What is Biometric Time & Attendance?

A biometric time and attendance system enables employees to clock in and out of shifts completely badge free, using only fingerprints or facial features. With the ability to match facial features and fingerprint readings to a database, biometric time and attendance does not only guarantee the highest level of security for your business, but it also ensures that employers have an accurate and honest recording of their employees' working hours.

Providing a fast and highly accurate biometric solution for identifying employees and/or visitors, a biometric time and attendance system gives you the most accurate readings of employees' working hours, eliminates buddy-punching while giving you complete control over who has access to your site. Throughout this comprehensive guide will be in-depth details on the main benefits it can have for businesses while improving HR matters and building security.

How biometric time and attendance works

A biometric time and attendance system is designed for use as extra access control, time and attendance point which is also capable of reading smart cards.

It works using a fingerprint scanning window that registers the person's fingerprint on the scanner and is then converted into a code through a secure algorithm, which is then stored on a database for future comparison and authentication.

Whenever registered users have their fingerprints scanned, a comparison is made between the live fingerprint and the stored fingerprint template and if the two match, the event is saved in the time and attendance controller database.

Biometric time and attendance does not only mean fingerprint reading, it also entails facial recognition which can differentiate between a real face and a photograph for the most accurate of readings. What's great is, every type of time and attendance system has the ability to work day and night, in any weather condition (including rain and lightning).

Benefits of a biometric time and attendance system

Tensor's biometric time and attendance system comes with a vast range of benefits that have the ability to better run your business. Explained in more detail below, these benefits include employees having a quick and easy method of clocking in and out of shifts, the elimination of buddy-punching and the incorporation of labour hours analysis, the incorporation of payroll and security management.

The easy-to-use time and attendance system

Biometric time and attendance is possibly the most straightforward and easy-to-use system to help manage your workforce. There are no smart cards or keyfobs to be lost as there are if a smart card clocking terminal was being used. This ensures employees are only able to clock themselves in and out of shifts, and not other members of staff, giving employers an honest reading of hours worked.

Our biometric time and attendance systems are specifically designed for the working environment. It incorporates job booking and job costing while automatically configuring employees' working hours for your ease when it comes to payday. Our time and attendance systems have the ability to export information to a payroll system and work with all of the major payroll packages. WinTA.NET has a wide range of configuration options to extract payroll information in exactly the correct format.

Biometric time and attendance improves security

Not only does a biometric time and attendance system have the ability to better run your business and streamline workforce management, but it can also ensure your building is safe and secure at all times.

This is done by the time and attendance system acting as an access control system, granting access to authorised personnel and denying access to those who are unauthorised. This gives employers complete control over who is granted access onto their site and who is not. Fingerprints, or other biometric readings, can be removed from the database should an employee leave or be suspended for any reason. Additionally, access can be denied after working hours to ensure employees cannot gain access to the building after a specific time.

Another crucial safety and security aspect of the biometric time and attendance system is that clocks and access control points are integrated into your company's fire alarm system to trigger a fast, automated fire evacuation list onto the Fire Roll Call app; explained in more detail below.

Biometric time and attendance software

Tensor's time and attendance software suite range is second-to-none. Known as WinTA.NET, it includes a vast range of features that are designed to make your life easier and improve the day-to-day running of your business.

As explained above, Tensor's Fire Roll Call provides you with an immediate list of who is on site should an emergency evacuation be required. It can provide you with the most basic 'on-site' reporting, to the individual tracking of employee's movement between fire zone/fire assembly points. The Fire Roll Call puts your safety requirements first, with the ability to be tailored specifically to your business.

As part of the WinTA.NET software suite, a web-based application, the Self-Service Module, allows enrolled employees to clock in or out for time and attendance purposes, book themselves on or off the fire evacuation list and book on or off jobs via their internet browser. Employees are also able to view their current holiday entitlement, clock card reports and browse past absences using an absence planner and request amendments to clocking and absence periods in the past and future. All such requests must be authorised by the employee's supervisor. Supervisors are informed about requests by email, as are employees when such requests are granted or denied.

"Tensor's Self-Service Module and the Tensor.NET software are very efficient tools for managing a busy manufacturing environment".

— Catherine Rousell, HR Manager, Wallgate Ltd

If you would like further information about Tensor's biometric time and attendance system, are interested in seeing a live demo, or if you would like to enquire for a quote, then please do not hesitate to get in touch with our sales team today.