Identify the pain points in your current processes
One of the first things you should determine when choosing a time and attendance system is what your current process is, and the existing issues you want to overcome. Depending on your job role and company, you may need to consult with other individuals in your organisation to work out what issues need resolving. Some team members might not even realise there is a problem! You may discover that the solution is quite simple, and you don't need many changes to your existing process.
These could be simple goals like 'cutting manager approval times' or 'reduce time leak by 10%'. If you can map out the entire process from start to finish, then you can be sure you have a good idea of what you will want from a new system.
Once you know what you want to improve or which features you need, you can start looking for a system that can do it.
UK Law and Compliance
Recent changes to UK law may be a factor in your decision to invest in a new time and attendance system. From the 6th April 2026, new legislation came into place that makes multiple changes to UK working law.
There is a new requirement where employers must keep six years of employee annual leave records, including leave taken, carry over, holiday pay, and lieu days. Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) now begins on the first day of sickness, and the threshold for eligibility has been lowered, meaning more workers are eligible.
There are also regulations around how many hours an employee can work in a week, night shift working rules, and young worker exceptions and changes.
Does your current process or system easily handle these types of situations? If you've found that your current time and attendance system can't handle these new changes, it might be time to seriously consider an upgrade.
Handling exceptions
Depending on your working patterns and operating hours, there can be a wide variety of exceptions for which you need to account. This could be premiums shifts, pay codes, overtime approvals, Time-Off-In-Lieu (TOIL) or overtime acceptance, or shift swapping between staff to name a few. If these are options you offer your employees, does your current time and attendance system make it easier or harder to implement, and will your new system help rather than hinder?
Company operations and size
Once your company grows to a certain size, it makes less sense that a single person handles all your clocking and payroll information. By using a unified system, this can easily be spread among a larger team.
Alternatively, one individual handling all the processes may be viable if it is their entire job role and the employee count is lower. By making this as streamlined as possible, the administrator can quickly approve absences or amendments, check staffing levels, and so on.
For companies with employees that regularly travel between sites or work from home, it would be worth finding a time and attendance system that would enable them to clock in remotely via a mobile app or desktop platform. This can streamline admin and payroll processes and reduce the chance of false records. For companies with workers who are only ever on one site, you wouldn't need to worry about having this option.
Every company has different operational needs, and you need to make sure the time and attendance system you choose can do what you need it to do. You don't want to pay for extra features or add-ons you won't use, but if you buy a barebones setup or off the shelf product, you might not be able to handle your unique use case.
Do you have any other systems to integrate with your time and attendance system?
A time and attendance system works best when it can directly integrate with your other systems. You can remove all the headaches associated with payroll and clocking with a full suite solution that can plug live and accurate clocking data straight to your payroll software. Access control permissions can also be tied to when employees are on shift, enhancing security without being restrictive. HR systems can easily register when a new hire starts, and when leavers finish, streamlining the process and negating the need to take back keys or change access codes.
Which clocking credentials should you use?
Depending on your operational requirements, you may need to adjust or rethink how you plan to capture your staff's working hours. Pen and paper may work well for a smaller team but would cause a lot of problems if a lot of people come and go quickly.
Some companies may have issues with biometric credentials. Roles requiring heavy PPE might run into problems when scanning fingerprints if they are required to wear gloves, or facemasks may be incompatible with some facial recognition scanners. On top of this, the GDPR standards for storing biometric credentials are higher.
Smart cards or fobs can be a good compromise, providing less stringent data security than biometric credentials, but still being assigned to an individual user for audit purposes. However, unlike biometrics, cards and fobs can be lost, stolen, or borrowed by other users.
Mobile and web-based apps can let remote or travelling teams provide accurate clock-in information while not requiring them to be at a physical clock-in station. The use of mobiles needs policy reviews to make sure there isn't any misuse, but apps that allow workers to plan and book annual leave, like Tensor's Self Service Module, can be beneficial.
Costs and Return On Investment
Sometimes it can be daunting to look at the total cost of a new time and attendance system, particularly if you are planning to upgrade other related systems too. You may want to stagger the cost, such as only installing the most critical hardware or checking if there is a flexible finance scheme or similar. Modular systems like Tensor's allow you to install a minimum viable solution, which you can then gradually add additional features and components to.
You can estimate the expected Return On Investment (ROI) with tools like Tensor's ROI calculator or learn more about our finance plans with our partner HH Finance.
A Tensor System
Once you are ready to commit to your new system, here are a few things to check over before you sign off on it:
- As a minimum, will the new system match what your current processes do?
- Are you having to pay for extra licenses or modules for parts of the system that you don't need or won't use?
- Will your new system be compatible with your other systems and processes or will it add extra steps?
- Do you know how soon the system will be up and running, and what problems may occur if there are any delays with installation?
- If you plan to add more features in the future, do you know if your new system can be expanded upon?
A Tensor Time and Attendance system can solve many of the problems we've mentioned, and with our bespoke configurations and modular design, we can give you a system that does exactly what you need, with room to expand where required.
Find out more about our Time and Attendance systems — get in touch with us today.
