Question

How does a digital clocking system deal with user error such as someone forgetting to clock out or someone erroneously entering their code causing them to clock someone else in/out (who might not even be on the schedule that day). Its obvious there could be issues of dishonesty, but what about human error?

Answer 1

The better T&A (time & attendance) programs actually let this be configured in any of a number of ways. (Btw, typically the clocking software itself just marks down a “transaction” – this employee at that time did this thing – with no further processing, leaving that to the T&A system.)

• Have a “hard” clock out time – e.g. even if you forgot to clock out when you leave at 5, you’re automatically clocked out at 6.
• Rollover – leave the employee clocked in, even till tomorrow, and then just have extra clockin in the morning.
• Mark the workday as “incomplete”, and expect the employee to submit their actual times manually.
• Cancel the entire workday
• Dont clock the employee out automatically, but transfer him after a certain time to another, default charge code (where this is relevant).
• Run some other custom scripted action…

It’s important to note, that all of these results are “legitimate”, depending on the organization, contracts, etc.

Now, wrt to entering the wrong employee code – most often it’s based on an employee card (or even some form of biometric scanner), but when the employee is expected to manually type in their code, the console should display the employee’s name, for verification, and then a second “approve” button.
Also, to some extent this can be discovered automatically and flagged for manual followup, for instance in the case where night-shift employees are shown as clocking in the morning, or HQ personnel clocking at a remote branch office.