Craven Community College

Craven Community College saves a week of productivity each month with automated time tracking software

CHALLENGE

With 20+ varieties of employee classifications—including full-time faculty, part-time adjunct faculty, student work study employees, and both full-time and part-time staff—the process for collecting, reviewing, and approving time for Craven Community College’s approximately 565 employees has always been complex. Prior to 2014, Craven Community College was relying on paper timesheets which was becoming too time-consuming for employees tracking their hours and the supervisors and administrators overseeing payroll processes.

Sabra Smith, Craven Community College’s Payroll and Benefits Specialist, recalls that, “Across the college, every department had challenges with paper timesheets. Not only was it incredibly time consuming to track down employees whose timesheets were missing, but paper timesheets were also more likely to contain mistakes due to employees rounding their hours incorrectly.”

Beyond containing a higher rate of inaccuracies, this manual method of time tracking also became a massive time trap as it required having to try and interpret difficult-to-read handwriting, checking calculations, and fixing rounding issues.

“Prior to using TimeClock Plus, I was spending at least a week and a half each month just going through timesheets and correcting mistakes. That is now time that I have back to use towards more strategic projects.”Sabra Smith, Payroll and Benefits Specialist

AUTOMATED TIME TRACKING FOR DRAMATIC TIME SAVINGS

Using software to automate timesheets has resulted in significant productivity and efficiency gains across Craven Community College’s workforce.

With TimeClock Plus, Sabra Smith is now able to close out payroll within hours on a weekly basis. A process that used to consume 25-30% of her monthly workload is now reduced to a task she can complete in a single afternoon each week.

INCREASED PRODUCTIVITY AND EFFICIENCIES

Craven Community College has seen this shift away from paper timesheets also impact the productivity of its employees and managers. Using the TimeClock Plus software and mobile app, the college was able to transition to weekly timesheets instead of monthly.

This shift makes it much easier for employees to track their hours and submit timesheets on a weekly basis. Accuracy is an added benefit of weekly timesheets as employees can better track their hours and recall their schedule compared to monthly timesheets.

Managers across all the college’s departments also report greater productivity as significantly less of their time is spent reconciling missing timesheets or working with employees to correct mistakes. TimeClock Plus has also eliminated inefficient work that required an employee across each of the 15+ different departments to compile a summary of timesheets each month—this process is now automated, freeing up employee time for more meaningful work.

“TimeClock Plus helped make the transition to digital timesheets as easy as possible for our administrators and employees.”

Once timesheets are submitted, Smith has configured a numbering system that categorizes employees based on their employment classification to streamline
her process of reviewing and approving timesheets. “Using the filtering capabilities in TimeClock Plus, I can easily filter by each employment classification category that I’ve created to review, for example, all full-time, non-exempt employee timecards at one time.”

“Moving to TimeClock Plus has made a huge difference in my workflow. The combination of using automated timesheets coupled with being able to review timesheets on a weekly basis has made my life much easier.”

DECREASING COMPLIANCE RISK, CONTROLLING LABOR COSTS

Moving to TimeClock Plus to standardize time and attendance processes has also allowed Craven Community College to proactively manage labor-related risk and better control labor costs.

Prior to TimeClock Plus, it was extremely difficult for Smith and colleagues in HR to track employee hours in accordance with the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA). ACA stipulates that employees who work at least 30 hours each week or 130 hours per month are entitled to earn benefits, meaning that time tracking is critical to ensure that part- time employees remain at 29 hours per week or less. However, when using paper timesheets, it was unsustainable to review hours and properly track exceptions in a timely manner.

“Using TimeClock Plus, myself and colleagues in HR can easily keep up with hour requirements for ACA benefits on a weekly basis. We even set up a Rules and Exceptions report that notifies us if employees are over on their hours. This was a job in and of itself when we were using paper timesheets.

”TimeClock Plus also eliminates other risk areas, including the ability to track conflicts and duplicate timesheets. The software flags instances where hours may have
been submitted inadvertently—or in some instances deceptively—and reduces the opportunity for error or overpayment. For instance, the college has several employees that work in multiple departments, and therefore have more than one timesheet. Previously, Smith had to review these individuals’ timesheets by hand and make sure there weren’t any inadvertent, or intentional, instances of them recording the same time worked on both timesheets. With TimeClock Plus, the software reviews and flags these exceptions for Smith notifying her if there are any timesheets that need her attention.

“Using TimeClock Plus allows me to work more efficiently than ever and save hours and hours of work each month.”