As you look to reopen your business, it’s important to make sure that your timekeeping system is capable of tracking situations that are more complicated — and more immediately pertinent to your office’s financial needs — than ever before.
Even before the virus hit, employers were wasting way too much time on keeping track of sick time, vacation, and PTO for employees. And now, for a number of coronavirus-related reasons, accurately managing PTO and tracking time has never been more important to your bottom line than it is today.
CEDR’s PTO & Time Tracking System makes it easy to stay on top of your recordkeeping and reporting process so you can get your money back from the federal government and/or private lenders when it comes time to do so. Try it free for 30 days when you sign up for free access to our HR VaultⓇ software.
Here’s how that software can help your business during these trying times:
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Customizable Features That Protect Your Practice
As a result of legislation intended to minimize the economic havoc wreaked by the global outbreak of COVID-19, employers now have a lot more to think about when it comes to tracking employee hours and time off in the wake of the pandemic.
In addition to the types of leave already provided by your office pre-pandemic as a matter of policy and/or state and local laws, business owners now have to track emergency family and sick leave provided by the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA).
Business owners who received PPP Loans under the CARES Act also need to be carefully tracking the use of those funds in order to receive forgiveness on them.
And there are other important considerations, too. More employees are working from home while offices are temporarily closed, for instance, and those hours need to be tracked accurately and completely. And, when returning to work, health and safety procedures are likely to change in a way that could affect your office’s wage and hour compliance moving forward, as well.
CEDR’s PTO & Time Tracking System makes it easy to track all of this data automatically, and to pull and submit reports on any of these variables in a matter of a few clicks. Plus, if you’ve already signed up for your free HR Vault account, you can try that system free for 30 days along with a year of free access to our On-Demand HIPAA Training Program!
What follows are some examples of how you can use the PTO & Time Tracking System in your HR Vault to protect your financial interests and simplify your management processes immediately after the COVID-19 pandemic, and beyond.
PPP Loan Forgiveness
Once your business receives a PPP loan, the clock is ticking on the 24 weeks you’ve got to spend that money in order to have the loan forgiven.
For a loan to be forgiven, 60 percent of the total amount has to be spent on payroll. You’ll therefore need to track your payroll expenses during that 24-week period carefully to make sure you can accurately report them for potential loan forgiveness.
When your employees are clocking in and out in CEDR’s PTO & Time Tracking System, you can easily pull and submit reports that highlight your payroll expenses during the PPP fund distribution period.
If you are still performing manual calculations or are manually tracking hours worked for payroll, not only is this process going to be much more frustrating and tedious than it would be if you were using CEDR’s timekeeping system, but your final results will also be more prone to errors.
Using a robust timekeeping system like the one in CEDR’s HR Vault can eliminate the pain of PPP bookkeeping so that you can focus your attention on getting your team back to work.
FFCRA Tax Credits
Under the FFCRA, employers must provide paid sick and/or family leave under certain circumstances to employees who are directly affected by the outbreak of COVID-19.
Our current interpretation of that law suggests that private dental and medical offices may be able to exempt themselves from these guidelines. But, because the federal government has promised 100 percent tax credits to employers who paid out on emergency leave, our recommendation has been for employers to go ahead and pay out on this leave, if possible.
Still, to qualify for tax credits, you will need to carefully document what you spend on FFCRA leave at your business versus other types of leave.
CEDR’s PTO & Time Tracking System is already set up with custom time-off categories for emergency paid leave, and the software can be easily modified to account for other standard types of leave offered by your company.
With our customized timekeeping system in place, recording and reporting FFCRA leave payments is as easy as selecting the correct category when an employee calls out and pulling instant reports for those categories when the time comes to submit your tax information.
Want to see how better timekeeping makes your life as a manager easier? Sign up for your FREE HR Vault Account and try CEDR’s PTO & Time Tracking system FREE for 30 days!
Other Types of Leave
In addition to tracking FFCRA leave for tax credits, you will also need to be able to distinguish between state-mandated leave, federally mandated leave, and leave offered by your office as a matter of policy. Each of these types should be set up as its own individual category within your timekeeping system to ensure accurate recording and reporting.
If at all possible, you’ll want to have this system in place before your employees request emergency leave under the FFCRA. This is because employees that qualify for leave under the FFCRA have the option of using all other types of leave available to them before applying that FFCRA leave, if they so choose.
CEDR’s PTO & Time Tracking system can be customized for your office so that you can automatically keep track of multiple types of leave (sick, vacation, etc.). It also allows you to set up time-off accrual based on the amount of time an employee has worked at your practice and the total number of hours worked so that employees can earn time off automatically per your policies.
Employees can then check their time-off balances at a glance and even submit instant time-off requests from within their own HR Vault accounts, eliminating managerial interruptions and time wasted looking for answers to questions that employees can find on their own.
Remote Clocking
While dental practices have been required to largely remain closed to non-emergency patients for the last couple of months, many practices have had employees working on marketing and other administrative tasks from home.
But, even when your employees are working from home, it’s important that you are able to accurately track the hours they work (especially for hourly non-exempt employees) for compliance purposes.
CEDR’s PTO & Time Tracking System makes it easy for your employees to clock in and out, whether they are working in the office or elsewhere. Plus, that system also allows you to limit access in unapproved locations by restricting IP addresses or applying geofences around your office.
Mobile Clocking
With access to our PTO & Time Tracking System, your employees can access your office’s punch clock on their mobile devices. If the timekeeping system you are using right now does not enable mobile access, your updated health and safety policies may cause your office to accidentally implement a wage and hour violation.
If you are screening your employees daily for symptoms of COVID-19 and asking them to wait outside until they are able to be screened, you need to pay those employees for the time they spend waiting for access to the building. By allowing your employees to clock in on their phones outside your office once they get in line, you can prevent timekeeping mistakes and related wage violations.
Take your compliance precautions one step further by applying a geofence around your office to ensure that employees can only clock in within a certain radius of that location, preventing them from clocking in before they get to work.
Tracking Different Rates of Pay
Some businesses are offering different rates of pay to employees for performing work that is outside the normal scope of their job duties during the coronavirus lockdown. This can include paying employees a lower rate for job training, paying clinical employees an adjusted rate for performing administrative work, and even temporarily reclassifying salary exempt employees as non-exempt in order to pay them an hourly rate while their hours are reduced.
CEDR’s PTO & Time Tracking System can be customized to make temporary changes in pay easy to implement, eliminating potential pain points in the bookkeeping process. With our timekeeping system in place, jumping between pay categories can be accomplished with a few clicks of your mouse.
Conclusion
The coronavirus pandemic has rendered the concept of “business as usual” essentially obsolete. And, as a result, where having a robust, customizable timekeeping system in place had previously been seen by some business owners as a convenience, it is now a necessity.
Using an intuitive and customizable timekeeping system, such as the one available in your HR Vault, helps you document payments you’ve made toward PPP Loan forgiveness and FFCRA tax credits, it makes changes in pay easy to record and implement, and it offers features that can help make the transition back to work smoother.
If you have ever considered upgrading your practice’s timekeeping system to one that allows you to keep detailed, accurate records easier, and to get more done in less time, now is the time to do so.
If you already have your own HR Vault account, login and click the “Time & PTO” tab to start your 30-Day Free Trial of CEDR’s PTO & Time Tracking System. We’ll also throw in a year of free access to our On-Demand HIPAA Training Program. Keep access to HIPAA Training even if you don’t sign up for PTO & Time Tracking!
Don’t have an HR Vault account yet? Sign up for free!
