It seems as though this topic will just not DIE!
I am receiving more requests for a time clock feature in POS. The main problems are that I do not want to do it and that computer savvy employees can change the time on the system clock thereby resetting the time on the time clock program whenever they wish to whatever they wish. This makes a computer time clock kind of pointless.
So here is my question. Is there a hardware or other option that will keep the system clock on the straight and narrow even if some hyperactive associate goes to the "Clock" function in Windows and tries to monkey with the correct time? This should work in all versions of Windows from '98 on up.
If you find a solution to this problem your prize may be a free time clock feature in DHPOS even though I really, really do not want to do it.
Time clock - system clock
Moderators:daleadmin, Dale Harris, Alan, Andrew
Time clock
While you will not have to use the employee list in the POS program for sales you will have to enter the employee's name and a PIN number for each employee into the "Employee setup" feature to use the time clock. If in "Employee setup" you set using the emplyee list to "NO" then the employee list will only be used for the time clock.
You will be able to access the time clock as an option from the option "9. Associates" in the main menu of the POS.EXE program. When you access the time clock function you will be asked to enter your PIN number to access your time card. Here is the program I have so far http://dhpos.com/timeclk2.exe at the moment it is only the interface to punch the time card, it does not save the information at the moment and it will not print the card. That is coming.
If you run the program you will see that it is a weekly time card. You enter your ins and outs for the entire week. The program will store a time card for each employee for the week and it can be printed out. I will have the program store time cards from previous weeks and the previous cards can be accessed and printed out. At the present time I have not decided if time cards will be saved forever or only for one year.
There will be a feature that a manager can enter a corrected time if there is a screwup with the employee punching in a time. The program will list the original time, the corrected time, and the person who made the correction.
REMEMBER THAT I DON'T WANT TO DO THIS. So actually getting it done will be contingent on people posting here about the time clock. Complain about the way I have it working, make some suggestions, tell me it is a good idea to do this (you liars.)
If no one else is interested in having this done I can assure you that I am not interested either and will give up on it.
You will be able to access the time clock as an option from the option "9. Associates" in the main menu of the POS.EXE program. When you access the time clock function you will be asked to enter your PIN number to access your time card. Here is the program I have so far http://dhpos.com/timeclk2.exe at the moment it is only the interface to punch the time card, it does not save the information at the moment and it will not print the card. That is coming.
If you run the program you will see that it is a weekly time card. You enter your ins and outs for the entire week. The program will store a time card for each employee for the week and it can be printed out. I will have the program store time cards from previous weeks and the previous cards can be accessed and printed out. At the present time I have not decided if time cards will be saved forever or only for one year.
There will be a feature that a manager can enter a corrected time if there is a screwup with the employee punching in a time. The program will list the original time, the corrected time, and the person who made the correction.
REMEMBER THAT I DON'T WANT TO DO THIS. So actually getting it done will be contingent on people posting here about the time clock. Complain about the way I have it working, make some suggestions, tell me it is a good idea to do this (you liars.)
If no one else is interested in having this done I can assure you that I am not interested either and will give up on it.
Last edited by daleadmin on Mon Oct 23, 2006 7:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Disclaimer: I don't know much about QB and the little I do isn't very much. Therefore, I may not be held responsible if this suggestion is not very good and can't be done.
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I would assume you could something sorta like a registration system where you store the "proper" date in the registry, the C:\Windows folder, the C:\Windows\System folder, and in the POS or whatever file.
Or better yet, you could have it set up so that when you network it, the actual date and time is stored by the main terminal. Then, if someone messes with the time, the program knows and lets you know. Of course, this means you have to have a network.
I'm not very used to QBasic so I haven't a clue about what you can and can't do.
I would assume the first is the best option since it doesn't rely on a network. Or you could offer both as an option.
<hr>
I would assume you could something sorta like a registration system where you store the "proper" date in the registry, the C:\Windows folder, the C:\Windows\System folder, and in the POS or whatever file.
Or better yet, you could have it set up so that when you network it, the actual date and time is stored by the main terminal. Then, if someone messes with the time, the program knows and lets you know. Of course, this means you have to have a network.
I'm not very used to QBasic so I haven't a clue about what you can and can't do.
I would assume the first is the best option since it doesn't rely on a network. Or you could offer both as an option.
2 suggestions:
1.) The program should automatically select the next slot when it is run (which I would think it would, but since it can't save yet, there is no point). You don't want employees just selecting want slot then want to when, othewise there might be big trouble. Ex: Employee punches IN at 12:00, then goes to punch OUT at 3:00 for lunch, but they accidently move the bar to the next IN. Then when they come to punch in at 3:30, who knows where they will put it. At the first OUT, or the OUT after their 3:00 "IN". Graphically:
2.)Most likely it should store the records forever. There might be a law that requires you to keep payroll records forever. But, you should have a hard copy of the records, anyway. Ink is less likely to become corrupt like computer data. 
1.) The program should automatically select the next slot when it is run (which I would think it would, but since it can't save yet, there is no point). You don't want employees just selecting want slot then want to when, othewise there might be big trouble. Ex: Employee punches IN at 12:00, then goes to punch OUT at 3:00 for lunch, but they accidently move the bar to the next IN. Then when they come to punch in at 3:30, who knows where they will put it. At the first OUT, or the OUT after their 3:00 "IN". Graphically:
Code: Select all
| IN | OUT | IN | OUT | IN | OUT | IN | OUT |
|12:00| |15:00|15:30|21:00| | | |
--or--
|12:00|15:30|15:00|21:00| | | | |
Slots
grantm,
Well I thought about having the program automatically use the next column for the next punch but then what happens if the person forgets and skips a punch. The next ones will all be one column off. And some places where I worked (a looooong time ago) that had mechicanical time clocks insisted that the far left punch always be used for when you left for the day, even if you did not punch some of the previous columns.
As far as storing the time cards forever is concerned, each time card will have at least 170 datapoints of 5 or more bytes each with 56 time cards per week. After several years the file could get pretty big. Plus you really do not want to store legally required paperwork only on a hard drive and hope that it never dies. Not everyone makes backups or backups correctly. Plus does anyone really need to see time cards that are years old? Person probably does not work for you anymore anyway. (I should talk as I have worked for the same company for the last 37 yesrs.)
Well I thought about having the program automatically use the next column for the next punch but then what happens if the person forgets and skips a punch. The next ones will all be one column off. And some places where I worked (a looooong time ago) that had mechicanical time clocks insisted that the far left punch always be used for when you left for the day, even if you did not punch some of the previous columns.
As far as storing the time cards forever is concerned, each time card will have at least 170 datapoints of 5 or more bytes each with 56 time cards per week. After several years the file could get pretty big. Plus you really do not want to store legally required paperwork only on a hard drive and hope that it never dies. Not everyone makes backups or backups correctly. Plus does anyone really need to see time cards that are years old? Person probably does not work for you anymore anyway. (I should talk as I have worked for the same company for the last 37 yesrs.)
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RollerBall
- Forum Regular
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- Joined:Thu Jan 05, 2006 3:41 pm
- Location:South-East England
Can someone please tell me what this has got to do with a point of sale system which is all to do with ins and outs of stock and its cost and selling price?
What has managing employees got to do with that? If you're worried about your employees arriving late for work or taking long lunch breaks you put in management systems to control them - you don't do it through your POS system surely? Whatever next - soon people will be wanting the system to record crazy things like the real time value of the business's stock
What has managing employees got to do with that? If you're worried about your employees arriving late for work or taking long lunch breaks you put in management systems to control them - you don't do it through your POS system surely? Whatever next - soon people will be wanting the system to record crazy things like the real time value of the business's stock
I've worked as a cashier in two retail supermarkets and in a restaurant. The restaurant system required every employee to clock in thru the system before attemping to take any orders and clock out before being allowed to cash out and collect tips at closing....the two supermarket systems required the user to log on and off of the register at the beginning and end of the day, thus keeping a time record.....the store I currently work at even prints a slip every time you sign on or off, and we're required to turn in our sign off slips on our way to break and lunch...AND use a kronos time clock....so yeah, it's common.
Update
I have done some more work on the time clock program.
It will read the associate names and PIN numbers from the POS program. However at the moment when you start the TIMECLK2.EXE program you will have to enter the file name of your POS data files without the extension. When the program is finished you will access the time clock from the POS.EXE program so you will not have to type in the file name.
In the POS program you will have to enter employee names and PIN numbers for each employee even if you do not use PIN numbers in the program (to enter PIN numbers you will have to allow them in the POSCONFG.EXE program and then after the PIN numbers are entered in the POS.EXE program you can go back to the POSCONFG.EXE program and turn them off. The time clock will still be able to use them.
When the time clock program is started it will ask you for a PIN number and then will find the employee using the PIN number you enter.
The program will now make a separate time card for each employee and save it then you press [CTRL] + [F1] to punch the time. You then press [ESC] to quit the program.
It takes 2000 bytes to save a time card to the disk so it takes 112,000bytes to save a weeks worth of time cards, one for each employee. A year's worth of time cards would take almost 6 megabytes of storage so unless I hear something from you I am leaning toward having the program only save the last years time cards. Although I guess that 10 years of time cards would only be 60 megabytes.
Here is the new link to try out this program http://dhpos.com/timeclk2.exe
It will read the associate names and PIN numbers from the POS program. However at the moment when you start the TIMECLK2.EXE program you will have to enter the file name of your POS data files without the extension. When the program is finished you will access the time clock from the POS.EXE program so you will not have to type in the file name.
In the POS program you will have to enter employee names and PIN numbers for each employee even if you do not use PIN numbers in the program (to enter PIN numbers you will have to allow them in the POSCONFG.EXE program and then after the PIN numbers are entered in the POS.EXE program you can go back to the POSCONFG.EXE program and turn them off. The time clock will still be able to use them.
When the time clock program is started it will ask you for a PIN number and then will find the employee using the PIN number you enter.
The program will now make a separate time card for each employee and save it then you press [CTRL] + [F1] to punch the time. You then press [ESC] to quit the program.
It takes 2000 bytes to save a time card to the disk so it takes 112,000bytes to save a weeks worth of time cards, one for each employee. A year's worth of time cards would take almost 6 megabytes of storage so unless I hear something from you I am leaning toward having the program only save the last years time cards. Although I guess that 10 years of time cards would only be 60 megabytes.
Here is the new link to try out this program http://dhpos.com/timeclk2.exe
100th of a minute
Would it be easier for everyone if the time punches in the time card were in hours and 100ths of an hour instead of hours and minutes?
Since the program just records the time punches and does not calulate the amount of time worked it seems to me that it would be easier for someone with a calculator to figure out the time if digital time was used.
For example using digital time calculating 15.36 - 7.77 = 7.59 hours times 6.50 per hour is 49.33 pay for the day
However using minutes 15:22 - 7:46 = 7 hours, 35 minutes. times 6.50 per hour is 49.29 pay for the day.
Try doing both calculations using only the times and the pay rate and you will find that using digital time is much easier. Especially if you have to calculate 5 days a week for 43 employees every week.
So why don't I just make the program calculate the time worked?
Answer these questions...
Are you going to use exact time punched or round out the time punched to the nearest 5 minutes, 1/10 of an hour, 10 minutes, or quarter hour?
Are you going to deduct lunch from the employees time but give paid breaks, or are you going to give paid lunch and breaks, or deduct lunches and breaks?
How can the program tell if the first, second, or third absence was the lunch?
When you add up the total time for the day are you going to use exact time, round out the time to the nearest 5 minutes, 1/10 of an hour, 10 minutes, or quarter hour?
What about people who work the night shift and start late on one day and leave early on the next day with absences (lunches / breaks) during that time on both days?
While it may be easy to write down the rules you want to use for your employees and the person calculating the pay, it would be a nightmare tryng to make all possible rules into options for the program to do the "time worked" calculations. So I am just going to skip that part.
So still the question, regular time or digital time recorded on the time cards. Although I guess I could make that an option.
Since the program just records the time punches and does not calulate the amount of time worked it seems to me that it would be easier for someone with a calculator to figure out the time if digital time was used.
For example using digital time calculating 15.36 - 7.77 = 7.59 hours times 6.50 per hour is 49.33 pay for the day
However using minutes 15:22 - 7:46 = 7 hours, 35 minutes. times 6.50 per hour is 49.29 pay for the day.
Try doing both calculations using only the times and the pay rate and you will find that using digital time is much easier. Especially if you have to calculate 5 days a week for 43 employees every week.
So why don't I just make the program calculate the time worked?
Answer these questions...
Are you going to use exact time punched or round out the time punched to the nearest 5 minutes, 1/10 of an hour, 10 minutes, or quarter hour?
Are you going to deduct lunch from the employees time but give paid breaks, or are you going to give paid lunch and breaks, or deduct lunches and breaks?
How can the program tell if the first, second, or third absence was the lunch?
When you add up the total time for the day are you going to use exact time, round out the time to the nearest 5 minutes, 1/10 of an hour, 10 minutes, or quarter hour?
What about people who work the night shift and start late on one day and leave early on the next day with absences (lunches / breaks) during that time on both days?
While it may be easy to write down the rules you want to use for your employees and the person calculating the pay, it would be a nightmare tryng to make all possible rules into options for the program to do the "time worked" calculations. So I am just going to skip that part.
So still the question, regular time or digital time recorded on the time cards. Although I guess I could make that an option.
Digital time
I have decided that the program will store all the time punches in regular time of hours and minutes. But when you print the time cards you will be able to choose to print the cards using regular time or digital time.
Re: Digital time
That is probably best. I think that most systems store it this way. Plus it would be difficult to correct punches, or to figure out when a punch really was (to see if an employee punched in/out early/late). What time is 22.62? (8:37 p). A person could, also, make an excel spreadsheet that would do the conversion, and also calculate total hours based on the policy of the store.daleadmin wrote:I have decided that the program will store all the time punches in regular time of hours and minutes. But when you print the time cards you will be able to choose to print the cards using regular time or digital time.
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