Eliminate Time Clock Fraud

Is time theft an issue for your company? If it was, how would you know? If you think that employee theft only happens in the office supply cabinet, think again.

Every day, employees across the country take part in time clock fraud—whether inadvertently or intentionally. And when they do, employers are left paying them for unworked hours.

• As many as 75% of companies have time “stolen” from under their noses, according to an American Payroll Association (APA) study.
• According to ACFE’s Report to the Nations on Occupational Fraud & Abuse, the typical organization loses 5% of its revenues to fraud each year.
• On average, fraud lasts 18 months before it’s detected. This can cost employers thousands of dollars per occurrence.
• And, the American Payroll Association estimates time clock fraud annually costs businesses 1.5% to 5% of gross payroll.

Time Clock Fraud is a Team Effort

Some intentional forms of time clock fraud happen as a team effort.

For instance, plenty of co-workers punch each other in and out—something that’s frequently referred to as “buddy punching.” When buddy punching occurs, the only way you can avoid having to pay unworked hours is to prove that the employee didn’t work them. Doing so can be difficult without the right time & attendance system in place.

Setting a company-wide policy that encourages honest time clock activities sounds great in theory, but it doesn’t always work.

That’s why it’s crucial for employers to take steps to accurately document the amount of time their employees actually work and put an end to the theft.

How to Eliminate Time Clock Fraud

And one way to get ahead of time clock fraud is to implement an advanced time & attendance solution. With a dedicated time & attendance solution in place, your company can dramatically reduce the number of inaccurate clock punches thanks to key features, watch for time-related discrepancies, and more.

Features such as geotracking and geofencing allow you to track where employees are, and authorize the places they can clock in or out from:

• No matter where your employees are working—whether down the hall, in another quad, or even in another country, geotracking and geofencing features can alert you when an employee is late, absent, or has forgotten to log their time.
• GPS tracking lets you pin each employee’s location on a map when they clock-in so you can track where and when they performed their work duties.

For some companies, especially those with employees stationed at multiple worksites, a kiosk system can be vital to centralizing the way workers clock in/out:

• A kiosk app can let employees clock in and out even when they’re offline. The application will register a time punch using the system’s native time functionality, then transmit attendance data when it’s back online.
• By replacing your paper or spreadsheet system with an integrated kiosk application, onsite managers and foremen won’t have to question whether or not their workers showed up on time, or clocked out early.

And some time & attendance solutions can also integrate with biometric time clocks to help prevent buddy punching:

• These systems use advanced technology to scan an employee’s fingerprints or iris.
• They are becoming more popular as companies seek to improve upon other time & attendance methods that were meant to curtail time theft and buddy punching, such as scanning employee badges.

Time clock fraud might seem harmless, but it’s not. If you leave it unchecked, it can create a difficult cycle for your business to climb out of. Beyond creating issues with your bottom line, time fraud can also affect employee morale, and cut into your retention efforts, especially if some employees grow resentful that others are stealing time from your company without any consequences.

Whether time clock fraud happens once, spikes during different times of year, or is a habitual concern, stratustime can help you stop it before it happens again.