Time & Attendance
Time & Attendance System Costs
No doubt about it, time & attendance system software can save money for your company. But to maximize your ROI, you need to know how vendors and dealers price their products and how your company can shave dollars off the total cost of their products.
Faced with the prospect of continuing to record their workers' hours with paper logs and time cards, many employers are more than happy to pony up the cash for an automated time and attendance system.
But what many employers don't realize is that an updated time and attendance system can actually be a smart business investment.
Make no mistake about it: A quality time & tracking solution will offload untold hours of hassle and headaches from your HR department. But studies indicate that companies who transition to a time and attendance software solution also receive an immediate savings of up to 4% of their annual payroll expense.
Yet despite the cost benefits associated with small business time tracking software, it pays to understand the market and typical vendor pricing. If you pay too much upfront, you could negate potential savings and cost efficiencies.
Pricing Plans
Although there are multiple variables and factors involved in time and attendance system pricing, small companies usually pay less than $1,000 for a basic solution with scheduling functions and payroll service integration capabilities. However, the prices quickly escalate with added employees/administrators and data collection devices. Prices for middle market solutions start at $10,000 while companies with thousands of employees can expect to pay $100,000 or more.
Cost Factors
The cost of your specific time and attendance solution will be based on a handful of common sense factors. Pricing increases with each new function the system is capable of delivering. Specialized features and modules (e.g. industry-specific modules) also come at a premium.
Although cost is affected by the size of your staff and the number of devices you require, the advantage is that you can expand the system as you add staff. Magnetic stripe, barcode and proximity card devices are the most affordable identifier options. Not surprisingly, identifiers that use biometric or RFID technology are often priced out of reach for the average small business owner.
Finally, you will encounter vendors who offer web-based features. If you purchase these solutions you can avoid the cost of upfront server licenses. Instead, pricing will be based on a monthly fee.
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