What Is Buddy Punch About And How Does It Work?

Last Updated on November 2, 2022 by Emmanuel

Statistics show that false buddy punching costs employers nearly half-billion dollars in the United States, a considerable loss. 

To prevent your business from falling into such a situation, I felt compelled to share a review answering the question of what Buddy Punch is about and how it works.

At the end of this post, you will understand this Software and how it can help you manage your employees profitably.  

Buddy Punch will prevent your employees from clocking in on behalf of each other when some can’t be at work on time. 

The General Overview 

• The Name: is Buddy Punch.
• Date of creation: Founded by Eric Czerwonka and partners in 2013.
• Headquarters: Grandville, Michigan, in the United States.
• Product: Employee online time clock.
• Pricing: It starts at $25.99 per month for up to 4 employees.
• Overall Ranking: 9.4 out of 10. 

Introduction To Buddy Punch App 

Buddy Punch offers features and tools to help you track your employees’ attendance, time off, overtime, etc.

Some employees who can not be at work on time tend to ask their colleagues to punch on their behalf, which can cause considerable losses to your business.

Indeed, a recent study has found that many companies in the United States lose nearly half-billion from such employee behaviors.

The Buddy Punch app will enable employees to punch online or on smartphones. They will choose the method they want.

This application will give you peace of mind. You will always ensure that your pay salary is worth the work done.

In addition, Buddy Punch offers other business management options, including the possibility of viewing your employee’s GPS position.

A GPS will help you limit where they can punch in or out. You will also get automated reports, etc.

Also, it integrates with QuickBooks software, Gusto Payroll, Paychex, SurePayroll, and many other employee management platforms.

The following sections will briefly describe the Buddy Punch features, benefits, costs, etc.

The Buddy Punch Features

This Software integrates so many features that I cannot describe all of them in this review.

I will show you a few and provide you with a link to learn about others.

The Buddy Punch time tracking options will help reduce time spent manually analyzing, updating, and reviewing your employee timesheets. 

Employee Scheduling

This feature includes the employees’ scheduling tools that you can use to manage your company conveniently.

The Buddy Punch dashboard is easy to use. You will not go through a long learning process to master this Software and use it to your benefit.

You will have complete control of your employees’ work schedules in or off the office to ensure that each member knows what to expect from him.

In a few words, the employee scheduling feature will enable you to manage your company’s schedules.

Each staff member will know the upcoming work, changes, etc., at any time.

RELATED: Homebase free employee scheduling app review.

Job Codes

The Job Codes feature will track your employees’ number of hours worked.

You will know exactly their workday on a specific assigned job. This can particularly help if you are a service business provider. 

Your employees will easily punch into a different code if they need to change job codes during their shifts.

You will then view the real-time spent on each task through the Buddy Punch report or employee’s time card.

You will first create a code and assign it to your employees for this feature.

Once done, the Buddy Punch system will enable them to select the code they want to punch into when punching.

If you run a business that needs to track time by the job, you will use the job costing tool. You can create as many jobs, labels, etc., as required. 

Paid Time Off (PTO) Tracking 

This feature can give your employees more power over their PTO.

They will be allowed to use their time card to enter PTO directly.

However, you must approve PTO as your employees request it, but you can also allow them to add it without prior approval. 

It will all depend on what is convenient for you. You can also turn this feature off at any time.  

For example, this can happen if you want to prevent your employees from requesting or entering PTO. 

It is also possible to activate an option allowing your employees to view their PTO calendar.

Employee Facial Recognition

This feature will allow your employees to use a live image from a webcam to log in and punch in and out. 

The Buddy Punch time clock is so intelligent that it will ensure that they are only clocking for themselves, not on behalf of their colleagues.

The Chrome extension for laptops and desktops supports this platform’s facial recognition feature.

You can also use it on Buddy Punch iOS and Android applications.  

Geofences Feature

Geofences will enable you to create a radius around where your employees must punch time in and out from.

You will know if they are working on the right job site and punching in and out correctly. 

If your employees are within the defined location, they will not be allowed to punch in.

You can also assign them multiple geofences and use the Buddy Punch IP Lock feature with geofences to allow them to punch in when they are within one or the other.

If, for example, some employees try to punch outside a geofence radius, they will automatically see a map of their current location.

They will also be notified that they are not within the assigned geofence. 

Reporting Tools

Buddy Punch also offers various reporting tools that you can customizable to meet your business’s needs.

You can ask the system to sort out detailed payroll reports in Excel.

The system will provide information on employees, departments, locations, working hours, overtime, etc.

You can also use the hours summary brief report in Excel or PDF formats to know the total number of hours worked by your employees or workforce in a given time.

The system can even provide you with the daily hour’s report per employee, including PTO. 

In summary, you will get reports showing every employee’s in and out activities in a set time.

The PTO summary reports will mainly show you all PTO taken by each employee (holiday, personal, sick, etc.). 

The Buddy Punch Pros and Cons

Pros

• This Software integrates the features and tools you need to manage your business profitably.
• You will schedule in, and off-office work quickly makes the necessary changes, and send notifications to concerned people.
• The employee punch time clock will help you track the working places, hours, overtime, etc.
• You will schedule quickly and manage paid and unpaid time off without spreadsheets or calculations.
• The system automatically calculates the accrued vacation, sick time, and expected salary.
• Buddy Punch will also monitor remote workers from where they are working.
• This sofware integrates with many other business management platforms, such as QuickBooks, Paychex, Workday, etc., to help you make your business more productive.

Cons

This is not a disadvantage to using the Buddy Punch app, but it may help the owners provide their customers with the best user experience.

Indeed, some users say that the Buddy Punch app can cause delays when someone clocks out.

This can make it difficult to track employees who do multiple jobs back to back without losing time.

Update: The owners of this platform have made the necessary adjustments. The issue was fixed to the user’s satisfaction.

RELATED: Acuity online appointment scheduling software review.

The Pricing Structure

You can choose between the following packages:

(i) Time and Attendance at $25.99 per month: This plan will enable you to manage up to four employees.

It integrates a mobile app feature with GPS, time-off tracking, job tracking, alerts, reminder tools, etc.

(ii) Time and Attendance Plus Scheduling at $35.99 a month: This plan includes the benefits of the previous one plus the scheduling features.

(iii) Enterprise package at $45.99 a month includes the advantages of the two previous plans plus the API access and Single Sign-On (SSO) features.

The red banner below will take you to the Buddy Punch official website, where you can learn more about this soSoftware’subscription plan.

You will then choose the plan appropriate for the needs of your business.

The Final Words

This review that answers the question of what Buddy Punch is about and how it works ends here.

It contains the necessary information you start using this platform and get the maximum benefits.

Thank you for reading the Buddy Punch review. You can ask questions or comment at the end of this page.

I will ensure to get back to you as soon as possible.