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Keeping accurate records of employee time is a critical task for any organization - but doing it manually with paper timesheets can be extremely tedious and prone to errors. That's why more and more businesses are turning to automated time tracking solutions like Synerion to simplify and optimize the process.

In this blog post, we'll take an in-depth look at how Synerion works and the key benefits it provides for streamlining payroll and compliance.

What is Synerion?

Synerion is a robust web-based time and attendance tracking system designed specifically for businesses to manage employee time, schedules, and labor costs efficiently.

It goes far beyond basic time clocks - Synerion offers extensive functionality for enforcing pay rules, tracking labor distribution, managing schedules and time-off requests, and generating insightful reports. The software integrates tightly with payroll systems to ensure seamless, accurate pay calculation.

Synerion was founded in 2009 and is based in Jacksonville, Florida. It's used by over 5,000 organizations across various industries including healthcare, manufacturing, retail, hospitality and more. The company has a strong track record of helping businesses optimize their time management processes.

Key Features and Benefits

Here are some of the major features Synerion provides to supercharge your organization's time tracking and payroll:

Accurate Time Tracking

Synerion offers flexible options for employees to clock in and out:

- Web-based: Employees can use Synerion's web portal to clock in/out from any computer.

- Mobile app: With GPS location tracking, employees can clock in/out from their phones.

- Physical time clocks: Synerion supports integration with a variety of manual and badge-based time clocks.

Regardless of the method used, Synerion captures accurate punch data which feeds seamlessly into payroll. Rules can be configured to round punches automatically to the nearest interval. Employees can view their own timesheets in the self-service portal.

Scheduling and Shift Management

Synerion provides powerful schedule creation and management capabilities:

- Build schedules based on job, location, department or pay rule requirements. Easily accommodate shift swapping.

- Configure rotating or repeating shift templates to minimize scheduling legwork.

- Automate schedule enforcement with overtime warnings, missed punch alerts and more.

- Give employees access to view schedules, request time off and swap shifts.

These features optimize workforce coverage while controlling labor costs. Managers save significant administrative time.

Labor Cost Tracking

Synerion offers sophisticated tools for tracking and controlling labor, including:

- Real-time insight into gross payroll costs based on verified hours worked and pay rates.

- Job/project tracking to allocate worked hours to specific clients or cost centers.

- Budgeting features to set labor cost targets and monitor performance.

- Reporting on overtime, absenteeism and other utilization metrics.

The depth of data supports more informed decision making to contain expenses.

Compliance Controls

Synerion helps safeguard compliance in several ways:

- Automatic meal break deductions based on punch data or defined schedules.

- Configurable overtime calculation rules based on company policies and labor regulations.

- Complete audit trails showing timestamped punch edits and adjustments.

- Reporting facilitates compliance audits for wage/hour, safety and other requirements.

With these controls in place, companies can avoid compliance issues that lead to fines or litigation.

Integration with Payroll Systems

A key benefit of Synerion is its seamless integration with major payroll platforms like ADP, Paychex and others. This allows for:

- Automated transfer of approved hours into the payroll system.
- Two-way sync between payroll employee data and Synerion.
- Validation of pay policies so payroll matches time tracking.


By eliminating redundant data entry, integration prevents payroll errors and accelerates processing time.

Access Controls and Security

As an enterprise-grade solution, Synerion was built with role-based security:

- Individual user accounts with configurable access permissions.
- Managers restricted to viewing/editing only their direct reports.
- Different roles like timekeeper, supervisor and administrator.
- Audit trail tracking for changes and exports.


Sensitive punch and payroll data remains protected. Custom security policies can be implemented based on company standards.

Insightful Reporting and Analytics

Synerion provides real-time reports and dashboards that turn time data into actionable insights:

- Employee timecard summaries, overtime and leave reports.
- Departmental labor distribution and cost reports.
- Scheduling reports on coverage gaps or excessive absenteeism.
- Data exports to payroll, billing, ERP or HR systems.


The extensive reporting uncovers opportunities for improving workforce efficiency, scheduling and cost management.

Additional Features

Some other notable features in Synerion include:

- Custom pay rules engine to handle complex pay scenarios.
- Time-off request and approval workflows.
- Tools for managing leave accruals and balances.
- Employee self-service portal for managing schedules and timecards.
- Custom fields for tracking supplemental employee data.
- Punch rounding configurations to match policies.
- Robust access permissions and hierarchy management.
- Multi-language support.
- IP restricted access and two-factor authentication.


With this full spectrum of capabilities, Synerion provides a centralized hub for managing the employee time lifecycle from time tracking to payroll processing.

Benefits for Your Business

Let's recap the major benefits your business can realize by implementing the Synerion time and attendance system:

- Optimized payroll accuracy and faster processing.
- Increased productivity by eliminating redundant administrative work.
- Better workforce compliance with labor regulations and policies.
- Enhanced visibility into true labor costs for decision making.
- Tighter controls over overtime, scheduling and absenteeism.
- Improved employee satisfaction through self-service access.
- Robust data access through custom reports and exports.
- Scalability to accommodate growth or multiple locations.


In short, Synerion delivers a full-featured enterprise automation solution to maximize the efficiency, accuracy and compliance of your payroll and time tracking processes.

Pricing and Deployment Options

Synerion offers flexible pricing and deployment:

- Cloud-based: A hosted SaaS model priced per employee per month, starting around $2.95/employee.
- Self-hosted: An on-premise model with annual licensing based on number of employees.
- Time clock hardware: Badge and biometric time clocks are available at additional cost.


Volume discounts may be available for large organizations. Demo and trial options allow businesses to test Synerion before committing.

Ongoing access to software updates, unlimited support and optional premium services are included for continual optimization. Synerion is designed to scale across single or multiple locations as your business grows.

Conclusion

Managing time tracking, payroll and compliance manually is an antiquated approach that adds unnecessary burdens on HR teams and exposes companies to substantial risk.

That's why modernizing with a solution like Synerion is a smart investment - it automates these cumbersome processes while providing actionable data to control labor costs.

If your business is ready to optimize workforce management, Synerion has a proven track record of delivering immense time and cost savings. By seamlessly integrating time with payroll, Synerion ensures accuracy and efficiency that translate directly to your bottom line.

Getting Started with Synerion

Ready to harness the power of Synerion for your business? Here is a brief overview of how to get started:

Planning Your Implementation

First, an implementation specialist from Synerion will work closely with you to understand your workflows, policies, and requirements. This allows them to configure and customize the software specifically for your needs.

Key planning tasks include:

- Mapping out your organization structure and hierarchy. This enables accurate access permissions.

- Establishing pay rules, overtime policies, and other parameters for payroll and compliance.

- Selecting time tracking methods like web clocks, mobile apps, or hardware terminals.

- Integrating with your payroll, HRIS, ERP and other backend systems.

- Importing employee data, schedules, and other foundation information.

- Developing reports, dashboards and custom fields to capture the data you need.

- Creating manager and employee portals tailored to your processes.

- Providing training guides and tutorials for your staff.

With Synerion's expertise, the system can be fully adapted to align with your unique business environment.

Testing and Training

Once the implementation is complete, Synerion will walk you through testing the software. This verifies that time tracking, overtime calculation, schedules, integrations, and all other components are working properly.

The project team will also deliver comprehensive training to your managers and employees. Training is available both live and through learning management courses and videos. Dedicated support channels ensure you have resources to become proficient with the system.

Rolling Out Synerion

After thorough testing and training, you're ready to roll out Synerion across your organization:

- Start using the new automated timekeeping procedures company-wide.
- Leverage manager and employee portals for scheduling, time-off requests, and accesssing data.
- Monitor adoption and provide ongoing training and support as needed.
- Review reports and metrics to optimize utilization of the system.
- Work with Synerion project team on enhancements or changes to the configuration.


With the right rollout plan, your organization can quickly realize the benefits of streamlined workforce management.

Ongoing Optimization

An experienced partner like Synerion will continually work with you to maximize the value of the system:

- New software features and capabilities added through regular upgrades.
- Additional integrations to expand the ecosystem.
- Custom modifications to meet evolving needs.
- Refresher trainings and how-to guides.
- Dedicated account management and 24/7 customer support.


Synerion focuses on your long-term success. You gain a trusted advisor to ensure your investment keeps paying dividends.

Conclusion

Synerion offers a game-changing solution for modernizing and optimizing employee time tracking. The platform delivers unmatched functionality, flexibility and integration capabilities. And with the right planning and partnership, implementing Synerion can transform workforce processes company-wide.

Take the first step to streamlining payroll, enhancing compliance, and controlling labor costs. Contact Synerion today to learn more and get a custom quote tailored for your business.