The cloud helps dental practices better manage time and attendance
Technology continues to change dental practices for the better. Not only has patient care been improved as a result of technological innovation, so has the back office. With increasingly complex compliance demands, medical records, and health care laws, the back office has been slammed with more responsibilities than ever before. Leveraging the cloud to better manage administrative responsibilities such as time and attendance can greatly increase the efficiency of a dental practice.
A dental office employs a variety of professionals, ranging from clerical employees who administer the office operations, to the dentists, hygienists, and assistants who work on people's teeth all day. Most days, employees move around the office juggling a variety of tasks and wearing different hats. The office has to be flexible to accommodate changing schedules and requests throughout the week, so it’s good to know that the right back office tools can serve as critical assets to meet those needs.
A cloud-basedtime and attendance system supports a dental practice’s various staff positions, and even enables employees to better manage their own time entries. It saves time and has more capabilities, and payroll processing becomes easier and faster for managers.
Anytime, anywhere
One of the most compelling reasons dental practices should move to the cloud to manage time and attendance is that it can be accessed anytime and anywhere. There’s no need for the manager to be in the physical office to process the office’s time records and payroll. With any Internet connection, practice managers can view, edit, and process time records at their convenience. Whether at their own desk in the office, traveling out of town, on a tablet between meetings, or even on vacation, managers have complete access to their company’s information.
Practice managers often need to keep up with a team of professionals located in multiple offices. Individual systems tied to one office make it difficult to effectively manage time and attendance for the practice as a whole. With the cloud, information from all offices is integrated. Managers can view time and attendance one office at a time or all together.
Minnesota-based Pediatric and Adolescent Dentistry has been using the cloud to manage its time and attendance for more than a year. The practice’s 20 employees are split between two offices. In the past, practice manager Jason Dudley had to spend much of his time traveling between offices just to manage time records and payroll. Now with the cloud, he has a streamlined, centralized system. He can view and edit time entries and process payroll from wherever he is with PayClock® Online, Lathem’s cloud-based timekeeping system.
Fewer errors, more accurate records
With cloud-based time and attendance solutions, records are kept up-to-date in real time. Employees can check to see if they clocked in so they don’t clock in twice by mistake, and they know when they’ve missed punching in. This saves time and headaches for managers when it’s time to process payroll each pay period.
Employees have the option to clock in from a computer, smartphone, mobile device, or an actual time clock – it’s all integrated. Biometric employee time clocks that use face recognition are popular because they don’t require employees to touch the clock, which helps reduce the spread of bacteria.
Cloud-based systems mean there’s no software to install or network servers for a business to maintain. Data is secure and protected with back-ups in secure off site data centers. Many providers of cloud-based time and attendance solutions offer unlimited support from customer and technical service. These solutions seamlessly integrate time and attendance data into popular payroll systems such as ADP, QuickBooks, and Paychex.
Empowering employees
Many cloud-based time and attendance solutions enable employees to view the pay period’s time records without being able to edit them. This has made operations much smoother for Jason of Pediatric and Adolescent Dentistry. Using PayClock Online, employees record their hours by clocking in and out on a designated computer in each office. Jason customized the system so that all employees can clock in and out fro one central computer and view their time records in real time.
“It puts the responsibility on the employees to keep up with their hours worked,” he said. “Employees like it because they can see their own time records, print them out, and compare them to their paychecks at the end of each pay period.”
Improving the office
Pediatric and Adolescent Dentistry has simplified time and attendance for its growing practice. Because time and stress are reduced, practice managers like Jason can spend their saved time on other responsibilities. When the back office runs smoothly, the front office benefits. It’s all about bringing a smile to the patients.
Scott Mulka is Marketing Manager for Lathem, a 95-year-old Atlanta-based provider of durable and affordable timekeeping products for small business. Contact Scott at [email protected].
