Working time and attendance are key for any business, so many companies and entrepreneurs focus on gathering accurate data in this regard. Data is used to comply with labor legislation and for payroll. But more often than not, time and attendance tracking procedures are invasive, opaque, and perceived as a burden by employees. To avoid micromanagement and boost people’s morale and responsibility, go for time and attendance software that addresses their needs, respects their time, and provides transparency. Here are the best options to consider.
That’s why we picked the top 10 time and attendance software from all the tools we reviewed.
Buddy Punch sounds friendly, and it is. It helps you organize shifts and track employees regardless of whether they work in an office, from home, or in the field. Furthermore, all timesheets are automatically sent to payroll without errors or data loss.
And there is more. Buddy Punch acts as a clock-in/clock-out app for your employees. They can easily log in with a 4-digit pin, QR, or facial recognition and punch in or out. They can even add pictures from locations when they work outside the office. You have all data gathered in one place, tracking in real-time who is at work, who is late, who is doing overtime, and who is on leave. Buddy Punch features a GPS timestamp, too, showing you where the employees are when punching in or out.
The same app provides a leave request procedure, a data export procedure, and a custom notification procedure.
Buddy Punch provides:
Price: Buddy Punch provides four paid monthly subscription options starting at $3.99/user/month.
QuickBooks Time aims to save you up to 4% on payroll based on accurate time and attendance data. It provides real-time tracking, allowing you to see who’s at work and who’s on leave. At the same time, the app provides access to multiple timesheets, allowing you to manage multiple teams.
QuickBooks Time works on desktop and mobile devices and seamlessly integrates with accounting and payroll apps. It also provides collaborative tools that allow you to communicate with your team and make decisions on the go. You can plan shifts, schedule tasks, and create customized reports. You can change your mind and adjust whenever needed, notifying everyone involved. Don’t forget to set up alerts for all the essential stuff, such as overtime, schedule changes, and deadlines.
QuickBooks Time provides:
Price: QuickBooks Time provides two paid monthly subscription options starting at $10/month plus $8/user/month.
When I Work is time and attendance software for scheduling and tracking your employees’ activity. The schedule integrates with payroll and allows you to pay your employees instantly. In addition, When I Work features team messaging tools, leave request procedures, shift scheduling, a customizable clock-in/clock-out functionality, and collaborative planning.
It offers user-friendly desktop and mobile apps that are easy to learn. Your employees can connect quickly, receive notifications when their shifts change, request time off and receive approval. All the data is gathered safely and used to generate reports and spot patterns and trends.
When I Work provides:
Price: When I Work provides three paid monthly subscription options starting at $2.5/user/month.
Connecteam focuses on remote teams that need to communicate and collaborate without being in the same room. As a result, their time and attendance software features team scheduling, geo-fence, clock-in/clock-out functionality, timesheets, and integrated payroll. After reviewing your employees' attendance data, you can pay them with just one click.
Furthermore, you can customize the procedures, avoiding mistakes and confusion. While your employees can use the kiosk app for fast clock-in and clock-out, you can manually add work hours, sync their schedules, manage absences, and approve time off. Connecteam informs you about overtime and other discrepancies, ensuring you comply with labor legislation.
Connecteam provides:
Kiosk app
Price: Connecteam provides a free option for up to 10 users and three paid monthly subscription options starting at $29/30 users/month.
Deputy helps you monitor labor costs by allowing you to easily schedule staff, monitor attendance, and analyze simple timesheets to spot patterns and trends. The app tracks work hours, breaks, and time off. It integrates with payroll and HR software, providing a complete perspective on people management.
Moreover, the Deputy tool provides labor compliance tools that ensure your business complies with labor legislation in your country. Therefore, you can manage work schedules and offer a fair workweek to your employees. The pay calculations are automatic and based on a secure employee time clock.
Deputy provides:
Price: Deputy provides four paid monthly subscription options starting at $3.99/user/month.
Clockify is one of the most popular time and attendance software. It features timesheets that allow you to log time per employee, project, or activity, generate reports, and monitor attendance. Clockify also includes a kiosk app for employees, a calendar for scheduling tasks, and time off management tools. It integrates with apps you might already use, such as Jira and Trello.
Alongside time tracking, Clockify provides a few functionalities for people management. For example, you can keep employee data and have contact data and payroll data at hand. You can also manage and monitor time off, task assignments, and performance.
Clockify provides:
Price: Clockify has a free option with an automatic timer. Paid plans start at $3.99 per user per month (when billed annually)
Rippling is a complex HR software solution with a time and attendance module. It provides automatic work-hour tracking, meaning employees don’t have to introduce data and wait for approvals manually. They must use the kiosk app to clock in and out using a mobile or desktop device. Then, everything happens automatically, from approving hours to paychecks.
Furthermore, you can customize the workflows, notification procedures, and approvals. You can monitor the staff’s activity in real-time and make decisions on the go. You can also create customized reports that include costs, locations, teams, and projects. Rippling includes built-in compliance to ensure you respect each employee's federal, state, and local labor laws.
Rippling provides:
Price: Rippling provides a paid monthly subscription starting at $8/user/month.
DeskTime aims to be a complete time-tracking solution that boosts productivity by up to 30%. Its goals are to avoid burnout, minimize labor costs, and automate team management. DeskTime offers an automatic time tracker that monitors when the employee’s computer is open and shut, as well as work progress monitoring, shift scheduling, attendance tracking, and project management tools.
The app generates reports and exports data for more complex statistics and analytics, provides an admin dashboard and employee calendar, and integrates with many other project and people management tools. You can also customize team parameters, workflows, and time-tracking aspects.
DeskTime provides:
Price: DeskTime offers three paid monthly subscription options starting at $7/user/month.
Time Doctor offers time and attendance tracking solutions for employees working entirely remotely or both in-office and remotely, as well as for outsourced staff. It helps you comply with labor legislation and keep an eye on labor costs while accurately monitoring work hours, overtime, breaks, and time off. The program features automated time tracking, online and offline time tracking, productivity analytics, reports and data exports, and project management tools. You can grant customized access, monitor real-time activity, and set up reminders and approval procedures.
Furthermore, Time Doctor integrates with over 60 other tools and runs on desktop and mobile devices.
Time Doctor provides:
Price: Time Doctor provides three paid monthly subscription options starting at $5.9/user/month.
Timely uses the power of AI to deliver automated time tracking. The program can tell how much time an employee spent working and how much of that time was spent working on documents, emails, meetings, video calls, or browsing the internet. In addition, Timely features timesheets and people dashboards, task management, invoicing, and payroll. You can use it to plan tasks and monitor their progress, monitor costs, keep an eye on overtime, and generate reports.
In terms of team management, Timely offers tools that improve the team’s productivity and performance while boosting morale and responsibility at the same time. It also integrates with most of the management tools you already use, such as Jira, calendars, Zoom, and Github.
Timely provides:
Price: Timely provides three paid monthly subscription options starting at $9/user/month.
What is time and attendance software?
Time and attendance software is a program or app that allows you to monitor employees’ work hours and time off. The software's main features to track time and attention include recording regular work hours (e.g., working start time and end time), breaks (e.g., lunch break, mandatory breaks, etc.), overtime, PTO, sick days, maternity leave, etc. However, most time and attendance software provides many other features, such as a kiosk app, location tracking, shift planning, and payroll and project management timesheets.
What are the key benefits of time and attendance software?
Time and attendance software helps you keep accurate records and monitor the activity of your employees. The key benefits are:
How do you choose time and attendance software?
Although many time and attendance tracking programs and apps exist, not all of them are suited for your business. Consider the number of employees and teams and their usual workflow. Employees working remotely have different requirements than people working in offices. The outsourced staff has other requirements as well. At the same time, consider your business requirements and the tools you already use for payroll and project management. You want time and attendance software that provides simple and efficient solutions for your requirements, smoothly integrates with tools you already use, and allows customization.