Buddy Punching: Legal Risk Beyond Lost Time

Buddy punching is often dismissed as minor time theft. Regulators treat it as falsified payroll data. Once time records are shown to be unreliable, the credibility of the entire system collapses.

Shared punches distort hours worked, inflate overtime, and create inconsistencies that investigators quickly identify. Even isolated incidents can trigger deeper review.

Why It Becomes a Compliance Problem

Wage-hour audits focus on whether recorded time reflects actual work performed. If one employee clocks in for another, the employer cannot prove who worked the hours being paid.

This identity gap undermines:

• Overtime calculations
• Meal break compliance
• Workweek hour totals
• Payroll accuracy

Where Employers Lose Control

PIN-based systems and swipe cards are easily shared. Supervisors may “help” by clocking in staff who arrive late. Over time, these practices normalize and go undocumented.

During investigations, auditors examine punch patterns — identical clock-ins, repeated timing anomalies, or overlapping shifts often reveal substitution.

The Cost Multiplier

Once buddy punching is discovered, investigators frequently expand the audit period. If systemic weaknesses are found, payroll may be recalculated using employee interviews and estimated hours.

This almost always increases liability.

Preventive Controls

Biometric time clocks eliminate identity substitution by linking each punch to a unique fingerprint or facial template. Combined with exception reporting and supervisory alerts, they close the most common enforcement gap.

At EmployeeTimeClocks.com, many organizations adopt biometric systems only after realizing how vulnerable credential-based clocks are during compliance reviews.

Bottom Line

Buddy punching is not a minor policy violation. It creates inaccurate payroll records — and inaccurate records are what regulators penalize.