Accurate Labour Costs Start on the Shop Floor
For manufacturers, payroll is one of the largest cost lines on the P&L — and one of the most prone to error. Manual timesheets, card swipe systems and spreadsheet calculations introduce inaccuracies that compound with every pay run. Synel replaces that process with biometric clocking terminals built to work in industrial conditions: dust, temperature variation, gloves, and heavy daily use.
Biometric Clocking Built for Industrial Environments
Synel terminals support facial recognition, fingerprint and RFID card clocking. Facial recognition is fully touchless — employees clock by looking at the terminal without removing gloves or touching any surface. This makes it the preferred option for food production, pharmaceutical manufacturing and any environment with strict hygiene requirements. Terminals operate in offline mode when network connectivity is disrupted, storing data locally and syncing automatically when the connection is restored.
Eliminating Buddy Punching
In production environments where large numbers of hourly-paid workers clock in and out at the same points, buddy punching is a persistent and costly problem. Biometric authentication means only the physically present employee can register attendance. Credentials cannot be shared, lent or forgotten — you only pay for employees who are actually there.
Complex Shift Patterns Handled Automatically
Manufacturing operations typically run on shift patterns that standard payroll systems cannot handle correctly. Continental shifts, rotating three-shift patterns, annualised hours, overtime thresholds that differ by shift type, bank holiday premiums, night shift differentials — each rule must be applied correctly to every employee for every pay period.
The Payroll Rules Engine
Synel's rules engine sits between raw clocking data and your payroll system. It automatically applies your agreed pay rules — overtime thresholds, shift premiums, rounding policies, break deductions, weighted hours — before exporting clean net pay data to Sage, SAP, Oracle, Cascade, Iris or ADP. A typical example: an employee works 30 actual hours across day, night and weekend shifts. The rules engine calculates 42.6 weighted hours for payroll purposes, applying the correct multipliers for each shift type. No manual calculation required.
Working Time Regulations Compliance in Manufacturing
WTR compliance is a legal requirement in manufacturing environments where long shifts and overtime are common. The system monitors the 48-hour average working week, 11-hour daily rest requirements and mandatory break periods in real time. Managers receive alerts before employees breach limits. For multi-site manufacturers where staff work across locations, the system aggregates hours across all sites — standard systems that track each site independently routinely miss cross-site breaches.
Job Costing Against Production Lines and Work Orders
Understanding true labour costs at job or production line level is essential for manufacturing profitability. Without accurate job costing, estimating for new contracts, identifying loss-making production runs and calculating the true cost of downtime is guesswork. Synel's job costing module allows employees to clock onto specific work orders, production lines or cost centres from the shop floor terminal. Managers compare planned versus actual hours in real time and track productive versus non-productive time. Data flows directly to ERP systems including SAP, Oracle and Sage.
Access Control for Production Areas and Restricted Zones
Manufacturing sites contain areas where access must be restricted to qualified or certified personnel — machinery operation zones, chemical storage, electrical rooms and high-security areas. Synel's access control system allows entry only to employees whose training records confirm the required certification. When a certification expires, access is automatically restricted until renewal. A full audit trail supports health and safety compliance and supports investigations in the event of an incident.