No matter how big or small your company is, no business owner wants to find themselves constantly losing money or resources due to inefficient work practices, employee work habits, or lawsuits due to data breaches. There are many methods to prevent this, such as having a vigilant manager constantly watching your work or installing CCTVs. But these methods tend to increase the employee’s stress level rather than improve productivity and save money. One effective solution that many businesses use instead is adopting a biometric system.
What are biometric systems?
A biometric system is technology that uses a person’s physical features such as a fingerprint or his or her iris to verify that person’s identity. And unlike regular passwords or time cards that can be misused or lost easily, each person’s features are highly unique and irreplaceable, and can be owned and used only by the individual. As a result, you’ll be able to accurately keep track of your employees’ activities, hours, and control your payroll better.
For small- and medium-sized companies that place high importance on using fewer resources but gaining maximum profit, a biometric system does the following to achieve exactly that.
#1. Eliminates buddy punching
Whether your company uses the traditional punch clock or a time-tracking software, anyone can help your employees punch in and out of the system as you only need their cards or passwords to do so. However, implementing a biometric system eliminates the possibility for employees to punch in for their colleagues aka “buddy punching”.
According to the American Payroll Association, buddy punching has costed companies up to 5% of the gross payroll cost every year, or in other words more than US$373 million nationwide annually. By adopting this system, not only will you avoid spending large amounts of unnecessary money, but your employees will also be forced to come on time and work their hours.
#2. Boosts work productivity
A biometric system can also help your employees save time collecting time cards and inputting data manually on your server. This system automatically updates, sends, and saves the recorded information in your server, which then allows your finance officer to immediately and accurately calculate the amount of hours every employee has worked in that month and pay them accordingly. What’s more, your finance officers will be able to spend less time making salary invoices and allocate more time maintaining your company’s financials.
#3. Lowers cost due to accurate payroll
No one is perfect, which means mistakes can easily happen anytime. But when your employees make mistakes like losing their time cards or your financial officer inputting the wrong time due to the time card having illegible handwriting, this might cause errors in your payroll system. When this happens, not only do your employees waste time fixing the situation, but they also tend to add in more time too. A survey found that most companies will add an extra 15 minutes when errors are made. As a result, you might end up paying your employees more than what you should have.
Biometric technology can help you accurately track your employees’ attendance time and avoid time theft instances, which means every person will be remunerated based on their real working hours.
#4. Increases security
Biometric systems are not only limited to monitoring employee attendance, as they can also be used to enhance your security level. Biometric information cannot be guessed or stolen, which means you’ll know exactly who entered your company or the system. It is also less vulnerable to hacking and malware compared with regular passwords, which means you minimize chances of successful unauthorized access.
This is especially important for companies that store numerous sensitive information on their servers. A biometric system helps you place another security wall so you can protect your confidential information from getting intentionally breached and leaked out. This will also help you avoid regulatory non-compliance, damaged business reputation, and costly lawsuits.
Zentech I.T Solutions offers a plethora of biometric systems that verify different parts of the body, including fingerprints, faces, palms, irises, and other verifiable body parts. Our technicians can also help you install these systems to ensure that they’re always usable and do everything that they should to improve your business process. If you’d like more information about our biometric systems, give us a call today.
