One of the hardest things an employer has to deal with is keeping track of their employees' hours. Over the years punch clocks have been used in every type of industry and business to help with this task. The very first mechanical time clocks made use of a stamp that made an imprint on the employee's time card keeping track of when they punched in and when they punched out. In this way employers were able to keep track of their employees' hours and pay them accordingly. However these mechanical punch clocks came with several inherent problems that over the course of time could cost an employer a lot of money that cut right into his bottom line. Employee cheating is probable the number one problem with the mechanical time clock. One of the most common ways to cheat was for one employee to have another one punch him in even when the first employee was not at work. This could even go so far as to have the same employee clock the first employee out at the end of the day resulting in being paid for a full day's work when the first employee was not even there. Another issue with the old mechanical punch clocks is that they relied on an ink filled ribbon to imprint the time and date on an employee's card.

While some employers are very good at making sure there is sufficient ink to make the stamp visible, many more of them let the ink go dry making it all but impossible for the payroll department to read the card. This often results in improper readings which can have a dramatic effect on the employee's paycheck. Either way someone is going to be unhappy, if they are paid to little the employee is likely to be very unhappy, if they are paid too much the employer loses money. To help alleviate the problems of mechanical punch clocks many employers are switching over to digital time clocks as a more reliable way to keep tabs on employee hours. While the initial outlay may be significantly more, over time the digital clock can save a company more than enough money to cover the expenditure.

The digital punch clocks in use today make use of a magnetic or bar coded swipe card that looks like a credit card. By using this type of time clock an employer gets a digital record of each employees time and since the card can also double as an ID card it makes the idea of "buddy punching" much more difficult. With the proper software digital time clocks can enter the information directly into your payroll software making payroll calculations a breeze saving you headaches and money. No matter what type of punch clocks you need for your business you need to be able to purchase them at an affordable price. The Time Clock Outlet has one of the largest selections of time clocks and time clock software available. They have been in the business of supplying time clocks to businesses for 18 years and carry everything from the most basic punch clock to the latest in digital technology.