Employee attendance tracking is a mission critical function of automating payroll and optimizing workforce management systems. It makes sense that your potential customers have questions about how an attendance tracker can impact and optimize their daily workflow. And as a reseller, you should be prepared to answer these questions.
Reflecting on how to best answer customer inquiries about employee attendance trackers may naturally inspire questions of your own to ask a vendor. We’ve assembled common questions below that cover all bases- how to both prepare for interviewing a time clock vendor, as well as being interviewed by your customer!
Questions Resellers Should Ask a Time Clock Vendor
Offering time clocks to your customers can be – and should be – a high value addition to your business model. It will come down to selecting the right time clock vendor as a partner, and making sure they check all of the boxes below.
#1) I Want to integrate with my back-end system but I don’t have Time Collection Software – Do you offer a solution?
This is a great question if you are aiming for a quicker go-to-market timeline. Sometimes resellers want to build their own time collection software to capture employee punches on the clock and send the punch data back to the back-end system, but if a time clock vendor offers time collection software, then you can be confident they are not only experts in the field, but also have their partners best business interests in mind.
Contact ATS
At ATS, we built our time collection software, TimeCollect, specifically for partners that don’t want to divert resources to building and maintaining time collection software.
TimeCollect provides the most popular time and attendance data collection functionality out of the box. It’s also highly flexible. You can configure it to meet the different reader and punch types individual customers may need.
We’ve kept each partner and customer in mind by providing options for both Android-based time clocks, as well as Linux.
#2) I don’t have the space or the resources to handle time clocks. Can you build and ship directly to my customers?
Expanding your offerings to include hardware doesn’t have to require a big investment of resources. If a time clock vendor is full-service, meaning they offer time clock provisioning, they can cut your expenses and go-to-market timeline in half.
ATS can handle all aspects of provisioning time clocks for our partners and their customers. Our partners never have to touch a time clock. They leave the storing, configuration, and shipping to the ATS team.
#3) Is the integration with our back-end system complicated?
You want a time clock vendor who can answer this with a “no.” The time clock vendor should have a clear, well-documented process for integrating their time clocks into your attendance solution system. Get a document from the vendor that gives an overview of the integration process, including timelines and milestones.
You also want to see the intake form they would use to assess your attendance tracking needs. It’s a critical piece of the process for specifying how to configure the time clocks to align with your customer’s workforce management needs.
#4) Do you offer a cloud-based solution?
Partnering with a time clock vendor that provides a cloud-based solution is imperative if you are an innovative company that wants to offer a full-service solution, hosted by ATS. AccuCloud has three main components:
- ATS time clocks
- Middleware that handles the two-way data communication between the time clocks and your solution
- A web-based portal that gives your team direct visibility into the time clocks and data flow status at each customer deployment
We create a new cloud-based middleware instance for each of your customers, enabling you to scale quickly and manage your customer-base with AccuCloud. Our cloud-based solution gives your team new tools that improve:
- oversight into your customers’ time clock integrations with your solution
- the speed and quality of the customer service you can provide
The AccuCloud solution is for companies that want to offer a sophisticated solution with multiple potential revenue streams, and to start offering it quickly. If you want to see AccuCloud in action – request a demo here.
#5) Can I buy the hardware by itself?
A time clock vendor should be flexible to meet your needs. If you already offer time tracking and attendance data collection software, as well as communication middleware, you don’t need to buy it from a time clock vendor.
Buying the hardware alone gives you the flexibility to build everything from scratch. We give you the Hardware and the SDKs to get you started and on the path to success. Remember, that If you do not have a time collection software you can get that from us and all you will have to build is the integration between the time clock software and your middleware and back-end system. The diverse line of ATS time clocks run on two operating systems, including Android. The Android-based stride80 time clock comes with a fully developed SDK tool kit, allowing you to easily integrate any Android-based application you develop for the stride80 time clock with your employee attendance system.
#6) Where are the time clocks manufactured?
A time clock’s durability and longevity is largely a function of its materials and manufacturing process. ATS time clocks are all designed and manufactured and supported at our headquarters in the United States to ensure the highest quality materials and construction.
#7) Are your products scalable?
The right time clock vendor will be able to scale with you as your business grows.
At ATS, we stay ahead of industry needs, while our solutions continuously evolve to reflect new tech advances, allowing our partners to innovate their own offerings. We built a provisioning model to seamlessly support our partners in scaling their business.
We’ve figured out the logistics, so you can focus on selling your software.
End-User Frequently Asked Questions
If you are new to selling time clocks, preparing for initial conversations with your customers or prospects about your upgraded offering is key. Below are common questions you are bound to come across during sales calls, or in meetings with your current customers, as well as the answers to help guide you into becoming an expert.
#1) What type of employee data can time clocks track?
Customers want to know how a time and attendance solution can improve their day-to-day operations.
Time clocks track employee attendance while they’re at work, but they can also help a company track employee personal time. The more sophisticated time clocks, like the stride80, can help staff and employees alike by allowing them access to Employee Self-Service functionality when that functionality is built into the Workforce Management Software.
Time clocks also track employee meals and break time. Tracking this personal time is vital to ensuring that employees are taking their needed breaks and showing that the business is complying with labor laws regarding meals and breaks.
As a Workforce Management Software Vendor, you can build time clock applications that allow employees to request vacation, sick leave or other type of personal time. The time clock can become an employee self-service kiosk. Employees could even check how many personal days they have available.
#2) How can time clocks support HR management?
The department in charge of choosing a time clock solution may vary. It’s helpful to know how your solution can positively impact all arms of a company- especially HR.
Because time clocks collect detailed information about employee attendance, they support HR management in several ways. They create real time, detailed records that HR staff can use to:
- Get an overview of employees showing patterns of tardiness, unapproved absence, or other attendance-related issues. Time clock attendance reports help HR manage employees who need help with their schedule adherence.
- Document, in real time, attestations from employees that HR can use to show compliance with labor laws regarding hours worked and personal time taken, and workplace safety. For example, the time clock can collect:
- A daily attestation when employees clock out that confirms there were no workplace accidents that day.
- An attestation when an employee clocks in early from a break, attesting that the employee confirms a manager has not called them back early and that they understand they won’t be paid for the remaining break time.
- Reduce the risk of time theft through precise capture of employees’ actual attendance times. Time clocks with biometric readers also eliminate the possibility of buddy punching, which prevents employees from clocking in or out for other employees.
#3) Do time clocks get software updates?
Customers need to know that support and updates for the time clock won’t interfere with their automated collection of employee attendance data. They don’t want the hassles of a manual work-around because time clocks are offline for updates or service. Software updates to the time clock should be seamless and communicated to your customers.
One benefit of working with a vendor like ATS is that our time clocks can track employee time and store the punches when the clock loses network connectivity. The employee attendance data stored on the time clock gets sent once connectivity is restored with the network. There are no payroll data discrepancies to resolve because the time tracking remained automated.
#4) What‘s included in the cost of a time and attendance tracker?
The costs associated with the time and attendance trackers you offer customers can include upfront and ongoing costs, and they should be discussed before your customer selects the attendance tracker they want.
As a resell partner, you could structure your time tracking packages, including time clocks, differently. Some sell the time clocks to the customer, while others lease them. The leasing fees may be part of the monthly subscription, or billed separately as a subscription services add-on package.
However you decide to package billing for a time clock and its related services, clearly lay out all the options to prospects before they become customers.
#5) How can time clocks support employee attendance?
For prospects and customers that aren’t sure about the value of automating their time and attendance data collection with a time clock, here are some time clock benefits that have universal appeal.
Time clocks can be helpful partners in the efforts to increase employee compliance with your customers’ attendance policies.
Automated time tracking of employee attendance improves reward and enforcement opportunities.
Time clocks that track employee attendance data provide the data which management and HR can use to identify potential attendance issues before they erupt into large-scale problems. Regular reports that provide an overview of individual employee behavior can automatically highlight those with a recurring issue: a sudden uptick in tardies or early punch outs, or the occurrence of an unscheduled absence. Proactively reviewing the employee attendance data is a potent tool to getting employees back on track.
The time clock attendance data can also find those employees who deserve reward and recognition for their attendance record.
Time clocks can make it easy for employees to comply with vacation and sick leave policies.
Attendance policies generally have timelines employees must follow when submitting a vacation request or request to have unscheduled days off considered as sick leave. The easier a business makes it for employees to submit the requests, the greater compliance with the policy. Employees interact with the time clock at least twice a day, often more when they’re also used for tracking meals and breaks. Each time clock visit is an opportunity for the employee to submit any personal time requests needed. Much easier than forcing the employee to take productive time away from work to follow a manual process.
The time clock is another communication channel to inform employees about attendance policies.
Maybe a policy has changed. Maybe the business wants to emphasize an existing policy. Either way, time clocks can display customized messages to communicate employee policies.
#6) How long does it take for an employee to be set up in the system?
This question is a great opportunity to paint a picture of how your solution can streamline your customer’s onboarding process. Setting up new employees for attendance tracking is fast and easy. The integration process that shares employee data between the time clocks and your solution gets validated during the initial deployment. When a new employee comes on-board or switches departments, their attendance tracking data will automatically flow down to the time clock through the established integration process.
Communication and customer support are key at ATS, and foundational as to why we’ve been in business for over 30 years. Your customers’ satisfaction means as much to us as our relationship to you.
Whether you are interested in hardware or a full time collection solution such as AccuCloud, ATS can work with you to achieve your business goals.
Reach out to us and schedule a time to connect to a time clock expert.