Refresher Course: automated time & attendance makes the lives of CPAs easier by reducing the time needed for manual administrative work

Accountants still manually uploading files and data between independent programs are spending too much valuable time: In fact, one study found that up to 20% of an accountant’s time is spent on administration – more than any other profession surveyed.

While it’s an improvement over manual processing, using multiple programs simultaneously to manage payroll, payroll taxes, and time and attendance is not true integration.

Consolidating information manually between platforms is cooperation and could be costing you time and money, as well as causing reporting errors due to inconsistencies. It might sound subtle but it can make a big difference. Like the difference between a hobby and a business, or an individual retirement plan and a qualified retirement plan, it’s a distinction that can change everything.

Accountants make their living among such distinctions, as Paul Bonner notes in a recent episode of the Journal of Accountancy podcast, and if anyone understands the power of leveraging efficiency, it’s a CPA.

So why have so many accountants moved so slowly to adopt the dramatic efficiencies of automated and integrated systems for accounting, timekeeping and HR? Automated processes are about more than the time they save – they’re about the ability to refocus that time on new ways to add value and grow your business. They’re about ways to navigate the changing demands of the profession.

“The need to collect, organize, and mine data for business insights — all in real time — will present the accounting profession with unprecedented challenges and opportunities in a rapidly approaching, radically different future.” – Jeff Drew, Journal of Accountancy

The keywords here are challenges and opportunities; keeping up with the ever-evolving accounting landscape may be challenging, but the benefits of providing information efficiently and accurately far outweigh the cost of updating outdated systems.

Automating your employee time clock information is easier than you think and can significantly reduce time needed for functions. For over six years, Timerack has provided intelligent integration with Thomson Reuters Accounting CS Payroll and myPay Solutions platforms to facilitate the flow of information from one program to the other.

Right Data, Right Time, Right People: Connecting the Dots with Integration

How do you know what kind of integration is useful amid the technical jargon? Identifying the data you need can be daunting without dedicated software. Timerack has worked closely with Thomson Reuters to provide an intuitive system of one-click communication between programs to ensure you have the information you need when you need it.

For example, Timerack provides automatic transfer of payroll files containing time card details to Accounting CS at the end of each pay period, which then automatically creates a payroll batch in CS.

Information seamlessly shared between Accounting CS and Timerack includes (but is not limited to):

• Employee information
  • Social Security numbers
  • Departments
  • W-4 information
  • Direct deposit information
  • Primary payroll schedule
• Client information
  • Client IDs
  • Departments
  • Payroll item descriptions
  • Accruable benefit descriptions
  • Banks

You can learn more by watching the video below.

In addition to its integration with Thomson Reuters, Timerack also works with multiple payroll interfaces to bridge existing payroll software with our time tracking software. To learn more about how we can integrate with your payroll platform, click on the link below.