How to Prevent Time Theft

Learn how to prevent buddy punching and other types of time theft with Raken.

What is time theft?

Time theft, also referred to as time fraud, is the act of an employee intentionally misreporting hours worked in order to be paid for time they weren't actually working.

Time theft typically occurs due to inefficiency or a lack of oversight in the time tracking and payroll process. On a large scale, it can significantly affect profit margins and productivity rates.

What is the cost of time theft?

The accounting experts at QuickBooks estimate that employee time theft costs U.S. businesses up to $11 million dollars annually in lost revenue.

In construction, time theft negatively impacts both current and future projects, leading to unexpected delays and skewed production data that can affect the accuracy of future bids and estimates.

Common types of time theft in construction

These are the most common forms of time theft on construction sites: 

• Timesheet manipulation -  Employees manually edit their time or enter it incorrectly to make it appear that they’ve worked longer hours, sometimes including overtime.  

• Buddy punching - A friend will clock in or out for another employee who is not currently on the jobsite.

• Extended breaks - Employees may misreport the time they spend on breaks and lunches or take extended breaks without reporting them.

How to prevent time theft with Raken

Upgrade from manual processes

By far, paper time cards and spreadsheets are much easier to manipulate than time tracking software. Raken’s digital time and payroll solutions can:

• Reduce the time it takes to log, review, and approve hours

• Improve timesheet accuracy with location and identity verification features

• Eliminate errors due to manual data entry

• Give your payroll team better visibility

We offer a mobile worker time clock app, a shared time clock kiosk, and digital time cards, so you can choose the time tracking method right for your size and specialty area.

Verify employee identity

Identity verification stops buddy punching by making sure employees can only clock in and submit hours worked for themselves, not their coworkers.

Raken verifies employee identity with AI photo matching technology. Workers take a selfie photo every time they clock in or out or take breaks. That photo is automatically compared with a reference, and supervisors can easily flag whether or not there’s an issue.

You can always be sure workers are who they say they are when they’re logging hours.

Verify employee location

When workers clock in and out, Raken uses GPS tracking to automatically verify they’re on the right jobsite. There’s no more clocking in from the road or clocking out long after they’ve left for the workday.

Give supervisors better oversight

When supervisors have greater visibility of their crews’ hours, they can more quickly identify any inconsistencies or potential attempts at time theft.

Raken’s comprehensive views for managing time and approving hours show supervisors how their crews are tracking time across projects on web or mobile. Whether you’re a foreman entering hours in the field or a member of the payroll team approving time cards from the office, time data is automatically consolidated and organized in simple, streamlined formats.  

Clearly communicate policies

Not all time tracking errors are intentional. Make sure you’re clearly communicating your policies for tracking time to your employees. Everyone who needs to log their work hours should know exactly how to do so, and they should be trained how to use your time tracking systems. Good communication will both discourage time theft and help employees avoid accidental mistakes.

Raken is designed for ease-of-use, so workers can accurately track time without adding any complexity to busy workdays. You can also set custom questions for clock in and clock out that help ensure compliance with your policies for tracking time, overtime, taking breaks, and other procedures. 

Pay your crews correctly

Employees may be responsible for correctly reporting time worked, but employers are responsible for processing payroll accurately. Consistently paying your teams on time without errors prevents time theft by showing you’re committed to living up to your obligations as a business.

Utilize Raken’s accounting integrations to speed up the payroll process. All the time data you collect with our app is automatically synced with your accounting software, with no need for time-consuming, error-prone manual data entry.