Why Biometric Time Clock?

There are several Time Clocks for Time and Attendance software on the market. Regardless of the technology, any time clock combined with the right software should help you control your employees’ attendance, help you calculate total time each employee worked and accurately transfer this information into your Payroll software. In this blog, I do not want to highlight advantages of having an automated Time and Attendance Software, but simply explain the advantages of a Biometric Time Clock.

For any type of time clock, each employee must have a unique identifier that they use to punch in or out. The identifier can be simply an employee ID and a password or some kind of access card such old fashion punch card, or a more modern proximity card, bar code or magnetic strip. Another way to identify an employee is through biometric identification. There are several biometric solutions available on the market including: fingerprint, finger vein, hand geometry, palm vein and iris recognition. The two more popular biometric solutions are fingerprint readers and hand readers (i.e. HandPunch). There are two main reasons why a company would consider a biometric time clock for their employee attendance control: to eliminate “Buddy Punching” and to lower cost by eliminating cards.

“Buddy Punching” is a term used when one employee punches in or out instead of another employee. This is very easy when company uses a non-biometric time clock: employees can tell each other their employee number and a password or pass on the punch card so that someone else can punch in or out for them. This would not be possible with biometric time clock, because each person has a unique fingerprint and hand geometry and no one can clock-in in their place: this person must be physically present in front of the clock to register.

When you are using finger or hand to register, the company does not require buying any cards to give to their employees. Old fashion punch cards have to be replaced every week, newer cards can be reused, but they can get lost or damaged and it will cost company money and time to recreate them.