Spotlight: How to bring employee time tracking and shift management into NetSuite and leave manual spreadsheets in the past

Time flies when you’re having fun. It also flies (in a bad way) when you’re turning handwritten time records into spreadsheets, manually calculating overtime, formatting individual timesheets, and wondering why a process involving NetSuite still requires quite so much Excel.

This was the reality for one client of ours. Individual employee hours were recorded manually, fact-checked for accuracy, entered into spreadsheets, manipulated for payroll, and eventually formatted into something printable. All in, it was taking at least two hours every week to turn these scattered workforce notes across paper, Excel, and NetSuite into workable documents for payroll reporting and labor management.

For our consultants, a client mentioning "excel” or “google spreadsheets” is a prominent red flag that they are in need of a better solution and is typically our cue to ask a simple question: Why export the data when it could live—and do something useful—inside the software you already pay for?

Anchor Group developed the TimeClock solution bundle to give organizations a better way: employees clock in and out through a simple NetSuite-connected interface, supervisors review time in one place, and payroll-ready reports are generated without the weekly spreadsheet shuffle.

In essence, TimeClock gives companies a simpler way to collect employee hours today while creating a flexible foundation for shift planning, project tracking, work-order reporting, labor analysis, and more accurate costing tomorrow.

The result was a more centralized process, better operational visibility, and approximately 104 hours saved every year.

Building a better TimeClock solution inside NetSuite

Anchor Group developed TimeClock as a configurable NetSuite solution bundle for tracking employee hours. Employees enter a PIN to clock in or out, and the activity is recorded directly in NetSuite and connected to the appropriate employee record.

For some companies we’ve solution-designed for, that is all TimeClock needs to do: record when someone starts and ends a shift. Clean, simple, no interpretive dance required.

For other companies, their shift operations need more context. That’s why our TimeClock solution can be configured to capture the production line, project, work order, shift, or work area associated with an employee’s time. Options can also be filtered by user, so employees only see the projects or assignments relevant to them. 

This turns every clock-in from a basic timestamp into a useful operational data point. Instead of only knowing that an employee worked eight hours, supervisors can begin answering better questions:

• Where did they work?  
• What project or work order did they support?  
• How much labor went into a particular area or activity?  
• Who was working when an issue occurred?  

The bundle can also support daily shift planning. If a supervisor manages ten employees, they can assign each person’s work through TimeClock instead of maintaining another spreadsheet, Google Doc, whiteboard, sticky note, or sample platter of all four. 

A simpler interface for supervisors

Anchor Group’s consultants and developers also created a custom Suitelet to make the solution more useful for supervisors. 

What is a Suitelet? In plain English, a Suitelet is a script that gives a custom interface for NetSuite compared to using NetSuite directly. Built around a specific task, suitelets also give people the ability to make changes in NetSuite without being a NetSuite user. 

In our client’s case, it gives their supervisors a straightforward way to review and update information without navigating the full native NetSuite interface—or requiring every occasional user to have a standard NetSuite license.

From the suitelet, supervisors can see who is currently clocked in and review employees by shift or work area, make assignments, update selections, and address incomplete entries without digging through multiple records.

The same information can support much deeper labor cost analysis. Time entries can be connected to employee hourly rates, hours worked, work areas, and fulfillment activity. That gives the company a clearer view of how much labor actually goes into producing or fulfilling an item.

It also gives supervisors better context when something goes sideways. Instead of reconstructing a shift from scattered records, they can identify who was working, where they were assigned, and who may have firsthand information about an issue.

In other words, the humble clock-in can become the beginning of a much better cost estimate and a meaningful upgrade from post-it notes and “let's see if anyone remembers.” 

One report for regular hours, overtime, PTO, and holidays 

The second major enhancement addressed the end-of-week payroll process.

Once a supervisor approves the time recorded through TimeClock, it becomes native NetSuite time. Companies using SuitePeople Payroll can continue the process within NetSuite. Companies using a third-party payroll provider can generate the information needed to process payroll elsewhere.

Additionally, we created a reporting interface that lets the client select one employee, multiple employees, or an entire group based on a pay period or date range. One click produces a summary of the recorded time, including regular hours and overtime based on the company’s 40-hour threshold. 

The solution also handles PTO and paid holidays directly on the time record. Instead of maintaining that information in a separate spreadsheet, supervisors can identify whether an entry represents PTO or holiday time inside NetSuite.

But wait—there’s more! Bulk entries make companywide holidays easier to manage, too. Instead of manually adding paid holiday time employee by employee, the company can use a CSV import to create the appropriate entries for everyone at once.

When the report is ready, the company can generate a clean, employee-friendly printout that can be mailed, handed directly to the employee, or included with a pay stub as a straightforward record of hours worked. 

The result: 104 hours per year returned to the business 

After implementation, supervisors began reviewing the information in NetSuite once a week to confirm that recorded time was accurate. In most cases, the only issue requiring attention is an incomplete entry—such as an employee forgetting to clock out.

Printing timesheets is now a matter of selecting the right employees and date range. NetSuite handles the rest.

For this client, TimeClock saves at least two hours of admin work every week, adding up to approximately 104 hours a year—or more than two and a half full workweeks returned to the team.

The company also gained visibility it did not have before. PTO and holiday time now live in NetSuite, giving supervisors a clearer picture of upcoming absences and staffing needs. Employee time can be connected to shifts, work areas, projects, or work orders. And payroll reports can be generated for multiple employees without exporting data and rebuilding it somewhere else.

Before TimeClock, producing timesheets was a frustrating weekly chore. After implementation, the company had more control, less manual work, and one reliable, centralized source of information—which, in this case, meant payroll got easier and the spreadsheets finally got to clock out. 

If you're tired of your time being nickel-and-dimed, drop us a line>