Stay ahead of shortages and supply chain disruptions and replace your paper time cards with a digital time tracking app.
Shortages have become common over the last two years. First, it was toilet paper, then hand sanitizer, disinfectant and shipping delays of basically everything. But as we continue to crawl out of the pandemic, shortages are still affecting our daily lives. Publishers Weekly stated that paper shortages will continue throughout 2022 and possibly beyond. Like many other goods, the pandemic completely shifted demand for paper and labor shortages couldn’t keep up. People were stuck and home and ordered more books while workers subsequently left in-person manufacturing jobs in droves. The paper shortage will affect any company that relies on paper processes, like time tracking. Printed goods, like time sheets and time cards, could be difficult to get when you need them.
The solution is to use digital time cards to reduce paper reliance.
Why You Need to Replace Paper Time Cards
Paper is Costly
Not only can you not rely on your paper time cards to be available when you need them, but paper itself is costly. Companies that use paper time cards need to maintain a constant supply of paper, ink and even filing equipment (folders, dividers, cabinets, etc.). The individual cost of time cards often seems insignificant, but it can quickly add up over time, especially for construction companies with many workers on multiple sites. Add to that time and travel costs associated with distributing and collecting paper time cards, gas prices are at record highs, and the extra expenses required to use paper can skyrocket. Add up all of these costs for yourself and see just how much paper time cards are costing you. Or, even easier, use our payroll savings calculator instead. You’ll find the cost of using paper time cards is high and digital time cards reduce your paper reliance.
Paper Processes are Prone to Error
There is a greater risk of error when time tracking is done manually, especially if you have a large number of employees or data to process. Paper time tracking processes rely on a worker or supervisor to fill in a time card. They may add a few minutes here and there. They may be fudging their time intentionally or just not remembering exactly when they clocked in or clocked out. A few minutes here and there add up to hours your company pays for but gets no value from. Once workers record their time on a paper time card, the office staff has to input the information into a payroll system. Not everyone’s penmanship is stellar. It is up to your office staff to decipher the numbers and if it’s the last time card of the week, a tired employee can easily transpose two numbers. And those errors could prevent your workers from getting paid for all the time they worked, which could put you at risk of a lawsuit. Fines can rack up to hundreds of thousands of dollars for violating FLSA overtime laws.
Manual Time Tracking is Inefficient
According to the 2021 Construction Business Report, 32% of construction companies say manual processes are where their businesses experience the most inefficiencies. It makes sense considering how long the time tracking process takes for construction companies that use paper time cards. No matter how fast your staff is, they could never input data faster than software. Consider how many steps your staff has to take to do the job manually. They have to collect the actual time cards and manually transfer information from paper into a payroll system, entering the same data a second time. In addition, your staff has to spend time sorting through paper files to complete compliance reporting, like certified payroll reporting required by the Davis-Bacon Act. When you’re dedicating tons of time to inefficient processes, other areas of the business are being neglected.
Get ahead of paper shortages and replace paper time cards with the ExakTime mobile app. You’ll be also to reduce your construction company’s reliance on paper while making the entire process more efficient and secure.