The Best Time and Attendance Services and Software 2021

OnTheClock gives you a free 30-day trial and doesn't require a contract. It has no add-on costs, implementation charges, or support fees. Everything is included in the monthly per-user rate.

Features

OnTheClock provides time and attendance tracking with a timeclock kiosk, web browser, or module timeclock app employees can use to clock in and out. All plans include unlimited departments and jobs, an unlimited number of manager and administrator roles, and you can have an unlimited number of time entries per day.

OnTheClock features include:

• Time tracking for hourly and salaried employees
• Manager tools to leave employee notes or adjust clock-in and -out times
• GPS locations so you can see where employees clock in and out
• Geofencing to prevent workers from clocking in before they get to the job site
• Employee self-service to view schedules, check PTO balances, and request time off
• Survey tools to gather employee feedback before and after work
• Administrative controls for customization and rounding rules, automated meal and break times, and holidays
• Common pay periods: weekly, biweekly, semimonthly and monthly
• Reports for tips, overtime, payroll, and job costing (to estimate project and client work)

Pros of OnTheClock

OnTheClock is affordable, it reduces time theft with fingerprint clock-ins, and it lets you see who is working in real time. Your free trial takes only minutes to set up and add employees. You can build schedules, automate breaks, and send employee alerts and reminders. 

Timecards are calculated automatically, showing regular and overtime hours for all states, including California, as well as paid time off. You can export timesheets to your payroll system using CSV or Excel. 

If you use one of the integrated payroll systems like ADP, Gusto, or Paychex, or need to export data for invoicing billable hours, you'll find those interfaces as well.

Cons of OnTheClock

OnTheClock doesn't provide phone support on the weekends. In addition, this time and attendance solution is highly customizable – you'll want to ensure your rules are set up correctly for rounding, holidays, security, geofencing, and clock-in restrictions.

Customer Support

OnTheClock's customer support includes email, chat, and phone support from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. (ET). On the weekend, a chatbot responds to general inquiries.

WhenI Work also has an enterprise plan for businesses with more than 100 employees. Costs for that plan are customized based on each business's needs.

There's no long-term contract you're required to sign with When I Work. You pay monthly and can cancel at any time. There is a free 14-day trial, so you can test the platform to see if it's well suited for your employees.

Features

Because When I Work is based on an employee schedule, your employees will get clock-in and out reminders.  

When I Work includes:

• Mobile clock-in and out
• Early clock-in prevention
• Overtime reminders 
• Geofencing
• Meal and rest break tracking (You can also auto deduct time for meal breaks.) 
• Attendance tracking to manage employee time off
• Reports and a customizable timesheet to upload to your payroll system
• Communication tools so your workers and managers stay in touch

For an additional fee of $50 per month, you can add a recruiting tool to your When I Work account, Applicant Tracking and Sourcing, that allows you to post jobs online to Facebook Jobs, Indeed, and Google Jobs so your business remains fully staffed.

Pros of When I Work  

Any device can serve as a real-time employee timeclock. You can set up a table or kiosk for workers to clock in on-site, or if you prefer, they can punch in and out using their smartphone.

The software supports shift work, so employees can bid on shifts and swap shifts. You can set limits such as how many hours or how much overtime you'll allow an employee to work. 

When I Work provides helpful tools like an employee handbook template at no cost. You'll get employee information forms, reference letter documents, and sample attendance and dress-code policies.

Cons of When I Work 

There were two drawbacks we found with When I Work. The first is that the applicant sourcing and tracking tool costs extra, and may be too expensive for most restaurants and retail businesses that already run on tight margins. A second drawback is that tech support is included, but not available over the phone on weekends. However, live chat and email support are available on Saturdays and Sundays.

Customer Support

When I Work requires you to sign in to submit a ticket. Customer service is available from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Friday (CT), and online chat support is available from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.

• Base: $199 for one TimeClick license for one computer, which supports an unlimited number of employees. After the first year, a support subscription costs $99 per year.

• Premium: For $499, you can install TimeClick on up to five devices. You can use it for an unlimited number of employees. With the Premium tier, your employees can use TimeClick's mobile clock-in and out feature. Support costs $109 annually.

• Pro: For $999, Pro supports up to 50 devices, unlimited employees, and mobile clock-in/out also is available to your employees. An annual support subscription is $199.

• Unlimited: At $1,499, TimeClick's Unlimited plan supports unlimited devices and an unlimited number of employees. Your employees can clock in and out using their smartphone. An annual support subscription is $299.

Features

TimeClick provides a database of your employee's personal information and includes all the key features you'd expect in a time and attendance software system. This time and attendance solution: 

• Tracks hours worked and overtime by person, job or department
• Manages night shifts and all pay periods
• Tracks PTO, holidays, and vacation time off
• Provides mass input (for workers who start/stop at the same time)
• Audits all manual entries, such as manager timesheet changes
• Configures rules to control what managers can do
• Leaves messages for employees when they sign in or out
• Tracks employee time off with flexible accruals for vacation and sick leave
• Allows employees to request time off 

TimeClick interfaces with QuickBooks for payroll as well as Passport Business Software. Otherwise, you can download a CSV timesheet from TimeClick to update to your payroll provider.

Pros of TimeClick

For physical locations where workers clock-in and out, TimeClick offers a robust time and attendance system. It lets you know who is on-site and the total number of hours they've worked. The installation process with TimeClick takes only a few minutes per computer and up to five minutes to install the database. You can purchase it, set it up, and begin using it the same day.

TimeClick includes two-dozen standard reports that you can sort and customize. You can even add a signature line before printing timesheets.

The software is flexible, you can do mass entries and you can give some employees, such as administrative staff permission to modify their records while requiring that hourly employees contact a manager if they forgot to clock in or out and to make any corrections to their timesheet.

Cons of TimeClick

TimeClick isn't cloud-based; therefore, you'll need to download software releases to keep it updated. TimeClick typically upgrades its software annually, with smaller releases as needed for bug fixes and enhancements. TimeClick doesn't provide an easy way to distinguish billable from nonbillable hours, and it lacks biometric options to prevent time theft.

And if you wish to upgrade the software to support remote employees, you will have to pay for a pricier license that has mobile clock-in and out options.

Customer Support

TimeClick support hours are 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. (MT), Monday through Friday, by phone and text. You can also send a contact request online. TimeClick provides a free knowledgebase, FAQs, and a troubleshooting tool for users.

• The Free plan tracks time and attendance for an unlimited number of employees. It supports an unlimited number of projects, and you get unlimited reports. Clockify has APIs with dozens of applications, including JIRA, Trello, ToDoist, Outlook, Google Calendar and Gmail.

• The Plus plan ($9.99 per month) adds reminders, required fields, time rounding, auditing and branded reports.

• The Premium plan ($29.99 per month) includes project templates, bulk editing capability, and additional security features like the ability to hide certain pages.

• The Enterprise plan ($9.99 per month, per user) gives business owners and managers everything in the Premium plan plus custom fields, time approval, manager roles, and single sign-on. This plan also provides phone support. 

Features

The basic features include time and attendance for as many employees as you have. Most of the time-tracker features are free. Using this feature, employees can start and stop time as they work, or they can input hours manually as needed per day or project.  

You also get:

• A dashboard to track what employees are working on, track hours toward projects, track hours by team, and run reports. You can see who is working on what as well as who is on a break

• Leave management to track time off for sick leave, PTO, or other needs, such as jury duty. You can see who is out of the office

• Approvals so that managers can view timesheets before sending them to payroll

• Billable hours to track employee work hours for client billing purposes

• Interfaces for over 40 applications such as Monday.com and Salesforce. Or, create your own API integration using Zapier to sync your data with over 1,500 apps

Clockify delivers a setup checklist to configure your workspace settings, employees, groups, projects, and bill rates (if you use them).

Pros of Clockify

Employees can record their time either by starting and stopping a timer, or by entering work hours into a digital timesheet. The timer is great for tracking when and how long remote workers are online. Managers review and approve hours, making changes before sending the timesheet to payroll.

Clockify connects with other software through prebuilt integrations or APIs – great if you use CRM or project management tools. That means employee time, project, and client work hours can be interfaced with and tracked with the other business software you use.

Cons of Clockify

Clockify doesn't include a traditional punch clock.

Customer Support

Clockify offers 24/7 customer support by email for all of its plans. In addition, you can log on to Clockify's website to schedule a live call, request a demo or submit a ticket online.

If you upgrade to the Enterprise plan, you can request them to call you at a specific time.

Features

Rippling's base plan, the employee management platform, comes with a foundational module that assists companies with onboarding, offboarding task management to name a few functions. From there, you can opt to add features like payroll, employee benefits, talent management, and app management and device management. Here's an expanded look at Ripplings' features:

• Administration: Rippling's solution starts with a base software plan. This module includes a unified employee database, electronic document management and task management. If you want to expand the solution, you can add full-service payroll (e.g., tax filing, direct deposit, workers' comp and garnishments, year-end tax forms and new hire filing) and benefits administration (e.g., online new hire enrollment, open enrollment, employee self-service, payroll deductions and third-party broker support).

• Employee management: Rippling users can access useful employee management features like onboarding and offboarding, workflow and approval automation, customizable position management, applicant tracking, background checks, e-verification and offer letters. One of things we especially liked about Rippling is that it lets you configure and automate the employee onboarding process. Rippling can also integrate with learning management systems to support employee career growth.

• Legal compliance: Rippling can help your team maintain legal compliance with courses like sexual harassment training and cybersecurity practices. They can also help automate your ACA reporting and COBRA paperwork.

• Reporting and analytics: Rippling has customizable reporting features to analyze various aspects of your organization. For example, you can create reports to study employee turnover within your company.

Ease of Use

For business owners and HR staff, tasks can easily be created and assigned to the appropriate employees and managed under one dashboard. Users can create automated workflows to streamline various aspects of HR.

The software is capable of integrating with more than 400 other platforms, which makes it a great asset to enhance any collection of business software. It only takes 2.5 weeks to completely implement the Rippling platform, which means your HR tasks will be streamlined in no time with minimal disruption to your business.

It's not just managers who can use Rippling, though, employees can easily use the software to manage their HR tasks from any device, which offers a big time savings to small companies.

Customer Support

All users of the  Employee Platform can receive real-time live chat and email support. Additionally, larger customers are paired with a dedicated support representative who they can call, text or video chat with questions. In addition, users who want one-on-one support from certified HR pros can add the HR Help Desk feature to their plan for a monthly fee.

As part of our research, we tested Rippling's customer support by contacting the company multiple times via webchat, posing as a small business owner. Rippling representatives were quick to respond to our questions, and while they didn't go into great depth in their answers about the software, they did offer to connect us with an expert, who would give us a demo of the software.

• Premium costs $8 per employee, per month, and there is a $20 monthly base fee. This plan includes job and shift tracking, timesheet management, and payroll integration.

• Elite costs $10 per employee, per month with a $40 monthly base fee. The Elite plan adds geofencing, timesheet signatures and project tracking.

TSheets offers a 14-day free trial you can use to test how the features might work for your business.

Features

TSheets is built with the mobile worker in mind. The system gives field employees like traveling sales reps and service providers flexibility in how they clock in and out. They can use a mobile app, a laptop computer, a telephone, text message, or even sign in using Twitter.

TSheets offers:

• A mobile app that gives employees an easy way to check their appointment schedule, and it logs their time

• A way to see when co-workers are on the clock

• Self-service tools to manage paid time off and track how long an employee has been at a specific site or how they worked on a project

• Customized alerts that notify you via email, text message or Twitter when workers are nearing the end of their shifts

• Integrations with QuickBooks, ADP, Justworks, Sage, Gusto, Wagepoint, Square, Xero and more

The scheduling software, which is included in the monthly fees, allows managers to build and then share schedules with employees, and assign jobs and shifts. Employees can see the latest schedule in real time by logging into the system or through the TSheets mobile app. 

Employees can add their work schedules to any calendar app that supports iCal. This includes any iOS, Google or Outlook calendars. 

Pros of TSheets

Employees can use the app to view their schedules, receive notifications of schedule changes and request time off. 

The TSheets mobile app employs both geofencing and geotracking. Employers can restrict where employees are clocking in and out from as well as monitor their work locations throughout the day at 10-minute intervals.

Cons of TSheets

A potential downside is that TSheets doesn't work with traditional timeclocks. Instead, it offers a TSheets kiosk so that office staff and clock in and out on-site. In addition, some employees may not like that you're using GPS to track their whereabouts throughout the day.

Further, many of the other time and attendance systems we researched provide extensive lists of payroll programs they connect with for free. With TSheets, you may have to pay a one-time fee to export your company's timecard data as a CSV file to upload to your payroll software.

Customer Support

TSheets offers phone support from 6 a.m. and 7 p.m. (MT), Monday through Friday. Live chat is available from 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. The TSheets website is also full of helpful resources, including a learning center, resource center, online tools, brochures and FAQs.