4 Reasons Your Business Needs Time Card Apps

Time card apps present an opportunity for you to increase your team’s efficiency and streamline time-tracking workflows for your business operations.

These types of applications are widely used to help hourly workers or contractors track their time digitally so they can be paid based on hours worked.

So when does it make sense to switch from manual time cards and punch clocks to digital apps? Continue reading this article for a look at some of the top reasons for using time card apps and how to know when it makes sense for your business to switch.

Benefits of time card apps vs. time clocks and paper timesheets

Using paper sheets to track employees’ time can be inefficient and error-prone. Paper sheets tend to get lost over time, manual work is required to process the paperwork, and mistakes are often made by employees or required information can be missing from the document.

Time card apps, time clock apps, and time tracking apps provide flexibility in how your business can track time and work hours for employees, contractors, freelancers, and more. When you think about the time spent on mobile devices today, it makes sense that workers should be able to use an app on their iOS devices such as iPhones, iPads, or Android mobile devices.

The data collected in apps are then available for office administrators or workers to access on a desktop, as needed. Here are 4 business reasons to switch to time card apps instead of paper or spreadsheets:

1. Need for secure and reliable cloud applications

Paper time cards are error-prone and subject to being lost by employees or HR departments before being submitted for payroll or invoicing. 

But with time card apps, work is tracked in real-time and the data is automatically stored securely in the cloud or locally to the device. This reliability makes mobile time tracking apps and time clock apps ideal for small businesses and enterprise-level companies to ensure that accurate records are kept. 

Time card apps are more secure than traditional paper timesheets or even online timesheets, giving your workers the ability to manage the entire process from their mobile devices. 

If security and reliability are top priorities for your business and you can’t afford to lose data, then it definitely makes sense to have your time card processes moved over to a secure cloud application that can provide peace of mind.

2. Need for automation and workflows

Time card apps also allow you to introduce simple automation rules that can change the way your teams operate. For example, using time tracking software or time management software in conjunction with a time card app, companies can automatically submit employee hours to payroll platforms such as ADP, QuickBooks, Xero, Workday, Paychex, and other payroll services. This streamlines processes for your teams and makes the entire process seamless, freeing up valuable time that can be spent elsewhere.

If productivity is a challenge and you need to free up time for your staff, consider using apps that can modernize your process and automate tasks that would otherwise be manual and time-consuming.

3. Need for GPS tracking and geofencing

If your business needs to verify that work has been performed on-site, the GPS functionality of a mobile app can provide a way to verify the exact location. For this use case, businesses are using time card apps on mobile devices that tap into GPS location features to identify when workers enter a job site and when they leave a job site in real-time. 

This practice is often referred to as “geofencing,” where companies draw a digital boundary around a specific area. As users’ devices enter or exit that area, a time tracker can kick in to track billable hours.

If your business relies on a distributed or field workforce, then there is a strong business case for implementing mobile apps that are designed to simplify field operations management.

4. Growing business complexity

If you have a complex business with different categories of workers, it can be beneficial to use time card apps and timesheet apps to manage this process. The apps can handle the hours submitted by full-time employees, part-time employees, freelancers, and contractors differently. 

Some of these workers may have different pricing levels. Others may require the withholding of taxes, and others may require payment through various hiring platforms. All of these differentiators are trackable with proper time management tools.

When you are getting to this level of complexity with managing time, there’s definitely a clear advantage to time card apps and the amount of time saved through simplified processes.

Templates to build your own time management apps 

Every business is unique, with different people, processes, and technologies in place. Two important considerations when selecting a time management solution are ease of use and level of customization.

Given all of the nuances of your business, you need the ability to customize an app to fit your requirements. But at the same time, it shouldn’t require an advanced level of technical expertise or a big budget to achieve that customization.

Organizations have found that GoCanvas provides the ideal balance between customization and ease of use. Using our drag-and-drop app builder requires no coding to publish custom apps for your specific business needs.

The simplicity of the product and the extensive library of templates gives you the ability to very quickly build advanced apps, for time cards and many other common business cases.   

Navigate to the GoCanvas app store to view all of the time card apps that we have pre-built as templates. Make sure to use the search feature to find other examples and templates specific to your industry or use case.