Vacation Tracking Software – Do I Really Need It?

As most employers know, employees can get tricky to keep track of. And the more you have, the worse it gets! One of the most tedious and labor-intensive tasks of any employer is tracking the vacations, the time off, the holidays and the benefit hours earned by his or her employers. It would be easy of they all worked the same hours and took the same days off all the time. Of course, this is never the case. So, this is where vacation-tracking software comes in.

Vacation tracking software is exactly what it sounds like. This is a web-based program that accurately tracks your employee's time off, whether it is paid or unpaid, classified as earned vacation or sick time, all on a regular calendar year.

The employer programs in the regular holidays his company offers as regular paid time off. The software does the rest! The tracking program helps the employer manage time off and any benefit hours earned. Most are fast, accurate and easy to use and will keep the employer up to date with a minimum amount of stress.

To use the vacation tracking software, first the employer's administrator establishes the accrual formula that matches their business rules. For example the administrator can specify the number of days accrued per year, and when the days are available. The administrator also defines the events to be used, such as "vacation" or "sick" and associates and accrual formula where needed. Then he loads in balances already calculated outside the system.

Going forward the system will maintain the balances, verify all future requests to ensure sufficient balances exist, and provide a reporting system to keep employees, managers and administrators informed. What could be simpler? This sure beats the huge hanging calendar behind the door in the lunchroom!

Another benefit of the vacation tracking software is that it can be programmed to black out a block of time so that vacation times won't overlap. This can effectively help avoid two employees from the same department being absent at the same time. It is particularly helpful when everyone is trying to schedule vacation for the same holiday.

The savings realized utilizing vacation-tracking software can't be ignored. According to industry experts, using time and attendance processes saves an estimated $1000.00 per employee per year. These savings are the result of a reduction in the cost of processing payroll, a reduction in human error in recording time, the elimination of unauthorized overtime, and a reduction in the time spent on employee's information requests. The possible savings could be as high as $2000.00 savings per employee per year. Those figures are staggering to the small business owner.

So, in order to achieve all of the benefits of effective performance management, an employer must at least consider the advantages offered by vacation tracking software.