HR for Health vs Dentrix: Who Has The Better Timekeeping System?

As a busy dental practice owner, employer, and/or office manager , your attention and time are rightfully given to your patients. You’re more interested in your patient’s chipped tooth than you are in the best timekeeping software on the market.

While your priorities should always be first on the needs of your dental patients, it’s important to have the best tools on hand so you can serve those needs as effectively and efficiently as possible. One of those tools is timekeeping software. While there are plenty of timekeeping software options on the market, this article will compare two from the following companies: HR for Health and Dentrix. 

What is HR For Health’s Timekeeping Function?

We all know keeping time can be a hassle. Employees clock in early and late, or maybe they forget to do so altogether. This then creates enormous headaches for whoever’s processing payroll. 

HR for Health’s timekeeping software aims to solve all the problems related to timekeeping. It does the following:

• Sends email alerts if someone clocks in too early.
• Publishes watchdog reports to manage employee overtime.
• Uses geolocation tracking to ensure employees only clock in when they’re physically at the office and/or clocking in from an authorized IP address.
• Computes difficult calculations for you, including weighted averages for overtime.
• Maintains compliance with all HR laws and regulations based on your state’s specific requirements. 

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What About Dentrix’s Timekeeping Function?

Dentrix is a practice management software, often referred to as a PMS, which has the following features:

• Software that tracks patient information, patient charts, patient schedules, etc. It does more than keep time, and it is meant to be an integrated suite of services to manage the business and clinical side of your dental practice. 
• Many of these systems also have time clocks included (no extra charge) as a convenience since employees are logging into the system every day to manage patient data, yet they aren’t all as robust a system as HR for Health.
• It is designed for dental offices alone. 

HR for Health vs Dentrix Timekeeping: How Do They Stack Up Against Each Other?

How do the HR for Health and Dentrix timekeeping functions compare? Let’s take a look piece by piece. 

Changing Timesheets

With Dentrix

Generally speaking, PMS time clocks have security settings that allow for “all or nothing” when it comes to timesheet edits. This means you can allow for someone to change a timesheet (without approval) or make no edits at all.

Most offices operate with the office manager or doctor making all edits to all timesheets since the other option is to allow employees to change their own without approvals.

The process for correcting a timesheet usually looks like one of the following:

• Verbal Notice
• Post- it note
• Text message
• Email
• Employee forgets to clock in/out and communicates this with the office manager
• The office manager prints out a report when it’s time to run payroll and verifies with each employee that their timesheets are correct. The office manager or doctor is responsible for making all edits on behalf of the employee. This means that the process is:
  • Extremely time-consuming.
  • Frustrating for the office manager or doctor if employees frequently clock in incorrectly.
  • Can be risky since the paper trail shows employers changing the time clock without proof of explanation. It makes the office manager or doctor legally liable. 

With HR for Health

Employees edit their time and the office manager or doctor approves the edit.

• The employee must give a reason for the edit.
• An audit trail shows the employee made the edit and the office manager or doctor only approved the edit (as opposed to making it themselves).
• If you still don’t feel comfortable allowing employees this access, you do have the ability to restrict timesheet edit privileges

If an employee forgets to clock in/out and needs to edit their time, what is the process for them to do so?

• With HR for Health’s timeclock, the employee will no longer have to ask you with a post-it note, text message, or verbal notice. Instead, they will put their edit into the software, give you a reason why the change had to happen, and you will get an alert in real time to approve the change. 
• When viewing the change, you will be able to see the audit trail of before and after and only have to click “approve.”

Meal and Rest Break Tracking

With Dentrix

• Rest Break tracking
• If the client is in a state with mandatory rest breaks, this needs to be tracked daily. 
• PMS time clocks do not track rest breaks.

With HR for Health

• Meal break compliance can be tracked and customized based on your state.
• For those in a state with rest break requirements, how are you tracking paid rest breaks right now?
  • With HR for Health’s timeclock, the employee will be reminded to take their break every single day upon clocking in for work. This gives you the documentation to avoid he-said, she-said should an employee ever claim they were not offered rest breaks. 
  • NOTE: Rest break claims are one of the most common because it’s so hard to track and prove!

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Timekeeping Systems for Dental Practices – Why They Fall Flat

Leave of Absence (LOA) Tracking

With Dentrix

• PMS time clocks do not track vacation or sick leave balances.
• If a practice is using a PMS timeclock, the doctor or office manager is likely tracking vacation/sick/paid time off (PTO) hours on a spreadsheet, physical calendar, etc. 

With HR for Health

• Time off accruals are tied to the timeclock. As employees clock in, they accrue hours at the rate established in the employee handbook. 

• How are you currently tracking employees’ sick leave/vacation/PTO balances? What is the process for an employee to request time off?
• With HR for Health’s system, the timeclock and leave of absence tracking is tied together. As an employee works, they accrue hours based on the policies you have established in the employee handbook.
• The employee has full visibility to the available hours and requests it right through the system for your approval. 

Multiple Rates of Pay

With Dentrix

• If the client pays employees different rates of pay (i.e., for training time) there is no way to allocate hours to multiple rates of pay.

With HR for Health

• Multiple rates of pay can be tracked.
• Weighted average calculations are automatically done when an employee incurs overtime for the workweek and they also worked under two different rates of pay.
• Tracking of nonexempt, per diem employees – if an employee works overtime, HR for Health’s system automatically calculates what is owed for per diem employees.

Alerts Around Timekeeping Behavior

With Dentrix

PMS timeclock does not track or alert a user for things like:

• Overtime worked
• Tardiness
• Early clock-in

With HR for Health

Alerts around timekeeping behavior:

• Daily watchdog reports with overtime summary
• Tardiness alerts (customized threshold)
• Early clock-in notifications
• Reporting available to track trends in attendance/tardiness

Overtime calculations