Before invoices and paychecks can be automatically generated by your scheduling software you will need to reconcile employee timesheets. Service type businesses typically require that their employees keep track of their work hours. At the end of billing cycle employees submit their timesheets (time cards).
Timesheets or time cards are vital piece of information because clients are billed and employees are paid according to the hours recorded on the timesheets. But before invoices and paychecks can be created, scheduling hours needs to be reconciled with hours recorded on time cards. This process can be very time consuming and will require a lot of manual data entry.
You can eliminate this bottleneck by using stationary or telephony punch clock (Electronic Visit Verification system or EVV). Telephony Punch clock software will allow your employees to punch in and punch out from their place of work by placing a phone call. Punch Clock or Time Card software records actual hours that employee worked. These hours are then automatically reconciled with scheduling hours, thereby fully automating reconciliation process.

Employee Time Clock software is typically offered by software companies as a service with monthly fee. The fee depends on number of employees that will be using the system or is charged on a per call basis. The average cost of using such system is typically around 25 - 50 cents per call. Not every punch clock service will offer integration with your favorite bookkeeping software. Instead you will be receiving a daily email with punch in/out data or you will be able to login to service company web site to view punch clock information.

A much better alternative to punch clock service is employee scheduling software that offers integrated Telephony Punch Clock/Time Clock. Integrated Telephony Punch Clock will monitor incoming telephone calls and update schedule actual hours based on these calls. Since this type of Punch Clock is integrated into scheduling software it can fully automate timesheet reconciliation. Only very few employee scheduling solutions on the market today offer integrated punch clock feature. TimeCurve Scheduler is one of them.