Timekeeping Systems

Crash

Have any of you had experience with Qquest's system (I believe it's referred to as Time Force)? We are a small company, and our main goal is to have a timekeeping system that calculates hours worked and downloads (or uploads ??)the hours to a file that can be utilized by PeopleSoft. Additionally, have any of you used Stromberg's system? I'd appreciate knowing about your safisfaction level?

System

I've never heard of Qquest or Time Force. Are you saying that you have two systems: one for time-keeping and one for payroll? Then you're attempting to integrate the two electronically? I thought PeopleSoft and ADP provided both. We're still reporting hours manually to our finance department. I'm interested in responses to this thread too.

Crash

No, we don't have two systems. We're currently using timeclocks that punch a card and the hours worked have to be calculated by hand. We have looked at biometric systems and are considering Qquest or Stromberg. That's why I'd like to know if any of you are familiar with their products, and if so, how well you like them.

System

I'm a bit of a slow learner, so pardon me if you will. I still see two systems. Once you calculate hours worked by hand, what happens to those numbers? Are they input somewhere so a paycheck can be generated?

Your payroll process is eerily similar to ours.

TN HR

I have never heard of either one of these systems. I would also caution you against biometric systems. The technology is not yet 100% and my personal experience in field testing is that you still get a lot of un-recongized reads and even some mis-matched reads. If you are in an industry where employees may get nicks/scratches/minor cuts on their hands or simply get dirty hands you will have one heck of a time with it.

When it comes to timekeeping systems, you're best to go with name-brand market leaders like Kronos. It may cost you a bit more on the front-end, but will pay you dividends in terms of scalability, ease of use, support and more importantly, the ability for it to "talk" or upload to accounting/payroll/HRIS systems.

Gene

Rockie

I'd agree with Gene about buying a recognized package. We went from ADP to an integrated KRONOS system utilizing their HR package and their timekeeper package. Be very cautious that you have the proper IT support when you go to upload information from ADP to KRONOS. It is NOT as easy as you might think to do this and sometimes information does not transfer properly. We had a HECK to a time for about a year to get things properly in place. Give yourself a LONG time to implement this before you go live. I'd say about 9 months. Pre-planning is everything.

HRinFL

Our manufacturing departments use KRONOS and have been extremely happy with the program. Our retail operation and support departments use People Planner and have had good results with that program as well. The main thing is to find a system that supports what you need it to do and has the tech support available to support your business.

karenmc

We are in the process of switchng to Time Force and so far its great. A few bugs at first but their support group has been very helpful. They have an excellent reporting module and job tracking.

Forrister7

We started using Qqest several years ago, obviously an earlier version than the one you're considering, and our version uses individual plastic cards for timekeeping, not biometrics. It was a royal pain in the neck to set up the system and program at that time, I found the instruction book quite unclear and cumbersome, and instructions for routine functions were also difficult to figure out. Once it was all set up, however, it ran (and is still running) well. In fairness to Qqest, their instruction manual and operating guide may very well have been updated and simplified since we first subscribed to it.

okieHR

We are a company of 150 employees and have been using Qquest/TimeForce for over two years. There are still some aspects of the program that we don't use, but we have had very few problems with what we do utilize. Our company has an excellent in-house IT Dept., so my support is just down the hall. They have not reported any problems in dealing with support provided by Qquest.

We use DacEasy for payroll, and we do not have data from Qquest downloaded to payroll. There is still some manual labor involved, but I don't blame Qquest. This is not a very high priority for our company. As a bank, our processing systems related to customer service get first attention. HR's computer-related requests are low priority items.

I'll be glad to answer any questions, if I can.

okieHR

Open1

We are also in the process of switching to TimeForce. Forrister, the instruction manual still sucks!

As I understand it, Qqest is the company name and TimeForce is the timekeeping software.

I'm not familiar with either Stromberg or PeoplePlanner, but I've used Kronos and Etime. Kronos did not even respond to me email pleas for a bid, and Etime was exponentially more costly.

I checked the list of payroll programs that my TimeForce will download into and it is extensive. Dac Easy was on my list, but not PeopleSoft.

We're not using biometrics or timecards. Our employees log in on their computers. Our "test run" of 18 employees has 2 or 3 that refuses to learn to log/clock in and out, and the rest are doing fine. It also allows them to look up their PTO whenever they like, a huge advantage for us.

The downside is the setup is a confusing nightmare with a 2 1/2" thick nearly worthless manual, e.g., the index shows Meal Breaks, Meal Policies, Meal Window and Meal/Lunch Policies. These are all different things in different places in the software, and after several weeks I'm still not comfortable with the system.

I was successful with one download into ADP, but then I got a new computer and we are back to square one with setup issues again, so I had to manually enter the TimeForce data this pay period.

I was about to toss it all into the trash and go looking elsewhere, but many of the posts here have been encouraging, so I'm going to give TimeForce another shot!

karenmc

Open1. You are so correct about their manual. Absolutely worthless. I spent alot of time on the phone with customer service. They were very helpful and walked me through it. I also have an IT person across the hall which helps too.

stilldazed

We have Stromberg in one part of our operations. It uses card swipe (bar code reading) and digital input. We also have multiple shifts and two separate sets of shift differentials.

We seem to tolerate it and it seems to tolerate us. Work hours must be summarized, and a second data entry step is required in our operations to accomodate payroll software. Communication between the two softwares is not possible. Also, programming in Stromberg is a little bit of a nightmare, and as from the HR perspective, I'm still convinced that some of our programming is correct (relative to OT caculations and reg rate of pay). If there is a manual, I've never seen one, though I will admit that Stromberg preceded me in the organization. Aside from there, our experience is that it may blip sometimes, lose an employee's work hours sometimes, doesn't seem to have a read-only mode, and coughs when multiple administrative clearances are activated. Unfortunately for us, HR establishes employee accounts, and the facility in which Stromberg resides tweaks the accounts to get shift differentials correct.

As director, I'm not a direct user of Stromberg and really don't know if what we see is par for the course with other like softwares, but I do get the privelege of troubleshooting errors and calming ruffled feathers when payroll problems result. If I were part of a purchasing team looking at timeclock softwares, I think I'd look elsewhere.

Hope you find something that works for you.