Best-in-Class Workforce Management Software from Industry Experts
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Can Your Current System Go Beyond Employee Time Tracking?

February 13th, 2013 | Posted by Apex Time Solutions in customer relationship management | Employee Scheduling | Employee Self Service | Forecasting | HRIS | Labour Analytics | Labour cost | Overtime Equalization | Payroll | Talent Management | Time and Attendance Blog, Workforce Management Software | Workforce Management Software - (0 Comments)

Time and Attendance has evolved in the last several years from mere employee time tracking to include; employee self-service, workforce planning and business intelligence to name a few. Companies today, want a solution that can grow as their needs evolve without multiple customizations. If your company is using a system that is heavy on customization, it’s time to look at alternatives.

ATS workforce management software is designed for mid size and enterprise businesses. Our time and attendance solution helps organizations across a variety of industries to effectively forecast and manage their workforce. The integrated ATS workforce management solution includes: time and attendance, data collection, employee scheduling, forecasting, employee self-service and business analytics. TimeWork can be utilized in its cloud-based or on-premises format. ATS solutions helps companies control labour costs, streamline business process and manage compliance risk.

ATS Time & Attendance Includes:
Benefit Accruals-TimeWork automates employee accruals and time-off requests. In addition, it has the flexibility to facilitate your organization’s most complex benefit policies and transform them into enduring practices.

Attendance Management-Detailed attendance records can be maintained for employees. Managers can be proactively notified through various business analytic reporting.

Employee Self-Service-Through a web browser, employees have direct access to their personal information so they can request time-off and review schedules.

Overtime Equalization- Automatically notify employees of overtime offers and enable employees to review, accept and reject overtime on the same console they use for attendance and labour transactions.

Data Integration—Integrate ATS time and attendance data with; Talent Management, Human Resources Information Systems, Customer Relationship Management and Payroll applications to produce accurate data.

Data Collection-Collect and distribute time and labour metrics to quickly enforce employee schedules and job assignments.

Support-Our integrated implementation support offers reliable response to technical disruptions, and maintains the health and integrity of the system. With this offering, companies benefit from insights into ATS solutions and expertise to mitigate risk, while tapping the innovations that ATS continually introduces.

ATS integrated solution delivers a web-based time and attendance set that includes: employee data collection, workforce planning, scheduling, employee self-service and business analytics. Our comprehensive solutions, help companies streamline business processes and improve workforce productivity.

To learn more, go to our website and arrange a demonstration, contact us.

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Does the Lowest Price Meet your Business Requirements?

February 27th, 2012 | Posted by Apex Time Solutions in Absence Management | Benefit Accruals | Employee Time and Attendance | Hosted Time and Attendance Solution | Time and Attendance Blog, Workforce Management Software | Web-Based Time and Attendance Software - (0 Comments)

Today, more than ever, consumers are bombarded with ads that promote low prices on everything from TVs to microwave ovens. The word “value” is used to lure customers into purchasing products that comes with such advertised tags that include; “lowest prices anywhere” or “best price value system”.

We surveyed some of our customers to find out if price was the deciding factor when choosing a vendor for their business automation solution. A sampling of their responses includes the following:

“Price is important to our company. However, our software is used for the calculation of employee hours and processing payroll. We cannot get this wrong, our leadership would prefer I spend a little more to get good service”.

“The system has to meet our needs; that’s key for us”. We can negotiate price with a vendor if we like their product, but we do not put price ahead of our business requirements”.

“We brought in a consultant who got us the cheapest solution on the market. The invoice for his services exceeded the cost of the product. Our CEO tossed the system out after 3 months. It did not meet our needs at the most basic level. We learned a costly lesson, one which this company will not repeat”.

A couple of sentences in an article by Richard Cartwright on the “Garden Center Strategies” blog caught our eye. “We all know the thrill of purchasing an item at a low price only to later be disappointed when the item’s lower quality fails to perform its intended purpose.  When the item has to be replaced the money spent was actually wasted, not saved!”

Unlike a TV or microwave oven, Workforce management software is a long term investment that has a direct impact on a company’s payroll process. ATS SaaS time and attendance is a cloud based solution that takes away all the headaches of maintaining a server and an IT department to support it. The software can be accessed through any computer with a web-browser 365 days a year 24/7.

Solution Benefits:

  • Cloud Based application (No internal IT support required)
  • Configured to meet any company’s work rule policy including collective bargaining agreements
  • Export reports to either XLS, HTML or PDF format
  • New release and enhancements at no additional cost
  • Can be accessed on smart PDA’s  and other mobile devices
  • Integration with any ERP, Payroll and HRIS Application
  • Personalized setup and unlimited support from your ATS implementation personnel

The implementation of an ATS SaaS time and attendance solution enables businesses to reap many benefits including: reduced overtime costs, improved employee engagement and low total cost of ownership.

To learn how Canadian businesses are deploying our best-in-class time and attendance solution, go to our website.

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‘Tis the Season to Monitor Productivity and Labour Costs

November 21st, 2011 | Posted by Apex Time Solutions in Retail | Scheduling | Time and Attendance Solution - (0 Comments)

With the holiday season rapidly approaching, retailers are both hopeful and excited. Most retail operations increase their staffing levels in anticipation of business volume. The ATS time and attendance solution helps retail operations keep track of employee attendance, absenteeism and monitors productivity for optimal profitability.

This robust time and attendance solution supports an unlimited number of schedules, as well as, fixed, open and flexible shifts. Employee tracking options include: Online Time Sheets, Web-Time Clocks, Biometric Terminals, Barcode Time Clocks, Magnetic Swipe Clocks, Smart Phones and Tablet PCs which monitor employee time and compile a range of labour analytics reports. Retail operations utilizing the ATS time and attendance solution will easily avoid payroll errors and the inflationary costs associated with mistakes made through manual processes.

Solution Benefits:

Employee Scheduling

ATS integrated time and attendance scheduling application ensures your levels are aligned to business volume. The software helps supervisors schedule the right people in the right place at the right time. The application allows supervisors to schedule by: seniority, skills, certifications, preferences and availability. 

 Budgeting

The budgeting module provides supervisors with the tools to review projected vs. actual labour expenses in each department. A variety of intuitive reports help supervisors adjust staffing to align with budgeted hours.

 Forecasting

The ATS forecasting module helps retailers track the history of business volume and produce accurate forecasts of future business cycles while simultaneously providing detailed calculations of workforce management requirements. Departments can track data by defining forecast drivers to achieve a set of requirements specifically to that department. The ATS forecasting module provides businesses with technology to develop work schedules that meet business demands.

The ATS integrated time and attendance scheduling application can be set up in less than a week depending on the complexity of the business requirements. The solution is web-based and does not require a company to buy licenses and install software. Instead, companies pay an “as-needed” subscription fee and then access the software from a computer using any web browser.

To learn more, go to our website or REGISTER on to join our weekly time and attendance user group.

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How is your Business Carbon Footprint?

October 31st, 2011 | Posted by Apex Time Solutions in Hosted Time and Attendance Software | Web-Based Time and Attendance Software - (0 Comments)

Many of today’s businesses and governments have embraced the importance of the environment and the compelling science behind it. At Apex Time Solutions, we are proponents of green technology and its many advantages. Our Web-Based Time and Attendance solution provides customers with the ability to access their data on any web browser. With an ATS hosted time management solution this means you no longer need time sheets to track employee hours.

The ATS Workforce Management Software is a powerful suite and provides broad-based capabilities to help companies better manage their business and their labour force.

This solution was designed to meet the challenges of today’s complex and ever-changing business environments. By using the ATS Web-Based Time and Attendance in their workforce management operations, customers will be able to:

  • Accurately collect and report time and attendance data for payroll and other data integration
  • Produce accurate business forecasts to calculate staffing requirements
  • Extract key workforce and business data to create management reports that provide comprehensive feedback

The ATS Web-Based Time and Attendance Solution have the power to optimize your workforce and:  reduce labour costs, improve employee productivity and provide low total cost of ownership. With an ATS hosted time management solution you will no longer need to track employee hours with time sheets and that will save some trees.

To read more about our Software-as-a-Service Solution go to our website. You can also follow us on Twitter or LinkedIn for news and other software product updates.

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Software-as-a-Service versus On-Premises Installation

October 26th, 2011 | Posted by Apex Time Solutions in Hosted Time and Attendance Solution | Hosted Time and Attendance System | Time and Attendance On-Demand | Web-Based Time and Attendance | Web-Based Time and Attendance Software | Workforce Management Software | Workforce Management Solutions - (0 Comments)

In some of our earlier blogs we highlighted the difference between a legacy time and attendance solution that is installed on a company’s network versus a Software-as-a-Service (Saas) application. Today, many companies offering cloud computing and web-based technology products.

The inspiration behind this blog has to do with a recent conversation one of our support representatives had with a prospective customer. This company had been looking for an employee time tracking software for several months and could not decide on a solution that would meet their needs. While they were enamored with the idea of a hosted time and attendance application, they were concerned about privacy issues and downtime. In our view, these are legitimate concerns and should be discussed before deploying web-based workforce management software.

We recognize that some companies have reasons for choosing a legacy application over a Software-as-a-Service time management system and that’s fine. It should be noted that ATS espouses the virtues of web-based technologies because it quickly adapts to the needs of today’s modern enterprise and is also highly configurable.

Listed below are some differences between a time and attendance software installed on a company’s network or office PC versus accessing the application through an internet browser.

Software-as-a-Service Workforce Management Software:

  • Implementation is quicker because there is no software to install on a company’s network involving your IT department and more than likely the purchase of a new Server
  • There are no additional costs for maintenance agreements and software updates
  • Companies with multiple sites do not need to build remote access to an existing network. All that is required in a remote location is a computer with access to the Internet
  • Mobile workers can record their time and review accrual balances through any smart phone: Apple iPhone®, iPad®, and the iPod® Touch, BlackBerry® and Android Phones
  • Our hosted time and attendance can be deployed at a much smaller cost

Time and Attendance Installed on a Company’s Network:

  • Annual maintenance costs for the software is generally between 15%-20%
  • A company is prepared to undergo a 6 -12 month implementation process, depending on the size of the organization
  • Large out-of-pocket expenses for the initial investment
  • On going maintenance of a company’s network and the resources of an IT person or department to manage the software
  • Costs for software updates or upgrades

The ATS Software-as-a-Service time and attendance solution offers companies the ultimate in flexibility, a quick ROI and low total cost of ownership. However, we suggest a company evaluate and decide what’s best for their business.  For some companies, software installed on their network and managed by their IT personnel is more suited to their organizational structure. For others, their ability to access the software from any web browser without having to upgrade servers aligns with their corporate goals.

You can download a white paper on the difference between an On-Premise versus Software-as-a-Service Workforce Management Solution on our website. To speak to one of our account representatives call us at 1.866.294.2467.

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Time and Attendance Software for the Hospitality Industry

October 24th, 2011 | Posted by Apex Time Solutions in Employee Self Service | Employee Time and Attendance | Employee Time Tracking | Time and Attendance On-Demand | Time and Attendance Software | Web-Based Time and Attendance Software | Workforce Scheduling Software - (0 Comments)

One of the hospitality industry’s biggest challenges apart from controlling costs is the ability to schedule the right people at the right to meet business volume. Whether it’s a quick serve chain, a large resort or urban hotel, the inherent challenges mirror each other. In a time of persistent economic uncertainty and intensifying competition, finding the right tools is essential to help control costs, increase revenue, and sustain customer satisfaction.

The ATS Time and Attendance Solution delivers real time activity based costing and helps to govern and automate the entire process from punch to pay. The pay rules library and flexibility allow for 100% automation of rules without costly changes to the core code. Hours and wage rule compliance is consistent and automated with alerts when a threshold for violation is approached – providing proactive reconciliation. The self-service capability of time and attendance increases productivity and managers will spend less time managing administrative tasks and more time focusing on customers.

The ATS Hospitality Workforce Management Software suite provides the following benefits:

  • Tracking of overtime, on-call shifts, premiums and tips
  • Labour forecasting and optimization
  • Employee scheduling by preferences, seniority and certifications
  • Tracking and managing split shifts and location of staff
  • Ability to configure and maintain various collective bargaining agreements through the software code
  • Schedule versus actual labour
  • Recognition of the real hours worked by individual employees
  • Elimination/reduction of manual processes e.g. timesheets and spreadsheets
  • Efficient processes through accurate transfer of data to payroll
  • On the spot human resources and labour reports
  • Accurate alignment of resources with the needs of the business

ATS Workforce Management Software for hospitality enables customers to accurately collect and report time and attendance data for payroll generation and benefits administration, produce enterprise-wide forecasts of upcoming business, calculate staffing requirements, automatically generate optimized schedules that meet forecasted workforce requirements, and extract key workforce and business data.

To read more about our hospitality time and attendance software suite or for a demo go to our website.

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Do You Back Up Your Time and Attendance Data?

September 8th, 2011 | Posted by Apex Time Solutions in Employee Time and Attendance | Employee Time Tracking | Hosted Time and Attendance Software | Time and Attendance On-Demand | Web-Based Time and Attendance | Web-Based Time and Attendance Software - (0 Comments)

That’s an important question that most businesses cannot answer. Study after study has shown that most businesses cannot remember the last time they backed up their files. As companies are becoming comfortable with cloud computing software it has become paramount that businesses have a way to back up their important data. One of the most useful ways an organization can use cloud computing is for online data back up and storage. ATS cloud-based time and attendance storage offers companies many benefits, not the least of which is instantaneous data back up—a service that provides companies with both convenience and peace of mind.

Vendors like Apple® icloud, IBM® cloud and many others who offer Software-as-a-Service with a secure way to back up your data, support the prevailing theory of its importance.

ATS Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) delivery model allows companies to reap the benefits of enterprise class software without the burden and extra cost of servers and an IT department to manage software. The end result, customers appreciate several key advantages from the SaaS delivery model and at the click of a button, can back up their own data.

An online demo of our cloud computing software is also available on our website. For additional information, register online to attend our weekly webinar.

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Scheduling the Workforce in the 21st Century

August 24th, 2011 | Posted by Apex Time Solutions in Employee Time and Attendance | Employee Time Tracking | Hosted Time and Attendance Software | Time and Attendance Software | Time Management Solutions | Web-Based Time and Attendance | Web-Based Time and Attendance Software | Workforce Management Software | Workforce Management Solutions | Workforce Scheduling Software - (0 Comments)

Despite the best efforts of HR management, payroll practitioners and departmental supervisors, employee scheduling has become a constant headache. When asked what would make life easier in your department, the answer invariably amounts to, “I would like a system that can capture our work rule policies and allow me to schedule employees for the right shifts depending on preference and/or business volume. “It is important to note that not all scheduling software is created equal or serves the same verticals. The type of scheduling functionality required by a manufacturing plant will be different from that of a hospital that operates 24/7.

Our employee time and attendance scheduling module empowers managers to accurately create schedules that align labour with anticipated demand, while adhering to all company and regulatory scheduling policies consistently.

The ATS scheduling module meets the needs of the various sectors:

 The technology of our scheduling module allows the master scheduler or department manager to quickly identify qualified substitutes and select one to fill the shift.  ATS scheduling software significantly reduces the amount of time, resources and overall cost associated with employee scheduling.

Here are some benefits to using our scheduling software:

  • Produce any schedule for any time frame in minutes to save time
  • Make schedule changes quickly and effortlessly to better utilize staff
  • Pre-assign shifts and time-off to better plan your schedules
  • Print schedules, send them via e-mail, or post schedules online to keep your staff up-to-date
  • Automatically copy schedule patterns and rotations to cut time needed to create reoccurring schedules
  • Display staffing levels to eliminate time-consuming and error-prone calculations
  • Instantly view your shift coverage to assure all shifts remain properly covered and to avoid being under-scheduled
  • See the number of hours scheduled per employee to avoid overtime
  • View available personnel and their contact information to find replacement or assign additional shifts in no time
  • Track staff skills, credentials, and training to find immediately qualified personnel for open shifts
  • Access historical scheduling data to better forecast your staffing needs

The ATS Scheduling module is part of our time and attendance software suite, which gives you complete workforce management control.

You can read more about our time and attendance scheduling or visit our website to learn about scheduling automation for your workforce.

Follow us on Twitter and join our Linkedin group for updates on Time and Attendance and Workforce Management Software.

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Are you Tracking Employee Overtime?

August 22nd, 2011 | Posted by Apex Time Solutions in Employee Time and Attendance | Employee Time Tracking | Overtime Equalization | Time and Attendance | Time and Attendance On-Demand | Time and Attendance Software | Time and Attendance System | Time Management Solutions | Web-Based Time and Attendance | Web-Based Time and Attendance Software | Workforce Management Software - (0 Comments)

The tracking of overtime or lack thereof has become a hot button issue for many companies in recent years. Litigators and employment lawyers alike have been scratching their heads in disbelief that some companies either have no policy or could not be bothered to track the overtime hours of employees. In Canada, the HRSDC has created pamphlets of information on “Hours of Work and Overtime Pay” for employers. Many municipalities and provinces have their own set of labour laws which range from banking overtime, overtime averaging and overtime equalization. In the United States, the department of labor has the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)  to help guide employers.

So, is it easy to track overtime hours of employees and avoid a disgruntled workforce? If you are using a paper and pencil, or the antiquated punch clock system the answer is no. An effective time and attendance system is one that automates the manual tasks of employee attendance tracking. In addition, the time and attendance software tracks: vacation, rate of pay, statutory holidays, overtime hours and also serves as a scheduling tool for your workforce analytics and reporting functions. The time and attendance system should also be easy to use for both employees and management.

In addition to tracking employee overtime hours, our system includes the following benefits: 

  • Eliminates payroll errors and reduces payroll preparation time through automation
  • Accurately track attendance, absences and vacations
  • Automate the calculation of time cards and calculate employee hours
  • Reduce the costs associated with purchasing time cards for each pay period
  • Track and pay premiums
  • Optional automatic lunch deductions
  • Provide customized reports to aid decision making
  • Track time against departments, work orders, or other fields
  • Automate the equitable distribution of available overtime to qualified employees in accordance with configurable business rules

Read more about tracking employee overtime with our time and attendance system.

Follow us on Twitter and join our Linkedin group for updates on Time and Attendance and Workforce Management Software.

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Accurate Data in a World of Regulatory Compliance

August 15th, 2011 | Posted by Apex Time Solutions in Hosted Time and Attendance Software | Time and Attendance On-Demand | Time and Attendance Software | Time and Attendance System | Time Management Solutions | Web-Based Time and Attendance | Workforce Management Solutions - (0 Comments)

Many people are aware of Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 or its commonly referred to acronym, SOX. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act is an eleven-part document covering all the requirements for registrants of the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Important parts of this report include sections 302 and 404, which impose new rules and responsibilities intended to ensure that financial reports are materially and accurate present a fair and true picture of a company’s condition. 

Section 302 requires CEO’s and CFO’s to sign off on the accuracy of their financial statements, obligating them to accept personal liability for those statements; a new and frightening responsibility.

Canada, Europe and other parts of the world have their own brand of Sarbanes-Oxley. The purpose of this is to prevent the type of corporate scandals that have made shareholders of public companies, see their stock lose value, because of the lack of oversight by a few greedy tycoons.

Our Hosted Time and Attendance Software provides rudimentary SOX Compliance initiatives that include:

  • Multiple highly secure facilities with redundant fault tolerant environment
  • Crucial scheduled database backups
  • Flexible reporting from a secure database structure

Sarbanes–Oxley requires that controls are in place to ensure a secure environment for sensitive and financially related data for organizations. Our Web-Based Time and Attendance Software is hosted at a secure server facility. Apex Time Solutions will assist with SOX Compliance by ensuring secured access to mandated reporting is made available when required.

 With ATS Cloud-Based Hosted Time and Attendance you eliminate expensive hardware purchases, license renewals, and any other fees required to maintain your IT system. Avoid all the heartaches that come with manual time sheets by automating your time clocks. The ATS Hosted Time and Attendance System solves this problem by accurately recording your employee’s time punches, and automating your rules and regulations resulting in a precise payroll process.

 Our Workforce Management Solutions include activities, processes, and tools needed to manage a workforce. There is a wide variety of configurable time and attendance solutions that can meet the demand of any business segment, which include:

  • Time and Attendance – labour tracking, data collection, time tracking
  • Absence Planning – managed leaves, unmanaged leaves, productivity
  • Workforce Planning – long term forecasting, variance management
  • Scheduling – optimizing, short term forecasting, shift tracking

 You can save thousands of dollars but still run your business like a world-class infrastructure. We offer a very flexible per-user/per-month pricing structure for our hosted time and attendance software. With Apex Time Solutions, you only pay for what you need.

 To download a copy of our Hosted Time and Attendance brochure click here. To view a demo or to speak to one of our account executives contact us here.

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