform.

How implementation works

1. We survey the entrances and calculate how many terminals are needed.
2. We install and connect the terminals.
3. We add departments, employees and their photos, and set up schedules.
4. We connect Telegram notifications, email summaries and export to 1C.
5. We show HR staff and managers how to work with the reports.

FAQ

How accurately does the system recognize employees?
Face recognition accuracy is 99.9%.

Can lateness be left untracked for some employees?
Yes. Their department is switched to flexible mode: the system counts hours but doesn’t flag late arrivals.

Does the system work with several offices?
Yes. Terminals at different sites connect to one portal.

Do we need to change how we keep records in 1C?
No. Hours worked are transferred to 1C, and your current records stay as they are.

Want to find out how many terminals your company needs? Send a request, and we will prepare a solution for your entrances and schedules. Learn more about the product on the “Time tracking” page.