A small business time clock has one hidden cost that decides everything: somebody has to chase the missed punches, and in a small business that somebody already has a full job. Products are sold on capture and should be judged on correction, because the minutes spent fixing last week are the real running cost and they land on one person.
Judge it on a Friday afternoon
Ask what a missed punch costs you: who notices, how they are told, and how many steps the fix takes. Run that once in a trial with a deliberately missed punch. It is the task you will perform most often and the one demonstrations skip, and the difference between products on it is measured in hours per month rather than in features.
The week has to close
There should be a moment where a week is approved and then locked, after which any change is visible as an adjustment rather than a silent edit. Products without it leave whoever runs payroll wondering every Monday whether the numbers moved, and occasionally they have. Ask to see an approved week and then try to change it.
Price it at next year's headcount
Small employers cross pricing bands by hiring two people. Ask where the band boundary sits and what the price becomes before comparing monthly figures, because the cheaper product today is frequently the dearer one in March. Ask also what happens if headcount falls, since most contracts price growth and ignore contraction.
Questions people ask about small business time clock
How many staff before a clock pays for itself?
It is about variability rather than headcount. Fixed weeks need no clock; the first time two people remember a Tuesday differently, the record pays for itself at once.
Can we just use a shared spreadsheet?
It works until it does not, and the failure is retrospective. A file anybody can edit is not a record of hours, it is what everybody currently agrees happened.
Does it have to reach payroll automatically?
Not strictly, and if it does not, somebody retypes hours every period. That retyping is both a cost and the place errors enter.