Work Ticket

A work ticket or time card is a standard form or document showing the total time spent by employees on particular jobs. Companies can use it to track the status of a specific project. Moreover, they can use time cards to calculate workers’ wages who receive hourly payments.

A work ticket system is common in different industries such as manufacturing, event management, and construction. Based on this mechanism, companies bill the cost of direct labor to their clients. Time cards include details like time, date, nature of work, and location. They improve workplace efficiency by allowing companies to track pending tasks in an organized manner.

• Time cards are physical or digital documents that record the number of hours an employee has put in for a particular task.
• Time cards enable businesses to compute and control labor costs. Moreover, they can help monitor the status of a specific project.
• An effective work ticket system minimizes the time taken by employees to log in and out and allows companies to track attendance easily.
• Time cards are common across multiple industries, such as information technology, manufacturing, etc.

Work tickets refer to documents that organizations use to record the time an employee’s time in a specific task or job. In other words, a time card shows the total hours each employee has worked on a particular job. Organizations in the service industry primarily use time card software.

Besides ensuring that the workers receive accurate payment, time cards help calculate and control labor costs, improve project management, track productivity, and estimate future labor requirements. Moreover, they can help maximize the profitability of a business.

Let us look at some more advantages that an effective work ticket system offers.

• Tracking attendance becomes a straightforward process.
• It reduces the workload of administrative employees.
• Controlling permits, overtime, and breaks becomes easier.
• It reduces the time taken by employees to clock in and out.

A time card includes crucial information, such as the pay period, employee’s name, date, etc. Completed copies of this document show exactly how long it took to provide a specific service. Accordingly, businesses can utilize time cards to settle complaints raised by clients who think the employees did not do the work on time or did not finish the task.

In present times, time cards are digital documents, which means that there is no paperwork involved. Instead, the employees update the documents via software databases. This has further improved organizational efficiency by eliminating human errors. Resultantly, such software applications are gaining a lot of traction. Indeed, the time and attendance software market can generate $5.31 billion by 2030, per estimates. This projection highlights the growing popularity of work ticket software applications.  

Let us look at some work ticket examples to understand this topic better.

Example #1

Various employees of the Sampson County Sheriff’s office sued the county claiming that they were not paid as per their time cards, which is an infringement of the Fair Labor Standards Act. 

The county owes over $25,000 to the plaintiffs who alleged that their employer deleted hours from their timesheets. These employees worked during the 1-hour meal break, but the county also deleted that, per the lawsuit. Resultantly, they did not receive accurate payment. 

Example #2

Let us say that company ABC uses a traditional time card system; one worker has to punch the time, and another enters the time into the payroll system. To simplify the process, the company brings in time card software. As a result, employees can now enter their time into the payroll system directly by logging in via a computer. Introducing the new software application saves time, making it easier for company ABC to track employee attendance.

Time cards are forms that record and track the hours worked by an employee. One fills out this document based on an employer’s pay period. Thus, it can be once every week, twice every week, monthly, etc. When the date and time are stamped on the time cards by time clocks, they are timesheets. In modern times, a timesheet is a digital document. Traditionally, the presentation of data on a timesheet is in a tabular format.

Employees must submit their timesheets to their supervisors, who either make changes or approve them. Post-approval, the supervisors send the timesheets to the payroll department. The latter ensures that the employee receives their salary.

Individuals should also remember that a work order differs from a time card. The former is a document that offers a description of the approved work. One can use these physical or digital documents to track the completion of a project and record the utilization of resources. A work order consists of crucial details, which include —

• Task description
• Estimated completion date
• Name of the person responsible for completing the work
• Location
• Tools, parts, and documents that are necessary for achieving the objective.

This has been a guide to Work Ticket and its definition. We explain the benefits of work ticket, examples, and vs. time sheet. You may learn more from the following articles -

• Excel Timesheet Template
• Exception Report
• Gross Wages