What is a bundy clock?

Where the name comes from

In the late nineteenth century, factories were growing fast and employers needed a reliable way to record when each worker arrived and left. Willard Bundy, a jeweler in Auburn, New York, patented a key-operated time recorder in 1888: each worker had a numbered key, and turning it in the clock printed the worker’s number and the time on a paper roll. His company became one of the businesses that later merged into the International Time Recording Company, part of the group that eventually became IBM.

To record clock-ins, breaks and overtime automatically, see EZTime time and attendance software.

The design spread worldwide, and in Australia and New Zealand the brand name became the everyday word for any time clock. That is why you still hear phrases like “don’t forget to bundy off” there, while American workers “punch out” or “clock out”.

How a mechanical bundy clock works

1. Each employee has a paper time card, usually kept in a rack beside the clock.
2. On arrival, the employee inserts the card into a slot.
3. The clock prints the date and time in the correct column, often with a bell or clunk.
4. The employee repeats this for breaks and at the end of the shift.
5. At the end of the pay period, a supervisor or payroll clerk collects the cards and adds up the hours by hand.

Later models added automatic column shifting, colored ink for late punches and electronic displays, but the basic idea, a physical card stamped by a clock, stayed the same for most of the twentieth century.

Why punch clocks lasted so long

Bundy-style clocks were simple, cheap to run and hard to argue with: the stamp was there in ink. They gave employees a visible record of their own hours, and they turned timekeeping into a routine rather than a supervisor’s judgment. Many small businesses still use them today, especially where the workforce is in one building and payroll is simple.

The limits of paper time cards

Hand-totaling cards is where most errors creep in. A misread time, a skipped column or a wrongly calculated overtime week can easily lead to underpayment or overpayment. Our time card calculator helps if you still total cards by hand, and our guide on preventing buddy punching covers one of the biggest weaknesses of shared clocks.

Today’s equivalents

The job of a bundy clock, recording when people start and finish, is the same today. The tools have changed:

• Digital terminals and kiosks on the wall or a tablet at the entrance, with PIN codes or photo capture. See tablet kiosk time clocks.
• Biometric clocks using fingerprints or faces, where permitted by law. See time clock app vs. biometric.
• NFC tags that employees tap with their phone at the site. See NFC time clock.
• Mobile apps with optional GPS location for field and remote teams. See EZTime mobile app.
• Web clock-ins for office and remote workers.

Our guide on NFC vs. GPS vs. biometric time clocks compares the main options, and how to choose a time clock walks through the decision.

Totaling a punch card: a worked example (fictional)

Here is how a payroll clerk might total one day on a paper card. The card shows: in 7:58 a.m., out for lunch 12:02 p.m., back 12:31 p.m., out 4:35 p.m. The morning block is 4 hours 4 minutes and the afternoon block is 4 hours 4 minutes, so the day is 8 hours 8 minutes, or 8.13 hours in decimal. The unpaid lunch is not counted because the employee punched out for it.

Now repeat that for every day, every employee and every week, convert minutes to decimals, check for missing punches and work out overtime for each workweek. It is easy to see why errors happen. Our decimal hours converter helps with the conversions.

Should you replace your bundy clock?

If you have one site, a handful of employees and a simple payroll, a punch clock may still be adequate, as long as someone totals the cards carefully and keeps them as required. Signs that it is time to move on:

• You spend hours each pay period adding up cards.
• Overtime and break rules are getting more complex.
• Employees work at more than one site or in the field.
• You suspect buddy punching.
• Payroll errors and disputes are increasing.
• Your records need to be easy to retrieve for audits or wage claims. See record retention.

Moving from punch cards to digital

1. Choose a clock-in method that fits each team: kiosk for a shop floor, app for field crews.
2. Set up pay rules: workweek, overtime, breaks, differentials and rounding, if any. See rounding rules.
3. Run both systems side by side for one pay period and compare totals.
4. Train employees with a short demonstration at the start of a shift.
5. Keep the old paper cards for the required retention period.
6. Review the first few pay periods closely and adjust.

Our time clock rollout guide covers the change in more detail.

Bundy clock vocabulary

See also clock-in, time card and kiosk time clock.

How EZTime helps

EZTime does the job of a bundy clock without the cards: employees clock in from a kiosk, an NFC tag or the mobile app, hours and overtime are totaled automatically, corrections are tracked and approved hours are exported for payroll. See pricing for plans.

Bundy clock vs. modern time clock

See how to choose a time clock and time clock app vs biometric.

Keeping old card records

If you switch from cards to a digital system, keep the old cards for as long as recordkeeping rules require. Federal rules require payroll records to be kept for three years and records used to compute wages, such as time cards, for two years, and some states require longer. See time record retention requirements.

Is it time to retire your punch clock?

Tick each statement that is true for your business.

Frequently asked questions

Where to go next