There are some clear indicators that should be followed in order to get a system at the right time in a growing business. There is a pattern to how businesses start off and how they grow. Here's how I see the typical growth of a business and how its needs grow also. Many businesses start off very small. Often there is only one owner and that owner does all the various jobs required to run the business. The business owner has to do all the work and do all the jobs. He or she has though up the business concept, comes up with the marketing idea or plan, rents office or factory space, creates the products, makes up the advertising, does the cold calling for customers, gives the sales presentations, closes each sale, does the invoicing, delivers the products, trains the customers on those product, supports the product, creates product updates and on and on … have I missed anything? There's no time and attendance software required at this point because he or she is on their own.

With hard work, good market timing, even better smarts, and a bigger dose of luck than I had realized before running multiple companies for over 20 years, the company begins to grow. The first level of company growth is to expand to a handful of employees. Each person has a somewhat specialized role but they also cover a number of other areas too. Everyone in the company knows each other and the systems requirements are fairly basic and generic. The business is almost as much a family as a business.

With continued luck, maybe a small merger or a gain in the marketplace, and company growth can be realized and a second plateau in company size can be reached. This plateau is somewhere about the 25 employee mark. Everyone still knows everyone but they don't always know where each other are or where they are at any given moment. This is often the first a time and attendance program is considered. Depending on the type of business it may be relevant to get a system now. At this level it is only going to be a basic system, probably with a time clock. But this isn't really a time and attendance system.

The business owner is often now business owners. The company is growing to the next level and this is the level that consideration often begins for real software, time and attendance software - a true time and attendance system, not a basic time clock system. So what is that level? There is no hard and fast answer but rather an employee count range. That range is from 50 to 100 employees.

But (and this is a big but) there is a second factor. These numbers are the number of part-time or hourly employees in an organization. Time and attendance systems tend to not be very often used in full time employee situations. I would suggest then that this range is 25 employees for a basic time clock system to 50-100 employees for full software, time and attendance program. Many organizations are split between part and full time employees and it is usually only the part time workers that are put on to the system. For example, an organization might be 300 employees but the time and attendance system might only used for the 85 part time employees. One organization I worked with had over 600 employees but only the 125 or so orchard workers were put onto the in-house time and attendance program.

To further clarify this requirement, it is pretty much mandatory that any business with 100 or more part-time employees have a good time and attendance system in place. The return on investment is so strong that there really is no successful argument against such a system. Some managers try and say that the culture of their organization does not work with automation but that is the topic of another discussion for it is not the technology that will allow such a system to work, it is the rules within it and the manner in which it is introduced and run that will make it successful or not.

Other factors where companies should strongly consider having time attendance software are:

66 percent (2/3) or more of manager time is spent answering timesheet questions.

Employee productivity has become an issue.

The company has become more cost conscious.

The time attendance software in place is old.

There is a desire to reduce the amount of time it takes each pay to put the employee time into the payroll.