The dreaded "time clock" feature.

[FormicaFun]

Wow Dave, you alright?

Dale,

That's cool, was just a thought...but I see your point. Plus, what if you ever had assoiciates work 3rd shift? Clock in one day, out the next. Or split shifts.....but by leaving the in/out headers alone, that wouldn't be an issue.

I'm sure it wouldn't take much for this to become compatable with most payroll systems, so the time calculations wouldn't be an issue on the buisness end. Just thought it could be a convience thing for the associate if they wanted a copy of their time statement.

Anywho, I look forward to seeing what the beta of this looks like....if there's a beta at this point. Thanks Dave. :-(

-Ry :-)

[ednacell]

Can we track overtime, set vacations, discount time not work, sick leave and holidays work etc. I think these will be good add-ons.

[FormicaFun :-)]

ednacell,

No, *if* the timeclock feature is added it will only track the in/out punches. It *might* calculate hours worked, but that's it. Dale is not looking to create a payroll system. That is far to complicated, and there are to many funny laws involved.

There was, at one time, a payroll program posted in the forum. What has come of it, and what features it offers....I don't recall.

-Ry :-)

*key terms*

[Dale Harris]

Andrew Bunn wrote the payroll program and he is working on a new version. He has asked me for the file format for the time cards if I ever do add the time clock feature so I guess that you will be able to import the time card information directly into the payroll program.

You will have to ask Andrew what the features of the payroll program will be but I can tell you that it will not even try to figure out the withholding tax laws of every city, state, provence, and country on earth.

[ibmsystems]

I've Used The Program For About A Year And I Don't Really Care About A Time Clock I Can Live Without It Although It Would Be Nice

[Jeff]

I don't always upgrade just because I don't use so many of the functions that POS offers, but I would definately upgrade for the time clock.
What an asset that would be. Sounds good to me. Thank you!

[Prashant Patil]

Thanks to Dale Harris
POS is very imp point of sell software but i want to suggest that there should be scroll menu when i type any product name insted of inserting the product code no which is very hard for sell inmedical shoopy.
is there any solution for this which will make it very useful for medicals.[drugs & medicines]
contact manjifera@yahoo.co.in

[Light User]

Hello:

I only have pos as a program to use for very limited things. However I use other systems provided by owners of different places I support.

Time Clock in theroy looks good. However you have spent years perfecting POS. With the time clock feature I believe you would be creating another long list of wants and wishes that would tie up a lot of your time. This would of course take time away from your core product.

I guess putting in the time clock can only be a decision by you but to me reading these postings you will have a new feature that you will be working on for years to come just to make everyone that uses it happy.

I think the time is better spent on the main program itself. Everyone that wants the feature already has some form of record keeping they are already using and are use to.

[thegmailer]

:X I think Dale shouldn't add a timeclock feature to the program because it undermimes the whole reason he didn't want it in the first place :X

[Guest]

What about having the time clock work like the timers? Employees select "Time Clock" from the main menu, enter thier PIN. Then get shown a screen that is something like the following:

You are currently clocked: IN
Last Punch: 10/29/05 08:30

Clock In [Tab]
Clock Out [Delete]

Print Today's Punches [F1]
Print This Pay Period's Punches [F2]

Quit [Esc]

Then for the reports, they can look alot like the Timer reports:

Associate: 28, Jane Doe

In: 10/28/05 08:30
Out: 10/28/05 17:00
8.50

If you renamed "Start Time" to "In" and "End Time" to "Out", calculate the units in hours....it's basically a time clock already. The new thing would be saving a history of the starts/ends for the payperiod. Which could be ended by the manager, much like you close POS and reset the Merchendise Data. Have a report that prints or saves to a file, that shows the associate, and their punches since the last reset. Then offer to reset the punch history, and start a new period. Maybe an archive of the closings would be nice.....or just simply save it as a text file.

The editing part would be nice, and I'm sure you can come up with a way to do that. To me this seems like the easiest soulution, and utilizes the timer programing as it is already setup....with a few modifications.

Another thought, if you use the timeclock idea as described above, or whatever method you choose to...what about having it where if and associate clocks in today, and punches out tomorrow....calculating the entire time they're on the clock. I know this sounds crazy, but sometimes we have to work third shift for inventory, or to recieve merchendise. Let's face it, it's retail. It's not always pretty.

Thanks for hearing my opinion. I think the timeclock would be a great addition to POS.

[Dale Harris]

Before I start working on a time clock feature we have to find a solution to the following problem...

An employee returns to work 10 minutes late. So he hits [ALT] + [ENTER] on the keyboard to put POS into a window so that he can access [Start] / [Settings] / [Control Panel] and then the "Date/Time" feature to reset the computer time to 11 minutes earlier. Now he goes back to the POS program to access the time clock feature and punch in on time. Then of course he returns to "Date / Time" to return the time to the correct time, then close all of that, and then restores POS to full screen.

We do have a couple of solutions for this if the registers are run over a network that involve the time clock getting the time from the server even if the employee clocks in from a local register.

But before I start writing the time clock feature we need a solution for stand-alone computer registers.

[FormicaFun :-)]

Jon could clear this up, but couldn't you create more than one user on the computer, and have the user name for the associates restricted from accessing the date/time settings? I know at work the PCs won't allow you to acess the window to change the settings, so I know it's possilbe...just not sure how to do it.

-Ry :-)

[Eric]

I believe you can only restrict that on Windows 2K and XP Professional. The home editions don't have the management abilities. Where I work at, the time clock just records when you punch it. It's a computerized system, but it only records punches. Doesnt do in/out/in/out, just PUNCH at 7:00 and PUNCH at 3:30.

I dont think it should do anything more than this if Dale implements it.

Would get too confusing, all states have different laws on when and how lunches and breaks are taken and on whether or not they're paid.

[hoemig2]

Yes, the time clock idea sounds good.

[Jonathan]

and I quote...

"By default, only Administrators and Power Users can use the “Date and Time” applet to change the computer’s date, time, or time zone. A regular User double-clicking on the clock in the notification area of the taskbar gets only an error message that says, “You do not have the proper privilege level to change the System Time.” This is probably the #1 annoyance for people who have tried running as non-admin."

reference:

http://blogs.msdn.com/aaron_margosis/ar ... 71474.aspx

This is of course relevent only to XP/2000 but I do believe it works fine on home edition of XP (you have to create a "restricted user" acount, as all accounts are admin by default.

Jonathan