By Subir Gupta, Aquarius’ National Accounts Manager

Recently we held a webinar on the amendments that were made to ‘roadside record-keeping’ in August 2020, and on this same subject and the fact that these rules are now being enforced, we have seen a noticeable increase in requests for our Time & Attendance portal.  But why?

To calculate a driver’s pay, many operators have long held the opinion that the way forward is to use the tachograph data recorded on a driver’s card, such as start and end of shift.  In a digital world, this would alleviate their reliance on paper, and the hierarchical, tedious administrative process of reviewing and approving recorded drivers’ hours, prior to payroll.

Fast forward with the aforementioned record keeping rules (Mobility Package) being enforced, using the tachograph to calculate driver’s pay has become more prevalent (among other stuff).

However, whilst drivers’ hours are recorded on the tachograph there are other records to be considered for payroll purposes, including Lieu days, sick days, annual leave, maternity and paternity leave, expenses to name a few.

With all these various elements in mind Aquarius created the Time & Attendance portal – being very mindful of the fact that annual leave and sick days for example, are reported significantly differently in the tachograph analysis and legislative world in comparison to payroll requirements. It was a challenge we hit head on!

Our development team worked diligently to offer a solution that not only caters for the payroll requirement, but that also pushes back relevant data to our tachograph analysis portal to reduce administration. Time & Attendance has eased the whole administration process, without the sacrifice of compliance, and presents all relevant data sets on one screen.

With further recent enhancements as well now including automatic accrual analysis based on start date and bonus holiday awards based on length of service, our Time & Attendance solution continues to increase in popularity.

Time & Attendance fits the purpose of both the compliance and payroll teams. The former is able to easily view data sets, and the software allows for a customised export facility to be built by our developers ready for the payroll process – by segregating hours into over-time as required in each individual customer instance.

For all its benefits, Time and Attendance is also such a simple system to set-up via the Aquarius App (which drivers using the App for Defect Reporting, Document Manager or Infringements will already be familiar with) and no additional investment in hardware required as it is compatible with a variety of smart devices and mobiles.

And don’t just take our word for it; in a recent interview with Nigel Thornton, Compliance Director at Collett & Sons Ltd for CONNECTED magazine, told me that the connection between Time & Attendance and the digital tachograph data is one of the biggest benefits of the system, operationally and administratively. He confirmed that this was animportant time-saving and cost factor for them in terms of being able to easily map and overlay both sets of data to assess drivers’ hours being claimed and actual hours worked.  He also referenced the holiday request functionality, saying it was a “massive boost”, as they can now quickly reply to drivers, and also add to the tachograph data, saving both time and paperwork.

For further information, or to request a free demo of Time & Attendance, please get in touch or via https://www.aquariusit.com/contact/