How GPS-powered tools can improve your payroll system.
When you run a transportation department, your responsibilities never end, from safety issues and driver behavior to route planning and fleet maintenance. To complicate matters even more, you also have very real budget concerns and, too often, budget cuts to deal with. Luckily, many people have realized that GPS technology can help them do more with less while saving both time and money. What many don’t realize, though, is that your payroll system is no exception – there are GPS-powered tools available that can help you better manage it as well.
How It Works
A time and attendance solution allows your drivers to clock in and out within their vehicles. This eliminates paying for non-driving time, and on average it saves 15 minutes per driver, per vehicle, per day. You can ensure your drivers are being paid accurately for their time on the road.
Integrating with Your Payroll System
When looking at solutions, you need one that can integrate with your current setup. All the information captured through GPS tracking needs to be exported to the payroll system you’re already using, quickly and easily. This eliminates any extra work during implementation.
Increasing Payroll Accuracy
Logging time by hand introduces the possibility of human error, causing your payroll accuracy to suffer. By automating time collection, you save quite a bit by eliminating inaccurate time entries. Even if you’re off by as little as one or two percent, that can have a significant effect on your overall payroll budget, no matter whether you manage 50 vehicles or 5,000.
Staying in the Know
One of the largest benefits associated with logging driver time electronically is being able to accurately capture time for payroll purposes. Since you are paying your drivers based on time, it’s critical to know how much of that time is actually involved in a specific route or activity. A time and attendance solution enables your drivers to log a job type with the same keypad they use to clock in from their vehicle.
With this type of solution, you can also review and manage the time that is being collected. As your drivers log in, your GPS system is sending that data back to you. You can review to see who’s logged in, what their time cards look like, and more – all in real time. In addition, you can compare your existing route schedules from your planning system to the actual time being logged by your drivers. If a driver assigned to a six-hour shift is logging eight hours, you’ll know.
Empowering Your Drivers
The GPS solution should also include an employee portal, which allows drivers to log in and view how many hours they’ve logged. The employee portal allows non-drivers or dual-role employees (for example, someone who may drive in the mornings and work as an office employee during the day) to log time spent on activities that don’t involve operating a vehicle. This can be done from a computer, so time spent both on the road and in the office can all be captured on one time card.
Even if one of your drivers forgets to log in or out, GPS data will provide you with a full picture of that driver’s day, from when that driver left to the time they returned. There are no “he said, she said” arguments over time discrepancies because all the data is right there in front of you.
Overall Benefits to Tracking TIme and Attendance Electronically
Let’s walk through an example of potential benefits and cost savings. Below are some of the major differences experienced by one of our clients with Synovia’s Time and Attendance solution.
Prior to implementation, their process looked something like this. Drivers would fill out timesheets and clock in at their schools. The schools would then review the time by hand, increasing the manpower needed to complete payroll. There was a lack of accountability and accuracy overall.
After implementation, drivers clocked in directly from the bus. The transportation department was able to quickly audit time using the data provided by the software. They also utilized a daily payroll import to ensure payroll accuracy.
So, what was their overall result? The school has reported $100,000 in annual savings since moving to Synovia’s Time and Attendance solution.
Many schools have decided to say goodbye to timesheets and manual entry. They are instead turning to GPS solutions for accurate time tracking, easy-to-read reports, and payroll integration. The benefits are endless, from more effectively managed fleets to large cost savings.
If you want to learn more about Synovia's TIme & Attendance solution, sign up for a free demonstration.
