Lately, we have been thinking about how much work some payroll people have to do which could or should be handled by their payroll system.
One of the key areas which tend to be managed manually outside the payroll is employee attendance and daily pay records. In many cases, the payroll is not set up to track this key core data so no records or manual records like timesheets are kept.
Unfortunately, many employers believe the scant records they have in their payroll system are enough only to find that when they have to provide information to a union or labour inspector their records are sorely lacking.
Keeping accurate Time and Attendance records, which are easily accessible is a requirement of The Employment Relations and Holidays Acts. require employers to maintain wage, time, holiday and leave records for their employees*
Employee records must be made available to employees, their unions and Labour Inspectors if they ask for them. They can be kept in electronic or paper files and must be kept for six years.
At the end of this post we will set out all the records an employer is required to keep, but as our focus is on how an electronic Time and Attendance system can help you meet this obligation we will cover those key areas here.
Many employers assume it is ok to record that the employee has worked a total of X hours in the pay period and in fact most payroll systems are designed this way. Very few track actual dates and hours worked.
So what are the requirements:
Among other things Wages and time records must include:
The hours worked each day, including start time, finish time and any non-paid breaks taken, and days of employment in each pay period.
While this could be covered by the use of a paper timesheet these records would be very hard to access quickly if required, whereas using a system such a TimeHub the data and the full history of the time records is easily accessed and reported on.
There is also the obvious advantage that systems like TimeHub are rules based so all the calculations are performed for you and the data is electronically transferred to your payroll which improves accuracy.
Holiday and leave records must include:
The dates any annual holiday, sick or bereavement leave was taken
Once again it is not ok to simply track the fact that an employee has taken X hours or days leave in a pay period as your payroll system would dictate. There must be a record of the actual date and amount of time taken.
The key advantage of using an electronic Time and Attendance system in relation to these recordkeeping requirements is that records are automatically kept as a by-product of managing and paying your staff.
Click here to download our guide_to_keeping_accurate_employee_records
To find our more about TimeHub can help you meet your obligations to keep accurate Daily records simply email sales@timehub.co.nz and we will send you some further information.
