What is TimesheetPic™ (OCR Imports)?
The TimesheetPic™ feature is an Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software which will scan an image and identify what is written automatically; without the need for your attention or input!
Why Use TimesheetPic™
If your employees are still filling in their hours in pen and paper, this will save you a great deal of time and patience. Instead of having to input each time-in and time-out one-by-one into any system, all you would need to do is to download our templates,hand these to your employees to fill in and once it's payroll time, upload them. Once you upload them, you will be given a chance to approve the timesheets.
You will never have to count the hours manually ever again!
Downloading Template
To start off, you will need to download a timesheet template per employee and location. To do so:
- Go to Timesheets
- Select Download Template
- Select the Work Location (Optional)
- Tick the employees in that location and download the template
- Print the Template for your employees to fill in
Filling in the Sheet
The template is already pre-filled with dates. All your employees will have to fill is the Time in, the Time Out, and the duration of break (in minutes). You are free to write anything outside of the lines, such as signatures. Below is an example of a filled-in paper that can be uploaded into Buddy.
Uploading the OCR
Once the templates are filled in, take a photo of each timesheet and transfer them to your device in which you use Buddy. It is important that when taking photos, you try to include the full page while ensuring that the QR code is visible and clear.
- Log back into Buddy
- Go to Timesheets
- Click on Upload Photo
- Select the photo from your file
You will receive a notification that this image has been uploaded. You would then receive an email shortly once the photos have been processed. Do note that this may take up to a couple of minutes.
Email Update
Once the timesheet file has been processed, you should receive one of two emails: success or failure. Below is a screenshot of an email for a Successful Import:
On the other hand, here is a screenshot of an email for a failed OCR Import:
In case you get the above error email, make sure you are logged into the correct company. If you are, try to take another photo that would be more clear and contains the whole template within the image.
Approving and Editing Timesheets
From the Timesheets page, you can View and Edit Timesheets. This is no different for timesheets imported by OCR. Each time entry will have an attached image of the OCR, so that if you need to reference the imported photo, you can easily click without having to look through all your papers!
Do note that you might find some warnings that you should pay attention to before approving (see the below section)
Timesheets Requiring Review
If you have fetched timesheets to approve and see that some of the timesheets have a yellow warning button named "Requires Review", then you should double-check the timesheet entries. The reason why these are flagged are one of the below reasons:
- The OCR confidence level for this entry is less than 95% as the text is not super clear.
- Break includes text that was not understood
- Break is either in the negative (less than 0 hours)
- Break is larger than 8 hours
- The total hours worked are is less than 0 (e.g. break larger than time in and out)
- The total hours worked is larger than 12 hours
- Invalid time inserted (Specifically minutes being set to an amount bigger than 60, e.g. 08:75
Do note that any timesheet listed as Under Review will not be auto-approved when you click Approve All, and it still has to be manually approved.
Work Locations (Optional)
If you require the Location worked to be included in the template, you have to first create/set these locations from the Work Location page. For instructions on how to do so, check out our article, Adding Work Locations.
Work Locations are an optional feature to the OCR Template, and you can download templates without work locations.
FAQ
I have updated the settings of my employees and work locations. Do I need to re-download the templates?
No, Buddy's QR code is specifically linked to internal IDs that are not dependent on the current name of the employee or work location names. This means you can rename both employees and work locations and upload a photo of a template which was printed before these changes.
The Employee name and location on the timesheet template is only used for internal informational purposes.
I imported the Timesheets through OCR but I don't see these reflected in payroll.
The payroll will not automatically update, but you have a change to process and review the timesheets. Make sure to read through the procedure in our dedicated article, Processing Timesheets.