I have spoken up about the importance of time tracking and good record keeping. I came accross this from a reliable resource and wanted to post it. These are not my words, but I don't think I could say it better myself:
Timekeeping & Payroll Recordkeeping: Legal Compliance for 2017
It's never been more important for you to track employees' time correctly and keep accurate records of those hours and minutes. Why?
- Employee wage-and-hour lawsuits have exploded nationwide, fueled by new rules and bad recordkeeping.
- While a higher salary threshold is still frozen in the courts, it could create millions of new overtime-eligible workers – and millions of new potential claims.
- Even if the new overtime rules are shelved, your employees' interest level in their status (exempt vs. nonexempt, employee vs. independent contractor) has been raised … expect even more inquires and lawsuits challenging your classification decisions.
- A 2016 U.S. Supreme Court ruling gives you fresh incentive to keep immaculate time records (employees can now use "sampling" to justify timekeeping lawsuits).
- The outgoing Obama administration poured millions of additional DOL budget dollars into increased wage-and-hour enforcement, which means beefed-up workplace scrutiny. And there's no indication that the Trump administration will rescind these enforcement initiatives.
- The IRS got more money, too – and it hired 700 new enforcement agents who will mostly be tasked with payroll audits. Why? Because that's where the easy money is!
