The Works Payroll and Time Recording—a Breakthrough at Last?
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb057260 |
| Date | 01 May 1982 |
| Pages | 29-32 |
| Published date | 01 May 1982 |
| Subject Matter | Economics,Information & knowledge management,Management science & operations |
The Works Payroll and Time Recording
—a Breakthrough at Last?
Payroll operations were often one of the first tasks to be
entrusted to a newly installed computer but, contrary to all
expectations, the change was not always for the better.
Why? Usually it was due to the fact that the computer was
fed with data obtained by manual copying from clock
cards with adjustments made by time clerks or supervisors;
painstaking and tedious chores which, despite com-
puterisation, left room for human error in that most
touchy of areas — the pay-packet. The input was slow, in-
accurate and open to corruption.
Card-based clocking-in systems, which have their roots
firmly in our Victorian past — and which recent im-
provements have done little to advance — have several
disadvantages.
Top of the list must be the sheer cost of all the manual
handling, followed by the fact that the time clock is too
easily mis-used. Clocking-in for workmates is a prime ex-
ample and, to a lesser degree, clocking-out for mischievous
or malicious reasons; also the deliberate spoiling of cards
when arriving late. The unrest caused by the time clock in
perpetuating the "second class citizen" image also should
not be underestimated.
Electronic systems, such as the Plantime Automated
Payroll Systems (APS) are today's alternative to clock
cards and at last provide time recording and payroll as a
single
integrated
operation.
With Plantime APS, each employee uses either a per-
sonal nylon key which can be kept on his key-ring or can be
provided with a coded ID card. Checking-in is simply a
matter of putting the key into a slot on a time recorder ter-
minal and withdrawing it again. While the key is in, the
terminal displays the employee's number, payable hours
during the current week and, separately, overtime hours
accrued in any of three categories. This information is
displayed only to the person concerned and is not printed
on a clock card for general inspection.
The term payable hours is worth reflection. The system
itself can be pre-programmed to obey the works rules
about calculating actual payable hours from attended
hours.
For example, some companies have complex rules
about lateness, start and finish of overtime, obligatory rest
periods and so on. These rules have been devised, along
with union help, over a long time and, though complex, in-
variably have good solid reasoning behind them and they
should not have to move over because of
the
inflexibility of
some administrative system. Plantime, for example, sug-
gest that they can incorporate these rules no matter how
complex.
Working schedules, too, may become quite involved.
With a works full of people operating various shift pat-
terns
—
working overtime at several rates depending on the
time and day, with some part-timers or occasional
workers, perhaps — it is a good wages clerk indeed who
can sort it all out without making mistakes. Yet these
schedules can be entered into an electronic system in a far-
above-practical-needs number of permutations to provide
exact payable hours calculations for the payroll program.
In the Plantime system this data is stored in the key-in
terminals themselves with a communications link to a cen-
tral unit. Should some mishap occur on the system, ter-
minals will continue to operate, storing their data until the
link is re-established. Where more than one terminal is us-
ed, they are linked to a central communications console.
This produces reports on demand to give such information
as attendance and lateness details or overtime and can in-
stantly update changing work patterns.
Plantime's APS central communications console will
normally store the input and transmit daily to an
associated micro-computer, the data for payroll prepara-
tion. Changes, such as the works number of people sick or
on holiday, will be entered to the system via the standard
micro-computer. Once the payable hours data is available
at the computer, a variety of personnel management pro-
grammes may be put into effect depending on what the
organisation needs to know about its work force. The main
use for this data though, as we have said, is the payroll.
The system may be used as a front end to a main frame
computer payroll system with on-line or buffered links to
the system payroll program. Alternatively, the system can
be equipped with its own payroll micro-computer, releas-
ing the mainframe from what
is,
these days, a simple chore
of modern computer technology. The micro-computer
need not be on-line to the payroll input system all week
—
just when payroll time comes around, so its capacity is
available for other DP or word processing work in the
meantime.
There are many arguments that can be used to prove the
superiority of electronic attendance/payroll system over
clock card and manual input methods, from the point of
view of the workforce as much as management (although
there may be some sections of the workforce who, for
reasons of their own, may take some convincing).
For the busy works accountant or wages manager, who
had either to go himself or send one of his people to check
on clock cards, APS can save an untold amount of time
and legwork. Previously, regardless of whether cards were
scrutinised weekly or daily, the information culled was
always out of date. With APS he is instantly in possession
please turn to page 32
MAY/JUNE 1982 29
To continue reading
Request your trial