Whether you use a manual time clock, spreadsheets, online software, or digital time clocks, the most important element of tracking time is accuracy. You are, after all, responsible for correctly paying employees for hours worked, thereby directly affecting someone's ability to take care of his or he family. Additionally, you want to ensure the process is reasonably efficient for whoever calculates the time worked for your business.

How long does it take you or your managers to calculate timecards?

It takes 5:16 or 5.27 minutes to calculate a timecard manually

Additionally, here are five things you should know

Why Study Manual Timecard Calculations?

While discussing our competition, it occurred to us that we have a lot of customers using manual punch clocks, and we really know next to nothing about them. A couple of our employees had used punch clocks years ago in previous jobs, but when it came down to their functionality, accuracy, accountability, and ability to prevent time theft, we couldn't speak on it. So, the idea was born to buy one, stick it on the wall, and get to punching!

Our Manual Time Clock Study Goals:

1. Understand the time it takes for someone to manually calculate timecards;
2. To understand the pain points, accuracy, and function.
3. To embark on an unboxing and discover how to set up a manual time clock. Then, learn how that process compares to online clocks;
4. Assist our team in truly understanding our competition; and
5. Use this as a benchmark or template to study other time tracking methods.

The Steps We Took

Getting Setup

Two people began setting up our "Green Machine" manual punch clock at 8:30 a.m. We made the following observations throughout the process.

Punching

We tested the Green Machine in two waves. First, we had seven employees simulate one week of punches within approximately two hours. Next, we had four employees punch in over the course of one week for roughly the same in, out, and lunch breaks. We each got one timecard and would punch in as we arrived, punch out for lunch, punch back in after lunch, and then punch out for the day. One employee moved the hands on the clock ahead to various times after everyone punched in the first wave for each shift to simulate the one week duration, simulating the potential challenge of reading and converting different times. The second group of testers punched on separate days, letting the clock naturally keep time.

Information Weaned from the Green Machine

The Noise

As we plugged the unit in, it made a loud, obnoxious click at every minute. Employees in the area elected to shut their doors to block out the noise.

Changing the Time

You must unplug the machine to set the time, which can only be done in five-minute increments. We must have the purchased the upgraded version, as the older option required a user to the unit in and wait for the proper time to arrive, per the instructions.

Setting a.m. and p.m.

You can determine afternoon (p.m.) hours by watching for an underscore under the punch time.

Day of the Month

We found the lever to change the date after we started punching as it wasn’t in the location that is noted on the sticker instructions. The only way to see the date that is set is by looking at a punch; there is no display.

Setting up Employees

We added employee names to each of the 11 timecards. Each week, employees would be required to complete a new timecard, or else no one would be able to assign ownership of each timecard.

Ready to Punch

It took us 14 minutes to set the Green Machine up -- from the time we plugged it in until we were ready to try punching. Unboxing added just a few minutes, so, in total, we were ready to go in under 20 minutes.

Inventory Needs

Someone has to stay on top of timecard inventory and ink so that you don’t end up with weeks worth of punchless cards.

Calculating Hours on Manual Timecards

1. We distributed the 11 timecards to five employees and asked them to total the hours for each employee. Two employees calculated three timecards to get the experience.
2. Of the seven employees, each had a different approach. It's worth noting one employee is a former business owner who used to do this regularly.
3. They reported their notes, and their overall feedback is in the insight section.

Limitations to Our Study

Number of Timecards

There were 11 timecards or 11 employees in the study for one week. This represents a typical small business in size, but it is a relatively short timeframe.

Length of Time

We simulated a week, and therefore, that may have helped avoid errors in punching, although there were still some timecard edits to be made.

We Are Not Payroll Employees By Trade

Over time, we expect the conversion of times will speed up significantly as we work a typical schedule, and so, eventually, we'd expect employees to know the conversions by heart.

The Number of Shifts

Multiple shifts would add a layer of complexity we did not have.

Controlled Environment

We were in a controlled environment. If people were rushing to punch simultaneously, we conclude punch times would be less neat and more of a challenge to decipher.

Potential Bias

We are employees of a time tracking business and do not regularly run payroll ourselves. We attempted this experiment as though we were payroll managers who do not work at a time tracking company.

Insights from Our Study

Chris stated he would “...Be very concerned about the accuracy of my pay. To the point where calculating by hand only almost seems like it would be against the law.”

Tim stated, “I would pull my hair out if I had to do this every week. It's very time-consuming, and I see why many opt to round up hours to make it easier to calculate. Also, I can see why so many errors are made from the confusion when a punch is not clearly in one day or the other, but on the line of the day separator. Not a fan…This would be a full-time job for a company with a good amount of employees. Very prone to errors and mistakes.”

Jon mentioned, “The readability and clarity of the punches was my biggest issue. The timecard punches had ink smears and in some cases the punches were mixed up. I would hate to take up the job of manually calculating an entire workforce because I’m sure there would be errors in someone's pay. Once I got through the first timecard, I kinda got the hang of it, but I couldn’t see myself doing this with any efficiency.

Dean noted that “This was slow, tedious, and error-prone due to the poor text alignment and overlapping time stamps. I’m not comfortable with using this method, as I had to guess on some, nor am I comfortable or confident that this is an accurate way to track time.

Brynn noted, “I have my doubts that I calculated the employee's timecards correctly simply because of the fact that I had a hard time telling numbers apart from one another because of the excess ink. Aside from the fact that poor judgment calls can be made when trying to calculate them, it was very time-consuming.”

My feedback is, “I noticed I had errors when comparing my times to the online time clock's punches, and it took 20 minutes to go through each error to determine what had happened, turning the process into hours.”

Five Things We Learned

1. The time it takes to calculate the total time worked

We asked seven of our team members to time themselves while they totaled the timecards. We ended up with 39 totals, averaging 5:16 or 5.27 minutes each. We removed the first timecard calculated by each member from these figures to get to 39 to simulate a more realistic scenario to be familiar with the process as a manager would be working with timecards. 

Think about this. If you had 20 timecards to total each week, that would take 105.3 minutes, or nearly 2 hours just to complete that task. This is in addition to having to go back and ask someone what a punch time should be because it was left blank or smudged.

2. Error rates are high

To verify the accuracy of each punch, we mirrored each punch on OnTheClock. We went one step further and chose a competitor to also enter timecards into as "double verification." Comparing our manual totals to the online time clock totals, our error rates were in the 75% range, meaning often, just 25% of the times we calculated were accurate. The primary issue was in converting the timecards using the conversion chart provided by the Green Machine. The most common offenders were those that were .01 to .02 off; however, there were several instances where our calculations were several minutes off because of errors in handwriting or entry mistakes as employees converted the values and entered them into a spreadsheet. Higher accuracy was shown in using a free online tool to enter times. According to the Workforce Institute, there are 82 million Americans who dealt with inaccuracies in time and pay at some point.

3. There are a variety of methods and assumptions made in calculations

As mentioned, each person took a different approach to total the timecards. Some went right to a spreadsheet, some went to free tools online to plug numbers into, and some used the conversion chart and did it on paper. No manual method provided 100% accuracy when compared to online systems. That speaks volumes for the benefit of an employee being able to punch in and out and have no room for error or interpretation.

4. Tools provided by the manufacturer were ineffective

The time clock we used came with a conversion chart. Being completely transparent, I did the conversions incorrectly upon first using it. There were no instructions included. The other major issue is that the decimals are rounded to two places. Testing this repeatedly, you must have three decimal places to get an exact time conversion. Otherwise, we found you end up with roughly .01 to .02 off in total hours. It may not seem like a lot, but every minute counts. And, when errors are committed, employees may begin to question your integrity. 

See the chart for a sample two-week timecard rounded to two digits first, then totaled, and then rounded to three digits before totaling. This example is .01 off.

5. The legibility of times and dates is poor

The ink smeared on some timecards, and some of the numbers appeared indistinguishable (the one and seven, in particular) at times. This leads the manager to one of two options. He or she either tracks down the employee and asks, but how likely are employees to remember if it’s days later, or they have to make their best guess as to what it should be. Again, you may be building wedges with employees by making assumptions about the times they worked.

In summary, we wanted to gain a better understanding of our manual time clock competitors and how long it takes to manually calculate timecards. We found it takes 5.27 minutes each, there are inaccuracies, and too much time is spent on figuring out totals and what the errors were. Frankly, we found this to be a miserable experience for the manager doing the calculations and the employees who may lose confidence in their employers. According to HRDive.com, just two payroll errors can trigger 49% of employees to begin looking for a new job.

If you want to try a modern time tracking system, sign up for a free 30-day trial of OnTheClock and see the difference in how accurate your timecards will be and how much time you will save.