Skip to main content

There are so many different time and attendance software that making a shortlist of the best can be tricky. You want to automate the recording of time-in and time-out, manage leave and absences, and calculate overtime, streamlining payroll processing—and now need the right tool for your company and team. In this post, I share from my personal experience as an HR specialist using many different time and attendance tools with teams of all sizes, and share my picks of the best time and attendance software overall.

Why Trust Our Software Reviews

We've been testing and reviewing HR software since 2019. As HR professionals ourselves, we know how critical and difficult it is to make the right decision when selecting software.

We invest in deep research to help our audience make better software purchasing decisions. We've tested more than 2,000 tools for different HR use cases and written over 1,000 comprehensive software reviews. Learn how we stay transparent, and take a look at our software review methodology.

The Best Time and Attendance Software Comparison Chart

This comparison chart summarizes basic details about each of my top time and attendance tracking software selections. You can view pricing details and the availability of free trials or demos side-by-side to help you find the best system for your budget and business needs.

Tools Price
Connecteam From $29/month for 30 users (paid annually)
ADP Workforce Now From $160/month for up to 49 employees
Insightful From $8/employee/month
QuickBooks Time From $8/user/month + $10/month base fee
Deputy From $3.50/user/month
DeskTime From $7/user/month
Clockify From $4.99/user/month
When I Work From $2.50/user/month
Workday Workforce Management Pricing upon request
ADP Pricing upon request
Preview Image - <h2 class="c-block__title b-summary-table__title c-listicle__title h3" > Compare Software Specs Side by Side</h2>

Compare Software Specs Side by Side

Use our comparison chart to review and evaluate software specs side-by-side.

Compare Software

How to Choose Time and Attendance Software

As you work through your own unique software selection process, keep the following points in mind:

  • Identify Specific Needs: Understanding the specific needs of your business is crucial in selecting the right time and attendance software. Consider the size of your workforce, the complexity of your scheduling needs, and any unique compliance requirements your industry might have. For example, a manufacturing company with shift workers will have different requirements than a consulting firm with primarily salaried employees working standard hours. This consideration helps ensure that the software you choose can effectively handle your specific scheduling, tracking, and reporting needs.
  • Integration Capabilities: The ability of the time and attendance software to integrate seamlessly with other systems, such as payroll and HR management software, is essential. Integration reduces manual data entry, minimizes errors, and streamlines processes. For instance, time and attendance data that automatically flows into payroll systems can significantly reduce the time spent on payroll processing and increase accuracy in wage calculations.
  • Compliance Features: Ensuring compliance with labor laws and industry regulations is a significant concern for many businesses. Look for time and attendance software that offers features to help manage compliance, such as tracking overtime, managing leave according to legal requirements, and generating reports for audit purposes. These features can help businesses avoid costly penalties and ensure they meet all legal obligations.
  • Scalability: The chosen time and attendance software should be able to grow with your business. Consider whether the software can accommodate an increasing number of employees, multiple locations, and evolving business needs. Scalability is particularly important for startups and growing companies that anticipate significant changes in size or operations over the next few years.
  • User Experience and Support: A user-friendly interface and strong customer support are vital for ensuring the software is adopted by your staff and that any issues are quickly resolved. Look for software that is intuitive for employees to use for clocking in and out, requesting time off, and checking their schedules. Additionally, evaluate the quality of customer support provided by the software vendor, including availability, response times, and access to resources like training materials and user forums.

These considerations are designed to guide you through the selection process, ensuring that the time and attendance software you choose not only meets your current needs but is also a valuable tool for managing your workforce efficiently and effectively in the long term.

Overviews of the 10 Best Time and Attendance Software

Here are the detailed reviews of my top 10 choices for time and attendance software, including summaries of their standout features, pricing plans, and pros and cons.

Best for real-time oversight of operations

  • 14-day free trial + free plan available
  • From $29/month for 30 users (paid annually)
Visit Website
Rating: 4.3/5

Connecteam is a comprehensive workforce management tool that provides businesses with a centralized platform to streamline their operations and improve employee engagement. The tool helps to simplify and automate processes, enhance communication and collaboration, and increase overall productivity. It does all this primarily by providing real-time oversight of operations, making it an ideal solution for businesses seeking to monitor and manage their workforce effectively and efficiently.

Why I picked Connecteam: I picked it because it has many features that help you make it easy for your employees to record their time and for you to track it, while maintaining safety at the forefront of your operations. For example, employees can clock in and out with personalized pin codes, from a shared secure device, which allows for accurate time tracking and eliminates the need for manual timesheets. Meanwhile, you have the ability to pull reports from the backend to see timestamps and geo-location pins and ensure everything is in order.

The app generates real-time reports on various aspects of employee performance, including time tracking, task completion, and shift attendance. These reports provide valuable insights for you to make data-driven decisions and can help simplify time and attendance management, improve accuracy, and enhance overall workforce productivity.

Connecteam Standout Features and Integrations:

Standout Features include GPS-based geo-fencing which prevents out-of-site clock-in / time theft. Also, its reminders help you set break and overtime rules in accordance with local, state, and federal labor laws and the platform will automatically list hours, breaks, overtime, and time off on timesheets, so they can be ready for payroll. Finally, its shift scheduling and management tools allow managers to create and assign shifts to employees. Employees can view their schedules, request shift changes, and receive notifications about upcoming shifts.

The platform additionally offers several communication tools, including personalized company news feeds, secure instant messaging, surveys, and a knowledge base.

Integrations include Paychex, Xero, Gusto, QuickBooks Payroll (online + desktop), Zapier, Google Calendar, API access, and others.

Pros and cons

Pros:

  • Platform is customizable to meet specific needs
  • Scalable for growing businesses
  • Provides comprehensive support and training for users

Cons:

  • Notifications are not always accurate
  • Pricing structure can be complex

Best for HR & payroll integration

  • 30-day free trial
  • From $160/month for up to 49 employees
Visit Website
Rating: 4.1/5

ADP Workforce Now is an integrated HR platform designed to manage and automate manage payroll, time and attendance, talent, benefits, and other core HR services. It is built to be flexible, catering to the varying needs of different businesses, and includes a single database for all HR functions to help maintain efficiency.

Why I picked ADP Workforce Now: ADP Workforce Now provides time and attendance software solutions that help businesses track and manage employee hours, ensure compliance with labor laws, and control labor costs. These solutions include features for time tracking, absence management, scheduling, and labor analytics. The platform also allows employees to clock in and out using various methods, including web-based clocks, mobile devices, and physical time clocks. 

The tool then automates the calculation of hours worked and integrates with payroll systems to simplify the process of paying employees accurately for their time. It also ensures compliance with federal, state, and local payroll tax regulations by calculating and withholding the correct amount of taxes based on employee information, location, and applicable tax laws. Additionally, ADP Workforce Now offers reporting tools that give insights into labor trends and help with workforce management decisions.

ADP Workforce Now Standout Features and Integrations:

Standout features include tools and resources to help businesses stay compliant with various regulations, including the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and other labor laws, products by name tailored to specific HR needs, and Professional Employer Organization (PEO) support to help businesses with HR tasks, including employee relations and HR strategy.

ADP Workforce Now also offers talent management, which encompasses recruiting, onboarding, performance management, and learning management systems to help businesses attract, hire, develop, and retain employees. It also emphasizes the importance of the employee experience by providing a user-friendly interface and actionable insights for employees and managers. Finally, it includes features for managing employee benefits, such as health insurance and retirement plans.

Integrations include Quickbooks, Workday, MicrosoftTeams, Xero, Sage, Clover, Deputy, ZipRecruiter, JazzHR, and Slack.

Pros and cons

Pros:

  • Easy to implement and use
  • Includes employee self-service for time off management
  • Provides customizable dashboards

Cons:

  • Potential for information overload
  • Customer support can be unreliable

Best for real-time attendance tracking and reporting

  • 7-day free trial
  • From $8/employee/month
Visit Website
Rating: 4.8/5

Insightful boosts team productivity by efficiently managing time and budgets for your projects. The tool offers real-time insights into your employees’ productivity and engaged tasks. Consequently, you can determine which tasks and projects take the most time. 

Why I picked Insightful: I picked Insightful because the tool automatically tracks manual employee time through its online clock, which provides added accuracy in time tracking and captures missed time. You can also track breaks and time-off requests to promote staff wellness and ensure accurate billing and payroll. Insightful has an intuitive dashboard displaying employee time, attendance, and productivity parameters.

Moreover, you can easily export the time and attendance data to execute payroll based on your payment schedule.

Insightful Standout Features and Integrations:

Standout features include automatic time capture and employee activity monitoring. The tool also handles expense tracking, billing and invoicing at the end of each pay period. You can create customized reports that show each employee’s productivity and put them on a performance management plan, if necessary.

Insightful generates push-button reports rich in time and project data. You can also configure the system to export these reports at scheduled times. You can then filter the timesheet parameters based on teams, individuals, or custom dates. Features such as screen monitoring, user activity tracking, and automated time mapping help identify bottlenecks, inefficiencies, and unbalanced workloads.

Integrations include 50+ third-party applications such as Asana, BigQuery, ClickUp, CSV Import, Height, Jira, Teamwork, Wrike, Zendesk, Zoho BugTracker, and others.

Pros and cons

Pros:

  • Screenshot feature enables time stamp visibility for employers and workers
  • Sets up thresholds for app usage and marks for productivity
  • Real-time monitoring for remote employees

Cons:

  • Software updates aren’t readily available
  • Idle tracking can be improved

Best all-in-one time tracking software with integrated payroll capabilities

  • 30-day free trial
  • From $8/user/month + $10/month base fee
Visit Website
Rating: 4.6/5

QuickBooks Time is an all-in-one employee time tracking and attendance management software that enables you to monitor clock-in and out times. It has robust payroll and invoicing capabilities that track every second of work done. This increases billable hours for employees by 10% and can save you up to 2 hours on each payroll run.

Why I picked QuickBooks Time: QuickBooks Time offers great invoicing and payroll processing capabilities. This enables seamless processing of employee and contractor compensations based on accurate timekeeping. 

Using GPS tracking and the Who's Working window features, you can access real-time insights into employee clock-in times, their locations, and projects. Besides this, QuickBooks Time is useful for scheduling shifts for employees on the go. The mobile app is available on both iOS and Android devices. This empowers managers to monitor and approve timesheets quickly. Employees can also view their schedules from the app and receive notifications.

QuickBooks Time Standout Features and Integrations:

Standout features include mobile time tracking, employee scheduling, employee location tracking via GPS, geofencing, overtime alerts, scheduling notifications, expense tracking, invoicing, contractor payments, cash flow management, and more. These features work in tandem to ensure your employee data is always accurate and billed appropriately to clients.

QuickBooks Time also lets you build customized reports based on the hours worked or project progress and derive valuable insights.

The tool also offers photo capture and GPS tracking to reduce time theft and provides detailed reporting functionalities. It also allows automated time data sync to your payroll system for accurate invoicing.

Integrations include 25+ third-party applications such as Automate.io, Breezeworks, Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, Knowify, MakeShift, OnPay, Paychex, Procore, Qvinci, Salesforce, and more.

Pros and cons

Pros:

  • Offers an array of reports on employee trends
  • UI is fairly intuitive for tracking time across multiple projects
  • Customized time-off reporting

Cons:

  • Occasional glitches with the GPS feature
  • Time-off function needs significant improvement

Best for online employee scheduling

  • 31-day free trial
  • From $3.50/user/month
Visit Website
Rating: 4.6/5

Deputy helps with employee scheduling, time tracking, tasking, and rostering. The software is great for creating schedules for small teams. You can create shifts, view employees' attendance, view clock-in and clock-out timings, and run reports. Employees, on the other hand, can enter their own unavailability and confirm assigned shifts. They can also swap shifts using the Deputy mobile app. 

Why I picked Deputy: I chose Deputy because of its robust employee scheduling features. The tool features easy drag-and-drop functionality, allowing managers to quickly create new shifts and work patterns. It also provides custom scheduling templates to automate shift patterns alternatively. Employees receive automatic notifications of any changes to their shifts, helping them stay on top of their attendance.

Additionally, Deputy’s personal tasking feature enables managers to assign project tasks to specific employees.

Deputy Standout Features and Integrations:

Standout features include geolocation and facial recognition features to prevent off-site clock-ins and buddy punching. Besides these, managers can create dynamic reports on the Deputy platform to optimize employee productivity and keep project budgets on target. You can also generate unlimited timesheets per month and customize the fields to record information like mileage and gratuities. 

Deputy also helps businesses take measures to effectively manage their workforce while adhering to local, state, and global labor compliance laws. For instance, Deputy’s break planning feature enables companies to build compliant timetables that manage both paid and unpaid meal and rest breaks.

Integrations 50+ third-party applications such as ADP, BambooHR, Dropbox, Gusto, NetSuite, Okta, Quickbooks, Shopify, Square, Tapcheck, Wagepoint, Zenefits, and others. 

Pros and cons

Pros:

  • Schedules can be created, published, and sent directly to employees
  • Report writer feature offers many configurations
  • Easy timesheet approvals and exports

Cons:

  • Punch-in locations are sometimes difficult to track
  • Lacks the ability to group users based on projects

Best for tracking absences and idle time

  • 14-day free trial
  • From $7/user/month
Visit Website
Rating: 4.6/5

DeskTime is a cloud-based time and attendance tracking solution designed to manage workflows and monitor employees at small businesses. It features fully automated online and offline time tracking.

Why I picked DeskTime: DeskTime accurately tracks employee time and automatically marks any breaks or periods of absence in the “absence calendar.” This enables managers to stop wasting time poring over manual timesheets or spreadsheets. Instead, a quick glance reveals details like working and absent employees, allowing you to schedule shifts efficiently.

Additionally, DeskTime provides robust project management features that depict how hours stack up to budgets. The app and URL tracker features are also quite handy. They allow managers to monitor employees’ online activity (during company time). Moreover, you can configure and classify certain activities as productive, unproductive, or neutral. This may seem invasive at first, but DeskTime also offers a private time option, which disables time tracking and logging when employees are off the clock.

DeskTime Standout Features and Integrations:

One standout feature for DeskTime is the Pomodoro timer that organizes work hours into sprints of 52, 60, or 90 minutes. Another interesting feature is the automatic screenshotting that identifies employees wasting company time. 

DeskTime also provides approval process control, automated shift scheduling, billable items tracking, employee activity monitoring, mobile time tracking, offline time clock, and real-time remote monitoring. The tool also features a visual productivity bar that classifies your employees’ work hours into productive, idle or unproductive.

Integrations include Asana, Basecamp, Gitlab, Google Calendar, Jira, Outlook Calendar, and Zapier. 

Pros and cons

Pros:

  • Great customer service
  • In-depth and detailed reporting capabilities
  • Clean and intuitive UI

Cons:

  • Editing time blocks is challenging
  • App tracking is a little invasive

Best for hybrid teams seeking integrated client billing and expensing tools

  • 7-day free trial + free plan available
  • From $4.99/user/month
Visit Website
Rating: 4.5/5

Clockify is a time and attendance tracking software that streamlines time entry, submission, approval, and enables hassle-free payroll calculations. This ensures that employees get their dues paid on time and accurately. The software is available as a web, desktop, and mobile app (for both Android and iOS) and even has a browser extension.

Why I picked Clockify: I picked Clockify because of its flexible cloud-based solutions that help employers track hybrid and remote employees from multiple locations. An on-premises kiosk handles logins at the workplace, and off-site employees can use their mobile phones, tablets, or desktop computers. Moreover, Clockify offers GPS tracking, time-off monitoring, and robust integrations that allow smooth data relay for customized reporting purposes.

Additionally, Clockify automatically tracks active and inactive periods and totals them for payroll calculations. It also has a timesheet feature that tracks billable and non-billable hours spent on projects and tasks. Clockify can also track team attendance and time spent per activity to ensure that work hours are being used productively.

Clockify Standout Features and Integrations:

Standout features include timesheets to easily organize and view time entries, a clock-in and clock-out kiosk, and a calendar for a visual overview of time allocation. The software also streamlines task management and monitors team members’ performance against their assigned tasks. Moreover, Clockify also simplifies invoice generation for clients.

Clockify comes with pre-designed templates to log weekly activities in seconds and facilitate easy approval from managers. It also offers a digital kiosk to clock in with a PIN code from a shared device and track employee breaks. Lastly, the software provides an analytics dashboard with charts to analyze your employees’ time breakdown spent on specific projects.

Integrations include 80+ third-party applications such as Asana, Azure DevOps, Basecamp, Freshdesk, Gitlab, Google Calendar, Outlook, Salesforce, Trello, Todoist, Wrike, Zapier, and others

Pros and cons

Pros:

  • Accurate time tracking even during work interruptions
  • Simple and intuitive user interface
  • Easy project and task separation for different customers

Cons:

  • Data syncing issues on slow networks
  • Reporting could be improved

Best for creating timesheets and work schedules

  • 14-day free trial
  • From $2.50/user/month
Visit Website
Rating: 4.3/5

When I Work is a time-tracking and employee scheduling software that simplifies time and workforce management. The software is ideal for remote teams across various industries. You can use When I Work for employee scheduling, time tracking, and team communications. 

Why I picked When I Work: I picked When I Work for this list because of its advanced auto-scheduling features. The schedules are shareable, and employees can confirm their shifts or swap them. You can also enforce schedules by limiting the clock-in timings and locations. 

Additionally, the app provides options for creating timesheets, alerting employees to overtime, managing breaks, notifying employees when they are absent, and creating customized labor reports. The platform also offers communication and messaging tools that allow employees to connect 1:1 or in group chats to declare their availability or request time-off.

When I Work Standout Features and Integrations:

Standout features include automated clock-in and clock-out reminders. You can also build, adjust and view employee schedules from your desktop or mobile device and instantly communicate any shift changes to staff. When I Work also streamlines the approval process for time-off requests by providing you a complete view of your employees’ calendar availability.

Additionally, the tool tracks regular and overtime hours along with paid and unpaid time-off requests. Overtime alerts keep employees in check and thus, control overtime labor costs. You can also create labor distribution reports to forecast future project time and costs.

Integrations include 15+ third-party applications such as ADP Workforce Now, Claire, Gigwage, GoCo, Gusto, Onpay, Paychex, People, Quickbooks Online, ResaleAI, Square, Zapier, and more. When I Work also offers a robust API for custom integrations.

Pros and cons

Pros:

  • Hourly tracking and reporting for easy payroll processing
  • Shift management and coworker communication capabilities
  • Intuitive UI for easy employee onboarding

Cons:

  • Occasional glitches with schedules showing differently for each user
  • Schedules for “print” can be improved with color coding

Best for unifying time data sources and actions

  • Free demo available
  • Pricing upon request

Workday’s Workforce Management offers a powerful time and attendance tracking solution to increase productivity, promote worker well-being, reduce labor costs, and manage compliance risks. The software unifies time data and actions, and facilitates integrations into other integrated Workday products, such as their HCM and payroll software.

Why I picked Workday Workforce Management: I chose Workday because of its powerful single-view capabilities that allow employers to analyze important employee time data, such as schedules, time balances, and related payroll details. This helps track and manage a globally distributed workforce. The tool enables you to add, correct, submit, and approve time for workers all from a single page. Additionally, customized reports allow you to analyze global workforce trends and dig into labor costs.

Moreover, Workday provides ongoing time counters that accumulate hours worked over a specific time period. The tool also offers mobile time-tracking for employees.

Workday Standout Features and Integrations:

Standout features include ad-hoc reporting, alerts and notifications, and approval process control features, which work together to give managers a birds-eye-view of their employees’ attendance status. Other useful features include an all-in-one dashboard where both frontline managers and admins can oversee critical labor and productivity tasks. Workday also offers a mobile as well as a web opportunity clock to track your employees’ clock-in and clock-out timings and approve their timesheets from anywhere. 

Additionally, employees can send time-off requests with the platform’s voice activation feature. Plus, the Workday dashboard also offers features that help admins visualize daily work trends and identify productivity or absence issues for fast resolution. 

Integrations include 250+ third-party applications such as Adobe, BetterUp, DailyPay, Google Cloud, Handshake, MoSeeker, Okta, Proofpoint, Slack, SnapLogic, TravelBank, Workviva, and others. 

Pros and cons

Pros:

  • In-depth reporting and analytics
  • Quick approvals for multiple teams
  • Easy accessibility through mobile app

Cons:

  • No random screenshotting capabilities
  • Buggy Android app

Best for digital time clocking and buddy punching prevention

  • Free demo available
  • Pricing upon request

ADP time and attendance is part of ADP’s broader HCM platform. It offers time and attendance monitoring, employee scheduling, and leave management functionalities. The tool makes tracking hourly work easier with automated alerts, timecard approvals, scheduling, and exception reports.

Why I picked ADP: I picked ADP because it improves timecard accuracy and helps avoid 'buddy punching' by using virtual time clocks. These digital clocks come with finger-scan verification, biometrics, and facial recognition. Using geofencing, you can restrict punch locations for mobile employees to get accurate hours worked. You can also use the virtual time clocks on Android and iOS mobile devices. The tool also offers SSO and two-factor authentication for increased security.

ADP also has robust capabilities for automated timesheet calculations for overtime and statutory holidays, and provides seamless payroll integration to eliminate your administrative burdens. 

ADP Standout Features and Integrations:

Standout features include an employee self-service platform to view availability and assign shifts. Moreover, the tool offers employee absence and leave management capabilities that identify attendance issues and approve leaves only after evaluating an employee’s leave eligibility.

In addition, the tool also collects time data offline and syncs it to your employees’ timesheets once online. 

Integrations include 150+ third-party applications in the ADP Marketplace, such as 7Shifts, ClearCompany, Clock Shark, Deputy, JazzHR, Lever, Microsoft Teams, QuickBooks, Replicon, Sage, SAP SuccessFactors, Zeamo, and others.

Pros and cons

Pros:

  • Easy view of employee time cards for PTO approval and payroll processing
  • Timesheets can be locked to prevent future edits
  • Employee times can be transferred easily across departments

Cons:

  • Lack of features like randomized screenshots and idle time tracking
  • Lack of client, project, and task time tracking

Other Options

Here are a few more time and attendance software options. I didn’t have room for a full review for each of these but they are still worthy of consideration:

  1. EasyClocking

    Best for biometric attendance tracking

  2. Rippling

    Best for customizing time management workflows

  3. Buddy Punch

    Best AI-powered time-tracking software with flexible punch-in options

  4. Replicon

    Best for capturing time and work data for global employees

  5. Personio

    Best for centralizing employee working hours and automating accurate payroll calculations

  6. BambooHR

    Best for time-off tracking and scheduling

  7. Homebase

    Best for tracking hourly work with a free mobile app for unlimited employees

  8. Paychex Flex Time

    Best for touchless clocking solutions

  9. SAP SuccessFactors Time Tracking

    Best self-service time and attendance tracking software

  10. OnTheClock

    Best for preventing off-site clock-ins with geofencing

If you still haven't found what you're looking for here, check out these other related tools that we've tested and evaluated:

Selection Criteria for Time and Attendance Software

Selecting time and attendance software to include in my list is a nuanced process that hinges on understanding the software's functionality and how well it meets specific use cases. Through personal trials and extensive research, I've identified a set of criteria crucial for evaluating these solutions. Here's what I look for in my research:

Core Functionality: 25% of total weighting score

To be considered for inclusion on my list of the best time and attendance software, the solution had to support common use cases. These include:

  • Real-time attendance tracking
  • Leave and absence management
  • Schedule management
  • Overtime monitoring
  • Automated timesheet generation

Additional Standout Features: 25% of total weighting score

  • Mobile access with geofencing capabilities
  • Integration with payroll and HR systems
  • Biometric integration for secure authentication
  • Customizable alerts and notifications for management and employees
  • Audit trails and comprehensive reporting for compliance and insights

Usability: 10% of total weighting score

  • Intuitive interfaces, such as drag-and-drop scheduling calendars
  • Clear, understandable dashboard and reporting features
  • Mobile app design that complements the desktop experience
  • Simplified clock-in and clock-out processes for employees

Onboarding: 10% of total weighting score

  • Comprehensive training materials, such as videos and guides
  • Interactive product tours and chatbots for immediate assistance
  • Webinars and community forums for deeper learning
  • Template and preset configurations for fast setup

Customer Support: 10% of total weighting score

  • Availability of 24/7 support through multiple channels
  • Promptness and effectiveness of response to inquiries
  • Access to a knowledge base for self-service troubleshooting
  • Dedicated account management for personalized assistance

Value For Money: 10% of total weighting score

  • Transparent pricing models without hidden fees
  • Scalability of plans to fit different business sizes
  • Free trials or demos to assess the software before purchase
  • Return on investment through efficiency gains and compliance benefits

Customer Reviews: 10% of total weighting score

  • Overall satisfaction with functionality and performance
  • User experiences with software reliability and uptime
  • Feedback on the effectiveness of customer support
  • Reviews on ease of use and implementation success

This criteria framework guides my selection process, ensuring that the time and attendance software on my list not only meet a business's basic needs but also provide additional value. The aim is to equip your company with the tools you need to efficiently manage your workforce.

The landscape of time and attendance software in 2024 is shaped by innovations designed to address key organizational needs. Recent product updates, press releases, and release logs from leading tools reveal several noteworthy trends that reflect the evolving priorities and challenges of HR professionals. Here are the trends I'm noticing in this space:

Trends in Time and Attendance Software

  • Enhanced Compliance Features: Software updates have heavily focused on features that ensure compliance with evolving labor laws across different jurisdictions—particularly when catering to global businesses. This includes automated tracking of work hours, rest breaks, and overtime in line with specific legal requirements, reducing the risk of non-compliance penalties.
  • Mobile Access and Geofencing: The functionality for mobile access, including clock-in/out capabilities and geofencing, has seen rapid evolution. This trend reflects the growing need for flexibility and the ability to manage remote or field workers effectively, ensuring accurate time tracking regardless of location.
  • Biometric Authentication: The use of biometric data for clocking in and out has become more common, offering a secure and fraud-resistant method of verifying employee attendance. This technology is particularly novel in its ability to prevent buddy punching and time theft.

Most Important and In-Demand Features, and Features Becoming Less Important

  • Real-Time Attendance Tracking: The demand for real-time attendance tracking capabilities highlights the need for immediate visibility into workforce presence and availability, crucial for dynamic scheduling and immediate decision-making.
  • Traditional Punch Clocks: The reliance on traditional punch clocks and manual timesheet entries is diminishing. The shift towards digital and mobile solutions indicates a move away from these outdated methods, driven by the demand for more accurate and efficient time tracking systems.

The evolution of time and attendance software in 2024 underscores a broader shift towards technology-driven solutions that cater to the complex, changing needs of modern workplaces. By harnessing these innovations, HR professionals can better navigate the challenges of managing a diverse and dynamic workforce, ensuring compliance, efficiency, and strategic workforce management.

What is Time and Attendance Software?

Time and attendance software is a digital tool designed for tracking and managing employee work hours and attendance. It automates the process of recording when employees start and end their workdays, manages leave and absences, and calculates overtime and holidays.

The purpose is to integrate with payroll systems, ensuring accurate and efficient payroll processing. It helps businesses maintain compliance with labor laws, reduces manual record-keeping errors, and provides valuable insights into workforce productivity and labor costs.

Features of Time and Attendance Software

When selecting software, it's important to consider features that cater to your unique business needs. Below are the most significant features I look for in time and attendance software:

  1. Real-time Attendance Tracking: This feature allows for the immediate capture of employee clock-ins and clock-outs. It's essential for maintaining accurate work records, thereby ensuring compliance with labor regulations and reducing the chance of errors in payroll processing.
  2. Mobile Access and Geofencing: Enables employees to record attendance via mobile devices and restricts clock-ins to designated locations. This flexibility supports remote or field workers while controlling where and when employees can register their work hours, aiding in adherence to work policies and schedules.
  3. Biometric Integration: Utilizes biometric data for attendance verification, such as fingerprints or facial recognition. This method minimizes time theft and buddy punching, ensuring a more accurate and secure record of employee work hours.
  4. Automated Timesheet Generation: Automatically compiles timesheets based on recorded work hours. It streamlines payroll processing, reduces manual data entry errors, and helps in upholding labor law compliance by providing transparent, accurate work records.
  5. Leave and Absence Management: Manages leave requests and tracks employee absences within the same platform. This feature simplifies leave administration, supports compliance with leave policies, and offers insights into patterns that could affect productivity.
  6. Schedule Management: Enables the creation and distribution of employee schedules. Effective schedule management aids in aligning workforce allocation with operational needs, ensuring labor cost efficiency and compliance with working hours regulations.
  7. Overtime Monitoring: Tracks and manages overtime hours worked by employees. This is critical for complying with overtime pay regulations, controlling labor costs, and preventing employee burnout by monitoring excessive work hours.
  8. Audit Trails and Reporting: Provides detailed logs of all system activities and comprehensive reporting capabilities. Audit trails are vital for legal compliance and dispute resolution, while reports offer valuable insights into operational efficiency and labor cost management.
  9. Integration Capabilities: Seamlessly integrates with payroll and HR systems. This ensures that time and attendance data accurately flows into payroll processing and HR management, reducing administrative burdens and enhancing data consistency.
  10. Customizable Alerts and Notifications: Sends automated alerts for anomalies such as missed clock-ins or scheduling conflicts. Alerts help in promptly addressing issues that could lead to compliance risks or payroll errors, thereby enhancing operational efficiency.

Selecting a time and attendance software with the right combination of these features can significantly impact your organization's ability to manage its workforce efficiently. The goal is to choose a system that is not only comprehensive and compliant but also adaptable to the evolving needs of your business and its workforce.

Benefits of Time and Attendance Software

Time and attendance software offers a multitude of benefits that streamline operations, enhance compliance, and improve overall productivity. These systems reduce manual errors and provide real-time insights into employee work patterns. Here are five primary benefits that such software brings to users and organizations:

  1. Increased Accuracy in Payroll Processing: By automating the time tracking process, time and attendance software significantly reduces the likelihood of errors in payroll, ensuring employees are paid accurately for their hours worked. This precision benefits the business by minimizing overpayments and disputes related to payroll.
  2. Improved Regulatory Compliance: The software helps organizations adhere to labor laws and regulations by automatically applying relevant rules regarding overtime, breaks, and leave. This capability protects businesses from potential fines and legal issues associated with non-compliance.
  3. Enhanced Workforce Productivity: With features like real-time attendance tracking and absence management, the software enables managers to quickly address staffing gaps and make informed decisions about labor allocation, thereby optimizing workforce productivity.
  4. Reduced Administrative Burden: Automating the collection, calculation, and reporting of work hours cuts down on the administrative tasks required of HR and payroll staff, freeing them to focus on more strategic initiatives within the organization.
  5. Valuable Insights into Labor Costs and Trends: Time and attendance software provides detailed reports and analytics on labor costs and employee work patterns, offering valuable insights that can inform business strategy and help manage budgets more effectively.

For potential buyers of time and attendance software, understanding these benefits is crucial. The right software not only facilitates smoother operations and compliance with labor laws but also equips management with the tools needed to analyze and optimize workforce productivity and cost-efficiency.

Costs & Pricing For Time and Attendance Software

Choosing the right time and attendance software can significantly impact your business operations, offering solutions for tracking employee hours, managing schedules, and ensuring compliance with labor laws. Understanding the various plan options and their pricing structures is crucial to selecting a system that meets your business needs while staying within budget.

Plan Comparison Table For Time and Attendance Software

Below is a table that outlines the pricing and plan structures commonly found in time and attendance software, designed to help you navigate your options.

Plan TypeAverage PriceCommon Features
Free$0Basic time tracking, limited reports, access for a small number of users
Basic$2-10 per user/monthTime tracking, basic scheduling, payroll integration, basic reporting
Professional$10-20 per user/monthAdvanced scheduling, leave management, mobile access, enhanced reporting
EnterpriseCustom pricingCustom integrations, advanced analytics, priority support, unlimited users

When evaluating time and attendance software, it's important to consider both the needs of your organization and your budget. While a free plan might suffice for very small businesses or those just starting, growing businesses will likely require the more advanced features offered in professional or enterprise plans.

People Also Ask

Here are the answers to some frequently asked questions about time and attendance software and how they work:

What are the benefits of using time and attendance tracking software?

The best time and attendance systems promise many benefits:

  • Automating the process of calculating working hour
  • Preventing human errors in the accounting process
  • Maintaining compliance with labor laws using proof of attendance
  • Saving time and money on lengthy paperwork
  • Keeping employees informed in real-time about shift changes
  • Tracking and managing time-off requests and approvals
  • Monitoring employee clock-ins and clock-outs to prevent thefts like buddy clocking
  • Gaining insights into project time and costs and optimize resources accordingly

Time tracking software offers many more benefits that enable your business to function productively and generate industry-best results.

What is geofencing?

Geofencing helps monitor remote workers’ login times, locations and devices. Geofencing utilizes GPS technology to monitor the whereabouts of your remote workers.

Geofencing derives its name from a “geofence,” or virtual border, around the chosen site. The geofencing feature mandates employees to clock-in while inside your company’s premises.

With geofencing, managers can save time otherwise wasted in verifying and fixing timesheet errors.

If you would like to optimize your remote workforce and equip them with the right technology, here are the different types of workforce management software and their key features.

What is buddy punching and how can you prevent it?

Buddy punching is a modern workplace hack that originated amongst construction workers first—where one employee punches in (or out) of the workplace on behalf of another.

To prevent a practice like buddy punching from proliferating in your workplace, you can implement a no-tolerance buddy punching policy and communicate the same to your entire workforce. It is also recommended that you discuss with your managers and team leaders to identify employee satisfaction issues and perform regular morale surveys.

You can use technologies like biometric readers, face recognition software, CCTVs, and GPS tracking combined with geofencing (for hybrid and remote workforces) to ensure accurate recording of hours worked and track time spent between multiple locations.

What should you do with an employee who misses work frequently?

When addressing employee absenteeism, you need to be clear and consistent while being considerate. You can try this four-step framework for dealing with an employee who misses work frequently:

  • Gather proof of their absence before confronting the specific employee. This can include examples of dates and times when they were absent.
  • Broach the issue and tell them that their absence has been noted. You could also follow it up by showing concern about their well-being. This can help lower their defenses and get you a real response.
  • Provide them space for a discussion. Try to unravel the root cause behind their absence.
  • Make accommodations where appropriate. This can include allowing them a flexible schedule, adjusting their compensation for rent allowance if they live far away, making adjustments based on any physical or mental health condition, and more.

Frequent employee absenteeism is a real problem in workforce management. If you find your employees slacking on the job, an employee improvement plan can help! By implementing this five-step employee improvement plan at your organization, you might be able to turn things around. Plus, it comes with a pre-designed template, too!

More Employee Management Software Reviews

Tracking and maintaining employee time and attendance is merely one aspect of efficient workforce management. Here are some more lists of related software types that can help you ensure employee productivity in your business: 

Final Thoughts

The right time and attendance tracking software is a great addition to your HR tech stack. Such software elevates your analysis of employee habits and productivity. Consequently, you can gain valuable insights and optimize for better outcomes. You'll motivate your employees to maximize their hourly productivity and reward them with accurate compensation. Lastly, such tools help reduce human errors, ensuring that shifts are aligned with your employees' time-offs.

Interested to know more about business software that can help improve your company’s HR processes? Subscribe to our People Managing People newsletter to get the latest updates and insights from experts in the HR industry delivered right to your inbox!

By Kim Behnke

Kim Behnke is an HR Tool Expert & Writer for People Managing People. She draws on her 9 years of human resources experience and her keen eye for systematic processes to support her analyses of the top HR tools on the market. She is passionate about maximizing efficiencies and streamlining workflows to ensure internal systems run smoothly. Kim's HR experience includes recruitment, onboarding, performance management, training and development, policy development and enforcement, and HR analytics. She also has degrees in psychology, writing, publishing, and technical communication, and recently completed a Certified Digital HR Specialist program through the Academy to Innovate HR. When away from her desk, she can usually be found outside tending to her ever-expanding garden.