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WaspTime Case Study

Select Labs Gives Thumbs Up to Biometric Time and Attendance Solution

Towards the end of each month, Select Labs' Toni Seawell closed her office door, gritted her teeth and prepared for the long hours, late nights and high stress associated with preparing payroll for the company's more than 150 employees.

Select Labs, which provides lab services such as blood and urine analysis to medical practices and practitioners, operates two locations in North Carolina and one in South Carolina. The labs used paper-based time cards and a punch clock to track employees' regular and overtime hours. The company's third-party payroll service, ADP, mandated receipt of payroll information by a specific date, often resulting in a mad scramble to wade through sometimes illegible or incomplete time reports, said Seawell, Vice President of Human Resources at Select Labs.

"It could take me three days to get payroll done, plus a day that the South Carolina lab manager needed to tally his location’s time. Knowing the payroll deadline loomed, the pressure to make the date could bring me to tears as I worked on the time cards each month," Seawell recalled. "With the old system, I had no flexibility if a medical or family emergency arose, which created even more stress. I would close my door and people would be afraid to interrupt me. I had to come in on weekends just to catch up on other month-end work."

The inefficient, time-intensive manual system also left room for mistakes or dishonesty, said Jess Merritt, Vice President of Information Services at Select Labs. Some employees waited until the last minute to complete their paperwork, resulting in guesswork and errors, added Seawell, who often was tasked to track down these workers.

"We wanted an automated system to ensure that everybody was being honest and accurate," said Merritt. "We needed a solution that would speed-up and simplify the payroll process."

Merritt researched the options, finding time-tracking systems that required employees to swipe a time card, and biometric solutions that used fingerprint-recognition. "With the cards, you get an initial set free and then must buy the rest. We knew people would lose or forget their cards and we'd still be in the same position," he said. "We ruled those out and decided to use a biometric system."

Digging deeper, Select Labs chose WaspTime, which pairs time and attendance software and a biometric employee time clock. This scalable solution tracks arrivals and departures, breaks and meals, and integrates with leading payroll solutions such as ADP, QuickBooks and PayChex. "We bought WaspTime because it was the most cost-effective solution," Merritt said. "It is extremely easy to use and I easily integrated it into our network. It all came together and was the right fit."

Initially implemented at the South Carolina site, WaspTime delivered such immediate benefits that Select Labs rolled out the solution in both North Carolina offices.

Today, Seawell finishes payroll within regular business hours, immediately boosting her productivity and lowering her stress level. With WaspTime, Select Labs finishes payroll about 70 percent faster than before, spending 2 days a month on payroll for all three locations, compared with at least a week per month using the old time clock.

"I work in the business office so we always have a lot of pressing month-end things to do. I'm better able to handle month-end processes now that payroll takes less than a day," she said. "It's much more relaxed now, knowing it's not going to take me so long. Now the door's open and people can actually speak to me at the end of each month."

Because WaspTime is so intuitive, other Select Labs administrators can access the information if necessary, Seawell said. "We have three administrators here who can go in and download reports," she said. "If I have an emergency, people would still get paid on time. And to me, that’s a huge stress relief."

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