A clock card machine is a device which has remained relatively unchanged for over a hundred years. It is simply a device which stamps the current time and sometimes also the date on to a clock card. They exist in various forms providing differing stages of automation. The most advanced of which can automatically place the time stamp on a clock card in different positions to group the stamps according to different days of the week. The simplest ones will just place a time stamp consecutively down the clock card. These clockings are usually then manually calculated by the wage clerk in order to determine the number of hours and minutes that the employee needs to be remunerated for.
The biggest problem with these systems is the probability of human error affecting the results. It is not difficult to imagine that the tedious task of calculating hours from times stamped on a clock card can become quite boring. However it is not so simple to easily avoid mistakes. Just take for example the following:
Try working that out for each day of the week for each employee and one can quickly ascertain that this is a laborious exercise which quickly lends itself to a person taking short cuts and thereby increasing the possibility of errors.
Now lets put a value on those errors of say one percent. This is a fairly low figure which could quite possibly be an underestimate of the reality. What is one percent of your wage bill ?
The first obvious objection to this argument is of course that errors go both ways and this is a valid point. However it is defeated by human nature once again when one considers that an employee who is wronged on his wages will complain to the bitter end about even the smallest amount. He will not rest until the problem is sorted out. This same employee when presented with a miscalculation in his favour on his wage packet will most likely remain completely silent.
Which brings us to the next hidden cost of using a mechanical clock card machine:
The time taken up rectifying those very small errors which are being brought to the attention of the wage clerk by the disgruntled employees. What does your wage clerk's time cost you ?
We still have not taken into account the standard running costs of a clock card machine which are of course the clock cards themselves. Clock cards are limited in their use - they have to be replaced usually every week. This of course requires once again the time of a Wage clerk who is required to take a stack of new clock cards, write employees names or numbers on each clock card then run down to the clock card machine and place all of the new clock cards within their respective position in the racks while grabbing the old clock cards off the racks. This of course assumes that they are organised enough to write out the new clock cards first - otherwise they will be running to the clock card machine racks twice each week. Once again a waste of the valuable time of your wage clerk.
Lets not forget the fact that the clock cards themselves cost money, and it's not to be sneezed at when you consider that each employee will go through about fifty in a year.
Then there is of course the standard maintenance of having to replace the clock card machine's ribbon from time to time usually twice a year or so. Of course if this is not done timeously which is normally the case, then the clock cards do not get stamped properly which of course leads to further errors of calculation and an escalation of the problems previously mentioned.
Never mind the fact that if your clock card machine requires any other form of service this usually requires the machine being taken away to a workshop of sorts and you being left without a system and relying on people to write their times down until it is fixed.
The eClock will save you time and energy while calculating your employees full wages including PAYE, pension and UIF. It will perform these calculations 100% accurately. Even your employees will appreciate not having to query mistakes. The eClock uses your employees fingerprints or alternatively the tried and trusted iButton tags which means that your employees can use the same tags for years. The eClock is very reliable and is also supported by a full maintenance plan with on site service if you are within Gauteng.
If one has to add up all of these factors then it becomes pretty obvious that the eClock is a far better choice.
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