Barcode technology can be helpful for maintaining time and attendance systems at organizations. A barcode time and attendance system helps in saving money by reducing labor expenses. The most important advantage of the system is that it increases the efficiency of payroll activities. Let us know about the working of this system.
A barcode time and attendance system mainly includes three steps. They are data collection, data storage, and data management.
Data Collection:
In order to calculate wages of employees, it is necessary first to collect details about the working hours of an employees. Each employee of an organization is provided with a card having barcode number. Linear or 2D barcodes can be used for storing data like employee number, job position, and other professional details. Symbol barcode and others are used by various organizations. A barcode printer with high efficiency is used for this purpose. Zebra printers are one of the types of barcode printers which are used most commonly.
When an employee is entering or leaving the organization, the employee card having barcodes, is scanned by barcode scanners. Thus, specific data of an employee are read. In this way, data of various employees is collected.
Data Storage:
Data collected from the scanning device is stored in a database. Therefore, the barcode scanners are attached to PCs having specific time and attendance software. The data can be stored in a database of company server or a shared file on a specific computer.
Data Management:
This includes the role of a time and attendance software. A specific software is used which helps in managing the data. This software is used to calculate the working hours and payroll wages of employees. Some of the features that the software can include are: analysis of performance of individual employee and team, comparison of employee performance of each department, and others. So it is necessary to choose the best time and attendance software.
In this way, the process of payroll management can be made easy by barcode time and attendance systems.
Barcoded ID-Badges are more robust than magnetic stripe data due to the fact that the mag-stripe information can be erased if placed in close proximity to an active cellphone. The electromagnetic fields emitted by cellphones are sufficient to seriously disrupt mag-stripe encoded information. Additionally, barcoded badges are cheaper to produce than proximity badges.