NetSuite Time Tracking Case Study: How TimeClock Saved 104 Hours a Year

The solution replaced a weekly tangle of paper, Excel, and manual calculations with configurable NetSuite time tracking. Employees now clock in and out through a simple interface, supervisors review time and assignments in one place, and payroll-ready reports are generated without the weekly spreadsheet shuffle.

Built by Anchor Group’s NetSuite developers using SuiteScript, TimeClock is also a practical example of NetSuite optimization: take a repetitive process that already depends on NetSuite, remove the unnecessary work happening outside the system, and give the resulting data more to do. 

The Problem: Manual Employee Time Tracking Outside NetSuite

Time flies when you’re having fun. Time 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 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.

At Anchor Group, “Excel” and “Google Sheets” are not dirty words. But when a process already touches NetSuite and still requires someone to rebuild the same information in a spreadsheet every week, our consultants tend 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 their clinet a better answer. The bundle provides NetSuite employee time tracking through a simple clock-in interface, centralizes supervisor review, and generates payroll-ready reports and employee timesheets in NetSuite without recreating the data somewhere else.

The immediate result was a more centralized process, better operational visibility, and approximately 104 hours returned to the business every year. The longer-term benefit was a flexible foundation for shift planning, project tracking, NetSuite work orders, labor analysis, payroll, and more accurate costing. 

Building a Better NetSuite Time Tracking Solution With SuiteScript

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, that is all TimeClock needs to do: record when someone starts and ends a shift. Clean, simple, no interpretive dance required.

Other times (oftener times) a company’s shift operations need more context. That’s why our TimeClock solution can be configured to capture the production line, project, NetSuite 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 is where custom NetSuite development earns its keep. Instead of forcing every company into the same time-entry process, a NetSuite developer can configure the bundle around the information supervisors, payroll teams, and operations leaders actually need.
The result is much more than a timestamp, where each clock-in can become a useful operational data point that helps answer better questions:

• Where did the employee work?
• Which 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.

What Is SuiteScript in NetSuite?

NetSuite SuiteScript is the JavaScript-based development framework used to create custom business logic and interfaces inside NetSuite. In this case, Anchor Group used SuiteScript to build the TimeClock experience around a focused task: recording, reviewing, and reporting employee time.

Put simply, a NetSuite script can make NetSuite behave more like the business needs it to behave. TimeClock shows how thoughtful NetSuite scripting can turn a multistep administrative process into one connected workflow.

This kind of NetSuite custom development is especially valuable when an off-the-shelf tool captures time but cannot connect it to the operational details the business needs.

What Is a NetSuite Suitelet? A Simpler Interface for Supervisors

A NetSuite Suitelet is a script that provides a custom interface for a specific task. It can make a focused process easier than navigating the full native NetSuite interface and can allow certain people to interact with NetSuite data without requiring every occasional user to have a standard NetSuite license.

In our client's case, the Suitelet gives supervisors a straightforward way to see who is currently clocked in, review employees by shift or work area, make assignments, update selections, and address incomplete entries without digging through multiple records, without needing to navigate th efull native NetSuite interface, and without needing a standard NetSuite license.

The interface was created through Anchor Group’s NetSuite development services, combining a purpose-built Suitelet with the logic, filters, and reporting needed to support the company’s workflow.
What is the goal of NetSuite customization, you ask? Great question. The goal is to remove complexity from the employee’s side of the screen, with the best NetSuite customizations being the ones that often feel simple because the difficult logic is doing its job quietly in the background, with less input and time spent on the employee’s end.

Connecting Employee Time to NetSuite Job Costing and Labor Visibility

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. For organizations working toward better NetSuite job costing, a clock-in can become the beginning of a much more useful cost estimate.

TimeClock can also strengthen NetSuite costing by directly connecting labor data to the activity that created the cost. For example, instead of only knowing that an employee worked eight hours, supervisors can see where the time went, what the employee was supporting, and where.

It also gives supervisors better context when something goes sideways. Instead of reconstructing a shift from scattered records, a supervisor can identify who was working, where they were assigned, and who may have firsthand information about an issue (which, in our opinion, is a meaningful upgrade to post-it notes and memory alone).

NetSuite Payroll Reporting 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 instead generate payroll-read records for processing 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.

Bye bye, manual reporting! This NetSuite report customization replaced the client’s need to rebuild payroll information manually each week. It also made NetSuite payroll data easier for supervisors to review and more useful for the people responsible for processing it.

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.

Does NetSuite Do Payroll?

For companies using SuitePeople Payroll, approved time can continue through NetSuite payroll and HR workflows inside the platform. 

In other words, does NetSuite have payroll capabilities? Yes, depending on the company’s setup. But TimeClock does not require a direct NetSuite payroll integration to create value. It can centralize time collection and approval in NetSuite, then produce the information a third-party payroll provider needs.

Why custom NetSuite development was the right fit for our client

TimeClock began with one client’s frustrating weekly process, but it was designed as a configurable solution bundle rather than a one-off patch.

At Anchor Group, we make sure NetSuite customization services are done with the next step in mind. For our TimeClock solution, a company may start by recording clock-ins and clock-outs, but then decide they want to extend the same foundation to shifts, projects, work areas, labor costs, work orders, or payroll reporting as their needs evolve.

Ongoing NetSuite customization support also means the solution does not have to remain frozen at its first configuration. As the business changes, the fields, filters, assignments, and reporting can change with it.
That is the advantage of pairing a reusable bundle with experienced NetSuite development: the business gets a faster starting point without giving up the ability to shape the workflow around its operations.

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 view of upcoming absences and staffing needs.
• Employee time can be connected to shifts, work areas, projects, or work orders.
• Payroll reports can be generated for multiple employees without exporting and rebuilding the data somewhere else.
• Labor information can support better operational analysis and more accurate costing.

This is what practical NetSuite automation looks like. It does not always begin with a sweeping transformation; sometimes it simply begins with giving a two-hours a week back to the people who have better, more productive things to do.

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, get our TimeClock solution here. 

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