It is an employer's responsibility to make sure that timesheets are recorded accurately and efficiently. Introducing a good time management system is an easy way of ensuring that your company’s time tracking system is effective. But more importantly, it helps employer's stay in line with the law. Poor time tracking and timesheet management will not only impact your business’s bottom line but could also carry serious legal implications. Failure to adhere to employment laws can lead to fines and in extreme cases prison sentences, so it’s in a business’s best interest to incorporate a clear and accountable structures and guidelines. Good employee time tracking is not just about making sure that staff are being paid fairly and accurately, it’s also about making sure you follow the legal requirements of time management.
These 3 points below are some of the ways that employers can make mistakes with time management and the legal implications they have:
Tax
Timesheets have a direct relationship with tax. What you pay your employees and the payments you make in tax derive from the data recorded in timesheets. It doesn't matter if it's intentional or accidental, incorrectly inputted timesheet data can have a serious knock-on effect on tax payments. Carelessness with record keeping and time tracking can result in fines and extreme circumstances of intentional fraud and embezzlement, jail time. It’s easy to avoid this by simply integrating a smart online time tracking system for employees. A centralised and accessible system for staff helps cut out the old, flawed methods of timekeeping that open the days to manipulation and negligence.
Keeping in line with employment laws
Timesheets and time tracking are an important legal requirement for employers to follow but they're not the only areas that need careful consideration. There are other laws that need to be followed and good time management can help a business keep up to date and above board. Employment laws cover a variety of areas that fall under the realm of time management, holiday entitlement and pay, working time, maternity/paternity leave and pay and minimum wage rates. Ensuring your company fulfils its legal requirements is extremely important and time tracking helps give employer’s and staff a transparent and clear system for reporting and recording all data in relation to these laws. An online time management system that records timesheets, absence and leave helps support your business and make sure a robust time tracking system is in place. Another huge benefit of time tracking software is that it creates an easily auditable structure and ensures that you stay in line with employment laws, helping you avoid the serious legal repercussions that are connected with failing to accurately carry out time management.
Unfair dismissal
It’s something you hope to never deal with but unfortunately in some cases dismissing an employee is something that must be done. It’s not an easy process both personally for the persons involved but also from a legal standpoint. If your company has a strong time management structure in place, this will be a great benefit for dismissal proceedings that relate to issues such as timesheet fraud or discrepancies with leave and absence. If a company has a clear and well recorded online time tracking system, it will be easier to defend and standby a decision to dismiss a member of staff. As unpleasant as firing an employee is, doing it in an efficient, fair and justifiable way is the best outcome for everyone involved.
Knowing your rights and responsibilities as an employer is incredibly important and can protect your business from serious legal repercussions. Time management is a significant area within in a business and it has a number of aspects that need to be carefully monitored to stay in line with legal requirements. Adopting an online time tracking system is a great way of creating a process that is both efficient and transparent, making sure that across the board employees and employers are protected.
