Cost control is an important element of every business. One of the largest expense areas in any business is employee related costs. Based on figures by the American Payroll Association, each year businesses can lose more than $1,000 per employee by using non-automated employee time and attendance systems. Those lost dollars are a result of necessary labor related to collecting, calculating and entering payroll data manually; time calculation inaccuracy; time theft / time card fraud; unauthorized overtime; and sick leave and vacation policy abuse.

Prior to TimeIPS, the Valley State Bank with branches in 2 cities used a time clock to manage their employees for the past 39 years. While the traditional time clock helped them keep track of employee time worked each pay period, it fell short in several areas that Doug Morley, President of the Kansas-based bank believed would save his bank money and frustration in tracking time for their 29 employees. "With our manual time clocks, we had no way of knowing that people were going to have overtime on the payroll until after the fact. The banks' staff and supervisors had to literally calculate their time on an adding machine and project when employees would hit 40 hours." says Morley. He continues, "Despite policies and procedures in place to prohibit unauthorized overtime, there was no efficient way to pro-actively monitor employee schedule compliance until we implemented the TimeIPS system from Stratitec."

With their manual time clock system, time cards were hand typed for each employee and gathered by hand at the end of each pay period. Doug Morley, President of Valley State Bank explains, "We have a branch in Wichita, with the main bank located in another town nearly an hour away. The Wichita time cards had to be physically collected on Saturdays and driven to the main branch, in order to manually calculate time and hours worked early on Monday morning."

The Valley State Bank turned to Wichita-based business productivity solutions provider Stratitec and their TimeIPS product for help. Designed and developed by Stratitec, TimeIPS is a low-cost, yet high-powered, electronic Intelligent Personnel System that has allowed Morley to more closely monitor and manage his employees. "After 90-days [of using TimeIPS], we've cut overtime costs by approximately 80%," says Morley.

Following the bank's purchase, the Stratitec installation team implemented the TimeIPS system at two bank locations in less than one day. The installation occurred on a Saturday and all employees were using the new system the following Monday.

Immediately following implementation, Stratitec provided assistance and training on setting up employee schedules, e-mail notifications and employee time editing. Total on-site training time for the TimeIPS system was approximately one hour, followed by several hours of phone support as needed, over the next few days, to answer additional questions. "TimeIPS customer support staff was always available to answer any questions or address any problems, via a telephone call." Morley said. He continues, "After any technology install, you generally anticipate the tech people will need to come back to the facility. In our case, any issues that arose afterwards were handled in a timely and accurate way, on the phone".

Not only has TimeIPS saved the bank substantial money in eliminating unauthorized overtime, but it has also dramatically reduced payroll processing time. With the bank's previous time clocks, it took approximately 1 to 1 ½ hours to manually process the time cards for each regular payroll period, with payroll periods including holidays taking a bit longer. With their new TimeIPS system, the bank's payroll period processing time has been cut dramatically - it now takes approximately 15 minutes - saving at least one hour each pay period. Payroll processing for periods including holidays have been dramatically improved as well.

The TimeIPS system features used by Valley State Bank on a regular basis include time adjustment due to a missed employee clock-in or clock-out, notification via email to inform an employee of how much time they’ve worked during the week and email notification for incorrect employee clock-in and clock-out times. One of the most important features utilized by the bank to control overtime provides for up to 3 individuals (for example: the employee, the employee's manager and an HR/payroll person or senior manager) to be notified via email when an employee is approaching overtime. This allows for corrective action to be taken in advance, thus avoiding the costly expense of unauthorized overtime.

Assessing the value of TimeIPS to the bank Morley stated, "Overall, the implementation of TimeIPS has provided the following solutions for Valley State Bank: reduced overtime costs, more efficient use of staff time, more individual accountability for time used by staff, the ability to monitor the location of individual staff members, (for example: is John clocked in at the branch or at the main bank?) better control of quantity of staff needed, more efficient payroll processing and administration, and immediate overtime cost reduction in first quarter of use."

"Saving time and money, TimeIPS gives any company's leadership a precise and easy way to keep track of the substantial investment they have in employee wages," says Robert Barger, president of Stratitec. "We are very pleased that TimeIPS has provided a significant reduction in overtime labor expenses and payroll processing time for The Valley State Bank." He continues, "Now, business owners and managers, can securely manage employee information, schedules and attendance, see who's clocked in or on-site in another building from any computer on the network all in REAL-TIME - secure, password-protected access is not limited to a single PC or management workstation."

Based on their administration permissions, lower level supervisors and self-managed employees in multiple locations can utilize these same powerful capabilities of TimeIPS to view and revise employee information, manage employee attendance, schedules and job/project cost tracking -- all via simple drop down menus and easy point and click options. REAL-TIME employee reports are available with just a few mouse clicks and can be opened in all database and spreadsheet software including MS Excel. "It is very user friendly," says Sandy Wharton, assistant vice president at The Valley State Bank. Payroll and employee time information can be collected, calculated and processed according to any need. "I can easily run customized reports in just minutes," says Wharton.

"One of the most expensive parts of running any business is labor costs," Barger says. "A real-time, automated solution can save institutions and businesses over $1,000 a year per employee based on research and reports we’ve studied from the American Payroll Association. TimeIPS is the key for virtually any company to cost-effectively manage employee resources with the required level of precision to help drive a meaningful, lasting and consistent contribution to the bottom line."

For more information contact TimeIPS via Phone: 316-315-0300.
Web address: www.timeips.com.