SUCCESS STORY: JASPER COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION

December 7, 2022

Cutting Payroll Cycles from Four Days to Two Hours with TCP Software

Inefficient payroll processes kept employees from their primary duties

Before 2015, all payroll processes were still managed on paper. Thanks to some process improvements, payroll cycles took an average of four days, down from a high of 10 days. However, this was still not a sufficient solution. Employees who were meant to be focusing on other areas, such as executive administration and bookkeeping, were instead spending hours on manual tracking and summarization. Employees also needed to resolve all timecard discrepancies individually, requiring more unnecessary employee time spent on payroll tasks, leaving cash-strapped districts with fewer resources to focus on their primary mission: serving students and their families.

Gary Jenkins, Payroll & Personnel Officer for Jasper County Board of Education, knew the organization needed a better solution. He sought out a school workforce management system to help automate this process for the Jasper County Board of Education. The search started with two goals:

  • The system that the department ultimately deployed needed to cost around the same as what Jenkins calculated as the current manual process cost for payroll, which netted out to about $12,500 annually.
  • The system had to integrate with the department’s current payroll software so Jenkins and his team could seamlessly input time and attendance, leave and substitute data.

Related Content: Building A Business Case For Time & Attendance Software

Today, it’s easy to track time and attendance for its diverse workforce

In 2018, Jenkins implemented TCP’s TimeClock Plus software to automate all time and attendance processes for the district. Upon implementation, the entire payroll process went from four days to two hours, allowing the district to reallocate 60% of its labor cost back to other tasks and freeing up personnel to focus on core job functions, such as clerical work and supporting administration and staff. Thanks to the new streamlined process, the Jasper County Board of Education could also move from a monthly payroll preparation to a weekly preparation, which created more visibility and cut down on inaccuracies, ensuring they were complying with regulatory requirements.

TCP has enabled the Jasper County Board of Education to create a standardized process for the personnel and payroll department. Now, employees and managers can run weekly punch reports and build schedules all within an integrated system that allows for better management of full-time and hourly staff. This is especially important for the managers who oversee multiple locations and therefore can’t be on-site at each location all the time. The system allows them to pull the information and data they need from anywhere through a mobile app that’s connected to the hardware system. It gives principals and school administrators visibility into absences, leave requests, etc. at the touch of a button, and transportation employees can keep better tabs of on and off-hours work, such as field trips.

These formal workflows signal issues with hours or pay rates so that managers and administrators can address problems before they get to payroll and make exceptions in real time. For example, an administrator will receive an alert if an employee forgets to clock in or out on a given day. This allows them to find the employee and resolve the issue immediately rather than requiring back and forth communication with payroll.

Overall, TCP allowed the Jasper County Board of Education to efficiently track time and attendance for its diverse workforce, including classified, part-time and substitute employees, providing the flexibility to manage both contracted time and supplemental activities. Accurate time tracking and data gathering now means the Board of Education pays only for actual hours worked at the proper rates and allows managers to monitor, manage and control employee adherence to time and attendance and overtime policies, demonstrating compliance with FLSA, ACA and FMLA demands.

The entire payroll process went from four days to two hours.

Get ready to get time right.