Time and Attendance Integration

The problem this solves

The clock data exists. Somebody exports it every month — a CSV off a biometric terminal, a report from a workforce app, a card-reader log — and then somebody else retypes the totals into a payroll sheet and, if you cost projects, into SAP Business One a second time.

Re-keying is where the damage happens. A shift that crossed midnight gets counted twice or not at all. An overtime rule that changes on a public holiday gets applied by memory. A missed clock-out becomes a fourteen-hour day nobody questions until payroll runs. Project hours never reconcile with paid hours, so job profitability is an estimate rather than a number. And when a dispute reaches a labour authority, there is no traceable line from the raw punch to the amount paid.

SAP Business One is already where your cost centres, projects, employees and Journal Entries live. The gap is a reliable, auditable pipe from the device to B1 — one that applies your actual shift and overtime rules and shows its work.

What ECOSIRE builds

ECOSIRE builds an integration service that collects raw clock events, turns them into validated, rule-applied hours, and writes the result into SAP Business One through the Service Layer (REST) and the DI API. It runs on a schedule you set, it is idempotent — the same export processed twice does not double your hours — and every derived figure keeps a link back to the raw events it came from.

Device and source collection

Attendance sources are diverse and ECOSIRE does not pretend otherwise, which is why collection is scoped at the quotation stage against your actual estate. Common patterns we build: a watched folder or SFTP drop for scheduled terminal exports, a direct read from the device or middleware database where the vendor exposes one, a documented REST or webhook endpoint from a cloud workforce app, and a manual upload screen for sites where a device is offline. Multiple sources feed one pipeline, so a business with biometric readers at head office and a mobile app in the field gets a single set of hours in B1.

Employee identity mapping

Device user IDs almost never match B1 employee codes. ECOSIRE builds an explicit mapping table as a User-Defined Table (UDT), keyed from the device identifier to the SAP Business One EmployeesInfo employee code, with support for one employee holding several device credentials across sites. Unmapped IDs are quarantined and reported rather than silently discarded — a punch that cannot be attributed is an exception you see, not a number that quietly vanishes.

Shift, roster and rule engine

Your shift patterns, roster assignments, grace periods, rounding rules, break deductions, night-shift definitions, weekend and public-holiday multipliers and overtime bands are held as configuration in UDTs, not compiled into code, so you can change a rule without a new build. The engine pairs clock-in and clock-out events, handles shifts that cross midnight, applies rounding and grace in the order you specify, deducts breaks by rule or by actual punch, and splits the result into ordinary hours, overtime bands, night-shift premium hours and unpaid time.

Absence and exception handling

Missing clock-outs, duplicate punches, out-of-roster attendance, and days with no record at all are raised as exceptions on a review queue with a documented reason code. A supervisor resolves or adjusts each one before the period is posted, and every adjustment is stamped with who made it, when, and against which raw event. Where you also run the ECOSIRE HR and Employee Self-Service Portal, approved leave is read so an authorised absence is not reported as a missing day.

Writing into SAP Business One

What gets written depends on what you use the hours for, and this is agreed in scoping:

• Payroll handover. Period totals per employee per pay element — ordinary, each overtime band, night premium, unpaid absence — written to a UDO document in B1 so the payroll figures are visible, reportable and auditable inside your ERP before they leave it, plus an export in the layout your payroll process consumes.
• Project and job costing. Hours attributed to a project or task, so labour lands against the same B1 project your material and subcontract costs already hit and job profitability is a real figure.
• Cost centre allocation. Hours mapped to the cost centre and distribution rule on the employee record, ready for the labour cost Journal Entry.
• Journal Entry posting. Where you want labour cost accrued in B1 rather than only in payroll, ECOSIRE posts a period Journal Entry against your configured accounts and cost centres, from the same validated figures. Posting is gated on your approval — the integration never posts to the general ledger unattended unless you explicitly ask for that.

Reporting and audit

Crystal Reports layouts and saved B1 queries cover timesheet by employee and period, overtime by department, exception ageing, late and early-leave analysis, and a full drill-down from a posted hour to the raw punch that produced it. Because the data sits in your company database, it joins to your existing B1 reporting rather than living in a separate tool.

Who this is for

SAP Business One 10.0 sites with shift-based, hourly or field workforces where hours drive money: manufacturing and assembly plants, warehousing and logistics operations, construction and contracting businesses that cost labour to jobs, facilities and maintenance contractors, and multi-site retail or hospitality groups with rosters. It is most valuable where overtime rules are non-trivial and where labour is a real component of job cost rather than a fixed overhead.

How delivery works

This is a build-to-order integration. Nothing is pre-built, and integration work in particular cannot be honestly shipped as a generic download — your devices, export formats and overtime rules are specific to you.

1. Scoping call. We identify every attendance source and its export format or API, your B1 version and database platform, your shift and roster patterns, your overtime and premium rules in writing, your payroll handover format, and whether hours must reach projects, cost centres or the general ledger. Sample export files are gold at this stage — bring them. 2. Fixed quote. You receive a written scope naming each source, each rule, each B1 write target and the reports, with a fixed price and a delivery date. 3. Build. ECOSIRE develops the collector, the mapping, the rule engine and the B1 write layer, tested against your real sample exports rather than invented data. Typical lead time is two to four weeks from a signed scope; more sources and more intricate rule sets push toward the upper end. 4. Install in test. Installed against your test company database and run in parallel with your current process for at least one full pay period. You compare the integration's hours to your manual figures line by line and we reconcile every difference before anything touches production. This parallel run is the part that earns trust, and we do not skip it. 5. Install in production. After your written sign-off, ECOSIRE installs into the production company database — the UDTs, the UDO, the scheduled collection job, the reports and the posting configuration. 6. Support window. A defect-fix support window follows go-live, covering the first live pay periods, with a documented route for rule changes and new sources afterwards.

Delivery is per-tenant. You receive the source, the installer and the documentation, so a future rule change or a new device does not strand you.