TimeTrex Time and Attendance 16.13.2-1051

Overview

TimeTrex offers a free web-based solution for small to large companies in payroll and employee time management. With the help of this simple, clean cut and free platform employees can keep track of their attendance time anywhere they are – at home, in the office, on the go. The free web based solution offers a convenient payroll module, employee scheduling and time and attendance modules.

Installation

The web based platform does not have any prerequisites to run. All a user needs is a valid email address. Registration is simple and straightforward. You need to indicate the number of your employees, their location and your phone number.
The local version requires: IIS or Apache web servers, PHP 5.0 or greater with PEAR, MySQL v4.1.3+ with InnoDB support or PostgreSQL v8.0+. The open code runs on a large variety of operating systems – Win NT, 2000, XP, Vista, 7, IBM AIX, Linux and Mac. The choice between the on-premise installation and a web-based on site platform depends on the user’s technical abilities and needs.

Interface

TimeTrex offers a neat and intuitive GUI. Despite the overwhelming amount of things it can do, the interface is friendly, the features and options are self-descriptive and easy to locate within the program. We would say, in fact, that among the attendance tracking systems, TimeTrex turned out to be one of the simplest ones. The free web based version offers as many functions as most of the small to average businesses will ever need.

One of the helpful features was the initial wizard guiding through first steps adding important data about your business. Online University training program is free and offers a guide for newcomers. Entering business data and employees list is easy both manually and via import options. A large number of options may even seem unnecessary for some companies, but the good thing is you can customize the GUI to hide the features you do not need. The Help section offered links to support forum, FAQs and other training material.

Features

Employees can punch in via: stand-alone time clocks, biometric fingerprints, iButtons, proximity cards, barcode badges, cell phones or PDAs, touch-tone telephones. It is possible to track: time and attendance, payroll, scheduling, time clock, timesheet, job costing, human resource management (HRM), workforce management.

Pros

There is a chance the free version offers all business needs in terms of time and attendance tracking. It is simple, intuitive and has a minimum learning curve. The web based platform does not require any advanced technical knowledge to setup and run the tracking, attendance and payroll. The program integrates with cell phones, barcode readers and iButtons for the employees to be able to punch in wherever they are.

The suite automatically calculates complex extra and premium time payment rates; it can calculate labor costs according to task type and product quantities. The suite can calculate your payroll excluding taxes, for US and Canada, print paychecks and deposit funds directly. The system creates real-time timesheets; it offers to create employee access with a corresponding level of access.

The main difference between the free web based suite and the paid versions is the support for hardware punch in. The rest of the functions are present. The good part about the free cloud-based environment is you can access it from anywhere you can find Internet connection.

In addition, TimeTrex offers exhaustive educational resources with TimeTrex University and Implementation Services and community forum available online. A community forum of real users interacting with technical support is always a good sign of the product’s viability.

Finally, the suite is free of charge, and it is something very few attendance tracking systems can offer.

Cons

If too many features can be a Con, it would be TimeTrex’ con. Nonetheless, users have a certain freedom in tweaking the interface to hide the features they do not need.

Alternatives