5 Trial-Free Employee Time Clock Apps for a Restaurant Startup

What is an Employee Time Clock App?

In the past two years of the pandemic, we have witnessed an overnight shift of workplaces being moved from offices to homes. The companies that were already equipped with human resource management solutions sailed through this transition. But companies that were reluctant to adopt technology had a tough time.

Today, 78% of restaurants run on software. These systems are automated and allow employees' time to be tracked anytime, anywhere through a time clock app. Employees are no longer required to be physically present to punch their time card, use a biometric, or facial recognition system to mark their presence for the day in the office.

Time tracking apps are equipped with features that can assess an employee's daily working routine. These apps are directly linked to a payroll software. The time clock app is a comprehensive tool for small businesses. It can cut down on their labor costs, increase productivity, achieve real-time tracking of employees' daily tasks, and monitor their activity through a GPS time tracker.

What are the Benefits of an Employee Time Clock App?

If managing employee schedules and maintaining their attendance has become a headache for your company, it's time to upgrade to a free time clock app that is compliant with your other employee management systems.

These are the benefits of a time clock app-

1. Improves communication at the workplace-
Miscommunication or poor communication between team members, or between an employer and an employee, is one of the biggest reasons for the high attrition rate in the restaurant, and other service industries. A user-friendly cloud basedtime tracker that can be accessed through mobile devices is a great way to manage tasks and know which employee has put in how many work hours. Shifts can be managed seamlessly, with alerts set up to avoid overtime. This saves on labor expenses.

2. Achieving accuracy with payroll integration-
The best time clock software automatically integrates with payroll systems and generates each employee's salary slips based on data they gather from time tracking apps.
The system becomes transparent as 'in' and 'out' punches are made on an employee's laptop, desktop, tablet, or mobile device, according to their shift timings. The chances of errors are minimal and managing each employee's work record happens in real-time, generating salary slips on time. This automation helps business owners and HR departments of small businesses focus on core business and growth plans.

3. GPS tracking and Geofencing-
This is a great feature for small businesses, particularly when employees are out on the field and cannot be physically present to mark their punches at the office. With GPS tracking and geofencing, you can set up a notional perimeter around the employee's area of work. If they stray outside the prescribed radius, their attendance time will not be registered. You can also use Performance Management and compare it with the work hours.

4. Better reinforcement of policies-
To achieve the return on investment you seek from your time management software, reinforce policies that structure employees scheduling and track their performances by building their key performance indicators (KPI). Time clock apps help track and report employee productivity, and by comparing reports, management can know which employee has put in how many hours and compare it with their work performance. This way the business can develop organized work culture, driven by growth and long-term goals.

5. Better surveillance and security-
Traditional time cards provide practically no way to ensure that employees don't put in more hours of shift time and register shorter lunch breaks. The company also runs a high risk of buddy punching, where an employee punches a time card for a colleague. This usually happens when an employee is running late for work. But such violations cannot happen with clock systems and biometric fingerprint punches.

6. Increased employee satisfaction and work ownership-
With a time tracker, employees face fewer attendance issues as the software is equipped with an employee self-service portal. This way employees can access information and become self-reliant, without having to go through the HR department. Employees are aware of the number of hours they have devoted to work, and manage their time-related activities with positivity. When you know your performance level, you try to achieve better productivity.

7. Legal Problems Avoided-
With employee attendance software, the chances of payroll errors reduce by 90%. This automatically reduces legal challenges to audits and labor laws. The free time clock app safeguards a company from legal wrangles by maintaining meticulous and accurate work time records of every employee.

8. Compliance-
To maintain workflow and grow the business, it is important for managers to manage their team's schedule. When an employee applies for leave or plans to leave early, the team leader automatically receives an alert. Prior intimation helps the leader reassign duties, so that team tasks are well managed. This is impossible to achieve on time cards.

One of the ways a new restaurant can control its expenses is by managing labor cost.

A free employee time clock app can do just that. This article rounds up the best apps in the business, so you can save time and money on payroll.

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How Does an Employee Time Clock App Work?

A time clock app does more than just enable employees to register their daily attendance and track employee hours of work. Time management software allows employers to assign duties within teams, schedule tasks, and send timely reminders to each member.

Time clock access is usually granted to employees working from their homes or on the field. It is a cost-effective way to track employee hours and work behavior. An employee can let teammates know if they are available at their workstation or are taking a break by choosing the appropriate status sign'Do not disturb', 'On a break', 'Be right back', and so on.

Project management software helps monitor the performance of each employee, but with the time clock's Common Scheduling feature, the task assigned is finished on time without compelling employees to put in overtime.

If your business faces challenges like inefficiency, high labor cost, no real-time data to fastrack payslips, and witnesses a high attrition rate, it's time to adopt a web-based online time clock app.

Top 5 Employee Time Clock Apps for Restaurants

1. ZipClock-
Zip Clock is a cloud-based software system that manages the time attendance of employees working for the restaurant service industry. The software focuses on reducing labor costs. It does this by simplifying attendance tracking through the easy use of their web-based mobile app. It is a common occurrence in the restaurant industry for an employee to do overtime. This can increase labor costs and the chances of labor law violations. ZipClock eliminates these concerns completely. It offers a free trial to allow prospective customers to test its features. ZipClock is available on Hub Works, a special App Store for restaurants. It is an a la carte office solution that allows customers to purchase individual apps that apply to their business.

2. Homebase-
Homebase is used by over 100,000 businesses across industries and is particularly useful to service-oriented businesses. It can track all tasks related to the employee life cycle in real time. Homebase offers free software packages for small businesses, helping them completely automate their workspace.

3. 7shifts-
7shifts is a pioneer in Time Management software, catering specifically to the foodservice industry. More than 300,000 restaurants have used the 7shifts Employee Time clock software. Its robust features improve team performance considerably by acing employee scheduling. The 7shifts software is completely free for businesses with fewer than 10 employees.

4. ClockInEasy-
ClockInEasy has a simple and easy user interface. Its superior GPS location tracker makes it perfect for employees who work remotely or are mobile. Attendance tracking is easy with this app too.

5. Quickbooks-
Quickbooks Time is an app that manages the time attendance of employees working on the field or from remote locations. Quickbooks caters to large businesses with a sizable number of employees.

Drawbacks of Free Time Clock Software

Time Management has helped companies improve work culture and keep track of employee hours in a way that isn't possible with time cards. But there's a downside to implementing clock app time software from the employee's point of view.

• An employee can feel overwhelmed with the daily expectation of punching in and out and may focus too much attention on it.
• Some employees may forget to punch in or out on a particular day. Owing to this, their entire workday is unregistered on the Time Clock software.
• Some employees may complete their tasks, but compromise on quality.

Getting employees to clock in and out is a challenge. You know that time clock software can help, but you don’t have the budget for it.

How about a free employee time tracking app? This article lines up the best free apps every cost-conscious restaurant should consider.

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Is it Safe to Use Time Clock Software?

Data protection is a concern many companies have when choosing cloud based software. However, it is absolutely safe to use time management software to clock employee attendance. Software companies take data infringement very seriously. Only after they are granted access by employers can certain portals be opened by employees with a password and login id. Employee management software is meant to curb problems and not create new ones.

Time Tracking Software FAQs

1. Why use time tracking software?

Time tracking software is meant to solve a businesses's day-to-day labor management issues. It helps the company craft better policies for employees and helps run the company in an organized way. It makes employee attendance more efficient, and tracking of their work more transparent. Operators can concentrate on scaling their business rather than solving internal matters related to employee pay-checks. Time management software can also delegate tasks better and improve communication within the team.

2. What is buddy punching and how to stop it?
Buddy punching is the practice where an employee requests a colleague to punch their time card for them, to prevent their late arrival or absence from being recorded. Workplaces equipped with a biometric system that requires an employee's fingerprint to mark attendance, do not face such problems. Similarly, time clock software gives each employee a different login id and password to enable them to punch in and out of the software from their devices.

Employee time clocks can help a business optimize its human resources and capital in no time.

But they come at a price. For restaurants that don’t want to spend on the tech, these free employee time clock apps are just the ticket.

Download now!