It is not (quite) free, but it is available at a low $79 introductory price (at the time of writing Sep 09) and you can download a free trial to see if it’s what you need.

Virtual TimeClock Basic Edition has been supporting Virtual TimeClock since 1986 and it has been available online since 1997.

The  Basic Edition has simplified features, making it very easy to use and manage and is an excellent time and attendance software solution for businesses with up to three employees.

The software produces simple, easy to understand reports that are sufficient for a smal lbusiness such as a small restaurant or retail outlet that doesn’t need complicated reports.

The timeclock software can also be upgraded to Virtual TimeClock Basic Edition and as you rbus9iness expands, you can easily and cost-effectively upgrade to either Virtual TimeClock Pro or Virtual TimeClock Network Edition.

Free Timeclock Software Trial
You can downloaded a free trial of Virtual TimeClock from the Redcort Software web site at redcort.com.

They also offer a free atomic clock software utility to help you keep your local computer clock accurate also “Atomic Clock Synchronization”. Their freeware Atomic Clock Sync utility helps you to optimize how often Windows references an atomic clock server.Basically your current PC time is compared with the current atomic time and an adjustment is made to keep your local PC or computer up-to-date with the exact time.

The most popular atomic clock servers are operated by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in the United States.

Atomic Clock Sync is also able to help repair the Windows Time Service if your computer is no longer able to check for Internet Time updates.

They give Atomic Clock Sync away as freeware to encourage you to use and return to World Time Server.com for the current times around the world.

Download Atomic Clock Sync

Go to http://www.worldtimeserver.com/atomic-clock/ and about halfway down the page on the left hand side you’ll see the download link.

IMPORTANT NOTE:

You must have the correct time zone selected on your computer AND have the correct daylight saving time rules in place in your operating system in order to have the Internet Time synchronize process work properly.

If the dates for Daylight Saving Time (DST) changed recently in your area, you must update your operating system with the new rules. Microsoft releases patches when necessary for newer versions of Windows, but with older versions, you may have to update the registry yourself or find a third-party tool to do it.

ADP offers a wide range of HR, payroll, tax and benefits administration solutions and is also a leading provider of integrated computing solutions to auto, truck, motorcycle, marine and recreational vehicle dealers

ADP Time and Attendance Solutions

ADP offers a range of time and attendance solutions enable you to increase the accuracy of payroll preparation, track paid time off, improve wage and hour compliance, and reduce your labor costs. They offer a range of  Flexible Time Collection Methods including:

• Electronic timesheet / Online timesheet
• Time clocks
• Biometric time clock (hand geometry and fingerprint)
• Telephone / Voice response
• Wireless devices

Their product range includes software such as ezLaborManager which can automatically calculate paid time off based on a company’s policies and display real-time balances, so employees won’t have to interrupt HR managers with questions about vacation and sick time.

ezLaborManager also makes it simpler to comply with wage and hour laws through fair, consistent application of pay policies, documentation of hours worked and overtime for compliance with the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), and audit trails of all timecard approvals and edits.

Kronos has 3,000 employees worldwide and claims to have thousands of installations in organizations of all sizes - including over half the Fortune 1000 - and say that 30 million people use a Kronos solution every day.

Kronos has a focus on workforce management solutions, which are designed to take the complexities involved with:

• recording time and attendance transactions,
• scheduling diverse workforces,
• managing employee absence

and  to simplify them.

Labor forecasting and scheduling solutions

These give you the tools you need for an optimized workforce deployment.

Forecasting

The Kronos Workforce Forecast Manager software analyzes your business drivers to produce an accurate forecast down to 15 minute intervals. Seasonal variations, events, and current trends are consistently accounted for to provide you with the insight you need to predict your labor needs.

Scheduling

Kronos employee scheduling software includes:

• Workforce Scheduler
• Kronos iSeries Scheduler
• AD OPT for the airline industry

Absence Management Software

This Kronos software helps with scheduling a large, complex workforce and helps you to plan schedules accurately and execute them consistently.

Employee absence has a huge impact on an organization, whether the absence is planned, incidental, or extended, it carries costs, risks and productivity hits.

• Costs: On average, 36 percent of payroll1 is linked to employee absence. This includes the cost of paying absent employees as well indirect costs, such as lost productivity and the hiring of replacement workers.

• Risks: Without workforce attendance systems to manage employee absence, organizations risk failing to comply with collective bargaining agreements and government regulations such as the Family Medical Leave Act and state leave laws.

• Productivity: Absence is a productivity killer - on average, incidental, unplanned absences result in 21 percent of net lost productivity per day2.

The software helps you to control the impact of absenteeism, see trends so you can control costs and to manage your policies so you can minimize compliance risk. It also helps you to identify workers with attendance issues so you can improve workforce productivity.

This punches an employees “Punch IN” and “Punch OUT” time onto a card. This part of the overall time clock system is often called the data collection component.

However, employee data collection i.e. their “Punch IN” (time in) and “Punch OUT” (time out) can be accomplished by other means including the traditional time clocks, time-and-date stamps, guard tour systems and access control systems.

The next generation of systems introduced the idea of using a card that doesn’t need physically stamping with a time. Rather an employee’s presence is registered and stored directly by the time clock system without the need to punch a card. This type includes proximity, barcode, and magnetic stripe badge readers.

The most modern computerized time clock systems are designed not to use cards of any type. Instead they use biometric recognition to uniquely identify employees. Biometric time clock recognition mechanisms include finger, hand, and fingerprint readers.

The other part of the time clock system is the computer - usually a PC or network of PCs - that is used to collect the data from the time clock and produce management reports.

Learn more about computerized time clocks at www.computerized-timeclock.info

Time Clock Manager Pro 2.1 is an employee time clock software management tool that allows user to clock in and clock out. It works with touch screen monitors and standard monitors and has reports to show clocked in and clocked out times.

The application has an integrated security and can work with networked or stand alone computers. It is an easy to use, system which means there is no more wasting paper as with an old fashioned punch clock.

There are also custom programming facilities available.

The Software is free for you to try for 19 Days. If you like it, the purchase price of the software is $149.95 for one computer and unlimited users. For multiple computers you can get a discount.

Find out more here http://www.vsisystems.com/timeclockmanagerpro.htm

One estimate is that approx $600 million worth of these devices were sold in the US last year and forecasts suggest the industry will be worth more than $1 billion by 2011.

Employers and manufacturers say the biometric devices improve efficiency and streamline payroll and help to keep employees honest.

For example it helps employees be more punctual when they’re on a lunch break because they know when they scan out that they have exactly an hour.

However not all employees are sold on the idea of biometric systems - take palm prints for example - it really grabs some people as a step too far.

On the vendor side, Ingersoll Rand Security Technologies, a manufacturer of hand scanners in Campbell, CA said it has sold at least 150,000 of the devices to organizations such as Dunkin’ Donuts and McDonald’s franchises, Hilton hotels and to Marine Corps bases, which use them to track civilian hours.

And in New York, officials are spending $410 million to install an automated attendance tracking system that may eventually be used by 160,000 city workers.

On the other side of the fence, civil servants who are members of Local 375 of the Civil Service Technical Guild have rallied against a plan to add the city medical examiner’s office to the list of 17 city agencies that already have the scanners in place.

A major benefit of biometric timeclock systems is the curtailing of fraud. New York’s Department of Investigation charges city employees several times a year with taking unauthorized time off and falsifying timecards.

Ingersoll Rand say privacy concerns are unfounded because hand scanners don’t keep large databases of people’s fingerprints — only a record of their hand shape.

However, New York union officials are concerned that the machines could eventually be used not just to crack down on employees skipping work, but to harass honest workers.

It performs the usual functions of logging employee IN and OUT times and adds to this features such as immediate access to employees’ attendance status and daily clocking exceptions.

This gives you speed and flexibility in the processing of employee times and the generation of exact time worked.

Often these packages are tailored to the employment laws of a particular country, so make sure the packgae you are considerin gmeets your local laws.

Ideally the rostering system you choose should have both the ability to be set up using its parameter settings and the flexibility to write scripts, so it is configurable to match your business.

The overall benefits are monitoring of staff attendance quickly saves management time, rapidly reduces administration costs and gives your business a competitive edge in tough commercial environments.
Stay tuned for employee management software news

Its primary function is similar to that of a traditional employee time clock: to provide an easy, accountable way for workers to record when they start work, stop work, or change task.

It doesn’t use a separate reader to scan the employee’s ID / details. Instead it’s software based, so employees log in directly to the PC.

Pro:This means  timesheets are instantly available with up-to-the-minute hours and overtime totals. 

Con: It’s not as secure as biometric timeclock systems, so fraud is possible. 

Operation: 
To clock in or out, workers select their name from the time clock list and press the Start Work, Stop Work, or Change Task button.

You can set TimeClock preferences, so on clocking in the worker can select a task and be prompted to enter their password before recording new timesheet entries.

When workers clock out, they can select a memo indicating their status. E.g. perhaps theyare ’out to lunch’ or ‘gone for the day.’ Workers can also create special one time memos like ‘Doctor appt. Back by 2PM’!

Virtual TimeClock Pro can be installed on one computer as a stand-alone time clock or can be simply connected to  multiple computers on your existing company network. 

This means it provides a scalable system that can support potentially hundreds of employees.

Clock in for the latest timeclock news and timeclock brands at http://computerized-timeclock.info/

A clver company IDscan in the UK has come up with “Smokescreen”. It is a rapid entry / exit system for social venues eg. pubs and clubs based on a timeclock that allows customers to enter and exit freely with having to re-queue.

The system acts as a quick route back into your venue for smokers who have gone outside for a short while.

BAR SURFING FEATURE:
It helps you prevent Bar Surfing fraud where  arrive early to take advantage of concession prices – exit on a smoking pass and then return at peak times to avoid full entry charges.

This tells you exactly how many minutes past their allowed exit time the customer has exceeded and at what time they exited (up to 3 hours maximum)

CAPABILITIES:

1. Multi-entry point networked feature.
2. Limit the amount of time a customer can spend outside before they become ineligible to re-enter.
3. Gives you exact tally of numbers outside at any one time.
4. Logs precisely numbers on smoking balconies and terraces.
5. No need for clickers.
6. Use it for vip rooms.
7. Self-contained processor - No external pc unit required.
8. Choice of pre-set audio tones or recorded messages.
9. Never purchase a wristband again - saves $$$$$$$$.
10. No wristband fraud.
11. No hand stamp fraud.

 Keep track of timeclock news at http://computerized-timeclock.info/