If you pay any employees on an hourly basis, it’s a given someone has tried to benefit from buddy punching or similar stunts. Now you have extra help to head off the scams.

The latest advance in payroll technology is something that used to be seen only in sci-fi movies: biometrics. The systems “read” a person’s hand (or sometimes a retinal scan) to confirm that the person punching in or out is actually who they say they are.

Requiring that physical evidence eliminates buddy punching, and can also cut down on workers who may have other tactics for inflating the records of the hours they actually worked.

Biometrics is worth taking a look at now, because recent advances in the technology are driving costs down.

Tags: Fraud prevention, Payroll, Technology