Automated timesheets, along with templates of daily reports, speed up payroll processes and provide a significant cost reduction. We review ten critical benefits in this article.
According to research, large companies may lose up to $90.000 annually due to lost or damaged-beyond-fixing documents. So, if most of your paperwork happens manually, you might be losing money, too, and for the same reasons.
Depending on the line of business, paperwork may be unavoidable, though. That’s often the case with timesheets – simple slips that include essential information about the hours that employees complete on a given project and within an agreed-upon timeframe.
If you’re already looking for a tool to automate information extraction form timesheets, head to Alphamoon’s offer right away.
This article explains the benefits of automating timesheets, so – without further ado – let’s get to the list.
Business benefits of automatic timesheets
#1 Lower costs of processing documents
Automated timesheets are usually digital copies of physical documents that arrive in your email inbox or any other folder as scans. A common practice that saves time when digitizing papers is bulking them into one pdf, which creates the first hurdle in the workflow.
Now, without any tool that automates image reading and information extraction, you need dedicated employees who will perform this task. Opening one scan after another, then rewriting names, numbers, and other details into a system is neither creative for the employee nor rentable on your end. Automatic processing lifts that weight off your shoulders. Scanned docs in folders are directly routed to the platform, which scans them and performs data extraction.
As a result, you keep the value of new hirings in your pocket.
#2 Reducing human errors
Timesheets require little processing, but despite that, there’s always the danger of writing the wrong date, name, or missing a piece of information. On the office front, data can be erratically jotted down into any other system, thus creating issues with paid wages.
Automation succeeds in reducing such errors. Alphamoon’s IDP platform works in a human-in-the-loop system, where each process and extracted piece of data can be supervised or altered by humans.
#3 Positive impact on payroll processing
Notwithstanding any other use that you may have, timesheets exist primarily for payroll.
If you’re an agency that hires temporal workers or it’s simply common in your line of business to hire on a seasonal basis, then you know the struggle. Paper records are needed for regulatory audits and are the only proof of someone’s work time. When automation’s in place, payroll becomes smoother and less prone to delays or errors.
#4 Removing the problem of favoritism among supervisors
Even the best managers may fall prey to favoritism, which gets significantly worse when completed tasks leave a minimal trace. While office workers can use analytics or other evidence forms, seasonal employees can struggle whenever bias comes to play because there is significantly less trace of the job they complete. In that case, having a digital copy of each day of work constitutes a more resilient source of information.
Furthermore, automation removes common issues such as buddy punching – that is, when employees complete timesheets for their colleagues.
#5 Adherence to workplace policies (including time schedules)
Sometimes it’s essential to run your operation on a very tight schedule. Bakeries could serve as a perfect example since the job begins way before opening the doors to customers.
Automated timesheets can give you and your team real-time insights into time spent on specific tasks and help enforce a rigid schedule to maximize performance.
#6 Insights into data about projects
Concerning the previous point, automation of documents is a source of financial and project knowledge.
Team leaders and supervisors can learn a lot about the performance of the team, as well as the wages-related costs of a project. Furthermore, document processing happens in the background, so you’re provided fresh data to keep you informed about costs at all times. Consequently, automation also helps create more realistic future plans (better time allocation, wage expectation, and overtime forecast).
#7 Easy access to hours worked
Document automation platform enables you to find pieces of information instantly. Whenever you need to find information on a specific part of a project, client, or employee, you can quickly locate the particular timesheet.
#8 Immediate results
You will immediately reap what you sow. Document automation instantly increases efficiency and empowers teams to learn the details of their current performance for the sake of future optimization and resource allocation.
#9 No more pay disputes
Even one lost, or incomplete paper timesheet is an issue for future cost forecasting. On top of that, chaos in your paperwork encourages manipulation – such as buddy punching – and may lead to losses, overpaying, or underpaying. Furthermore, the traditional way of tracking work time can lead to queues in the workplace and frustration.
#10 A higher degree of fairness in the employer-employee relationship
After all the data-driven benefits, let’s end on a human note because automation of timesheets makes the job more coherent on both sides.
Employers keep control over budgets, while employees do not have to worry about some paper documents taking away their earnings. Smoother payroll processes translate to a higher degree of job satisfaction, too – you benefit from a firmer grip over costs and project scope; meanwhile, your employees get the agreed-upon pay without unnecessary delays and problems.
The Alphamoon automation platform for timesheets
Now that you’re pretty much covered in terms of the “why,” let’s see the “how.”
Alphamoon is a document processing platform that deploys state-of-the-art AI technology to smoothen processes dealing with paperwork. The engine, which fuels Alphamoon, achieves tremendous results in data extraction accuracy, document classification, and image-to-text conversion.
The timesheet workflow operates best when templates are easy for OCR components to the process. When scans of the paper documents land in cloud folders, Alphamoon sources them and begins the processing.
- You have control over the fields that the platform extracts and prepares in the downloadable CSV file.
- You may add users, too, just in case the chain of approval in your company is considerable.
- Thanks to the application of Continual Learning principles, the platform gets better at extraction over time, becoming your team’s virtual assistant in all things paperwork.
Ready to learn more about our timesheet automation? Describe your needs in the form.
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