Payroll errors cost companies an average of $291 per incident, factoring in both the direct cost of the overpayment and the indirect cost of correcting it. Some errors run much higher: failing to enter sick time costs an average of $705 per incident, the single most expensive error type in the survey. Labor tracking software helps prevent these errors before they happen, and it can improve productivity and revenue in the process.
The right approach depends on getting the software itself right. Here are three tips for choosing and using labor tracking software well, whatever industry you’re in.
1. Choose Software That Fits Your Industry
Start with how the software will actually integrate with your current systems and support your business goals. A long feature list matters less than genuine fit. Budget matters too: a solution with the features you actually need, that doesn’t require expensive dedicated hardware, tends to be easier to justify and easier to roll out.
Industry shapes what matters most. A construction company might prioritize job costing, tracking labor against specific projects to estimate costs accurately. Manufacturers often prioritize labor allocation, tracking hours against departments, production lines, or specific jobs to see where labor cost is actually going and to allocate it accurately for accounting and pricing. Other industries might weight overtime visibility more heavily. Look for software with the specific features that match how your business actually operates.
2. Prioritize Ease of Implementation and Use
Once you’ve settled on labor tracking software, test the integration thoroughly before rolling it out company-wide. Having an implementation team learn the system first, and then train others, tends to go more smoothly than a company-wide rollout on day one.
A platform that’s simple to use speeds up training and cuts down on the input errors a confusing interface tends to cause, errors that undercut one of the main reasons to implement the software in the first place: fewer payroll errors. Building in a period where employees can get familiar with the software, ask questions, and give feedback gives you a chance to catch and resolve issues before they become habits.
3. Turn the Data Into Decisions
Labor tracking software does more than capture hours accurately. Real-time reporting lets you track hours and monitor overtime as it happens rather than discovering it after the pay period closes.
This is especially useful for manufacturing labor tracking, where allocating labor cost accurately across departments or production runs directly affects how profitability gets calculated. Regardless of industry, the data these systems generate is only useful if someone’s actually looking at it and using it to make decisions.
Choosing Labor Tracking Software That Works for You
Effective labor tracking reduces costs while improving productivity and profits, and it pays off faster with software that’s straightforward to implement and use. TimeTrakGO’s web-based time clock software is built around exactly that. Try it free for 14 days to see how it fits your industry.
About the Author: Matt Davis
