AU2005306593A1 - Time and attendance management system - Google Patents

Description

WO 2006/053398 PCT/AU2005/001767 1 Time and attendance management system The present invention relates to a time and attendance management system, and in particular, to a system for electronically capturing verified time and attendance data for the purpose of audit, compliance and verification monitoring by a primary fund provider. The system may be used in connection with childcare services for example, or any other service involving a primary fund provider, service provider, and service recipient. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION For the purposes of this invention, any reference to a 'fund provider' is not intended to be limited only to entities which provide financial resources, but also to those which prescribe and/or regulate service outcomes without providing financial support. There are a large number of existing services involving the three participants mentioned above. The role of each participant is briefly described below: Primary fund provider The primary fund provider is responsible for supplying the primary funds to pay for the service provided by a service provider and/or to prescribe and regulate service delivery outcomes. Examples of primary fund providers may include Local, State and Federal Government, national and multinational corporations, franchisees, and small to medium business operators. Service Provider The service provider delivers services using the financial resources supplied by the primary fund provider. Under such circumstances, the service provider must also typically deliver the service in compliance with regulations prescribed by the .primary fund provider. An example involving both of these is child care services whereby the service provider is the child care service provider which is both subsidised and regulated by the primary fund provider, the Government. Other examples of service providers include contractors, sub-contractors, and paid/volunteering service provider staff. Service Recipient The service recipient is the intended principle beneficiary of the service resources provided by the primary fund provider which is delivered by the service provider. For example, in the case of WO 2006/053398 PCT/AU2005/001767 2 child care services, the service recipient is the parent or guardian of the child being cared for by a service provider. In systems which involve the three participants described above, it is important that the interaction between the participants be recorded so that information relating to a particular participant may be easily accessed for the purpose of: - Verification: The identification of the registered child care service provider and associated care work staff, as well as the service recipient (the parent or guardian) should be verified in accordance with known records. Current systems of verification have been found to be inadequate. For example, if a child care service provider were to employ underqualified staff, or if a person other than the parent or an authorised adult associated with a child were to attempt to retrieve a child from a child care centre, these activities may well go unnoticed without an effective verification system. - Compliance: As mentioned previously, primary fund providers often prescribe and regulate the activities associated with a particular service. For example, in the case of child care services there are various legislative requirements which the service provider must abide by. For this reason, an adequate means of monitoring compliance is important. Current compliance monitoring methods are not reliable and in many instances, service providers are able to provide false or fraudulent documents so that it would appear that these requirements are being met, when in fact they are not. Compliance monitoring is also useful for such things as policy research and review, resource budgeting, and administration process management design. - Audit: The service provider will often employ a number of staff, and in the case of contractors, will initiate a number of contract agreements in order to appropriately deliver the service provided by the primary fund provider. Accordingly, the service provider must be able to process staff payroll, keep records of client invoices and monitor contract compliance, and the primary fund provider may need to access this information for the purpose of auditing. At present, audit information may also be inadvertently inaccurate or falsely recorded by a service provider and there is therefore a need for a more reliable method of capturing such data. The reason for the abovementioned problems is the vast amount of paperwork associated with present management systems making them prone to error and/or fraudulent activity.

WO 2006/053398 PCT/AU2005/001767 3 There is therefore a need for a more efficient service management system, and in particular, a system which is less likely to produce erroneous data, and which prevents those who would otherwise attempt to wrought the system from doing so. There has also been a longstanding need for a time and attendance management system which allows a service recipient to be more actively involved in the process of ensuring that service resources are put to their intended use. It is therefore an object of the present invention to overcome at least some of the aforementioned problems or to provide the public with a useful alternative. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION Therefore in one form of the invention there is proposed a time and attendance management system characterised by: involving at least a primary fund provider, a service provider and a service recipient wherein the service recipient is the beneficiary of service resources provided by the primary fund provider in respect of services delivered by the service provider; a means for the primary fund provider to issue unique identities to each of the service provider and service recipient; a means for identifying and verifying said unique identities; a means for recording date and time data relevant to services delivered; and a means for said primary fund provider to access said date and time data. In preference, service resources are not provided to the service provider until the primary fund provider has verified the date and time data. Preferably, said service recipient comprises a master recipient, and optionally, at least one secondary recipient. Preferably, said date and time data is not accessible by the primary fund provider until the master recipient verifies the data. In preference, said unique identity is in the form of a serial number associated with a portable memory storage device which is assigned to each of said service provider and service recipient.

WO 2006/053398 PCT/AU2005/001767 4 Preferably, said unique identity further includes biometric information relating to the carrier of the portable memory storage device. Preferably, said biometric information is in the form of fingerprint or palmprint information. Alternatively, said biometric information is in the form of iris information. In preference the means for identifying and verifying a unique identity is in the form of a portable memory storage device reader. In preference said portable memory storage device reader is adapted to be kept at a service provider premises. Alternatively, said portable memory storage device reader is transportable and adapted to be carried by said service provider. Preferably the location of the transportable reader is trackable by the primary fund provider. In preference said reader includes a storage means associated therewith, said storage means adapted to store information relating to each unique identity. In preference said reader is configured to verify each unique identity by comparing the identity stored in the portable memory storage device with that which is stored in the reader storage means. Preferably said storage means is in the form of a computing device with access to a remote database containing information relating to all unique identities. Preferably the unique identities are further verified by photographic recognition of the carrier of the portable memory storage device. In preference said reader constitutes said means for recording the date and time data. Preferably the date and time associated with a particular service is obtained via an atomic clock which is remotely accessible by said reader.

WO 2006/053398 PCT/AU2005/001767 5 In preference said date and time data is stored in a central depository which is fully accessible to the primary fund provider, and which may be made partially accessible to the service provider and service recipient. In preference said central depository and said remote database are the same, that is, there may be a central depository of information relating to the unique identities, as well as the recorded date and time data. Preferably said system is used in connection with child care services. In preference said system is used in connection with nursing, community aged care and disability support services. Preferably said system is used in connection with mobile security patrols. In preference said system is used in connection with cleaning services. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated in and constitute a part of this specification, illustrate several implementations of the invention and, together with the description, serve to explain the advantages and principles of the invention. In the drawings: Figure 1 is a flow diagram of the time and attendance management system of the present invention; Figure 2 is a flow diagram of the time and attendance management system of Figure 1 including the components within the terminal; Figure 3 is a descriptive flow diagram of the time and attendance management system of Figure 1; and Figure 4 is a descriptive flow diagram of the process by which a start and end time record is achieved with respect to one or more actions. DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS The following detailed description of the invention refers to the accompanying drawings. Although the description includes exemplary embodiments, other embodiments are possible, and WO 2006/053398 PCT/AU2005/001767 6 changes may be made to the embodiments described without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention. Wherever possible, the same reference numbers will be used throughout the following description to refer to the same and like parts. The present invention relates to a time and attendance management system 10. The system 10 is shown in the flow charts of Figures 1-2 in its general form, that is, with no reference to any particular service but simply illustrating the core process involved. As is shown, the system 10 involves three participants, a primary fund provider 12, a service provider 14, and a service recipient 16, the role of each being described in the preamble of the invention. The first step in this process is the issue of an electronic signature or identity 18 and 20 to both the service provider 14 and service recipient 16 respectively. The identities 18 and 20 are issued by the primary fund provider 12 and may be in the form of any one of a number of commercially available cards or tokens which are able to carry a unique and preferably encrypted serial number. The issue of identities 18 and 20 is indicated in the flow charts by line 22. Commonly available cards include Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) cards or tags, magnetic swipe cards, iButtonsTM, and Bar Code images. The electronic signatures 20 will be issued to service recipients 14 upon request. In a preferred form of the invention there will also be an additional layer of verification in the form of an associated biometric identification assigned to the e-signature card or token. The person to whom the e-signature is issued will have a personal bio-metric identification stored in the memory of the e-signature card or token. The bio-metric may be in the form of a finger print, iris recognition or palm print. In the case of fingerprint recognition, whilst only one print is required, two fingerprints should be recorded to cover the event of a single finger having the print damaged and thereby rendering it unidentifiable. Such a system will ensure that each individual's bio-metric is held only in their possession and not on random computers or card readers. It will effectively prevent the 'buddying' problem whereby one may simply pass on or allow another person to use an issued ID card. Photographic verification could also be used whereby a photograph taken of the card carrier may then be compared with a recorded identification photograph at a later stage, or immediately so that the identification is rejected. These verification systems will discourage if not eliminate the opportunity for fraud.

WO 2006/053398 PCT/AU2005/001767 7 The primary piece of information to be recorded in relation to a service, whether it be a record relating to the service provider or service recipient, is generally an attendance start time and an attendance end time. Where in the past this information was recorded on paper which left open the possibility for inadvertent error or fraud, the present invention provides that these records are captured and stored through terminal 24 by means described below. The dotted lines 26 indicate that the terminal 24 in most situations will be located at the same premises as the service provider 14, however, it is to be understood that in some circumstances this may not necessarily be the case as will be explained further below. The terminal 22 comprises an electronic identity reader 28 and a computing device 30. The electronic identity reader 28 is designed to read the service provider's or service recipient's unique serial number 18 or 20 respectively (indicated by lines 32 and 34 respectively), as well as the card owner's bio-metric, and then pass that information to the attached computing device 28 (indicated by line 36). The computing device 30 includes a database (not shown) of pre-installed information relating to all electronic identities issued by the primary fund provider 12. If the record corresponding with the electronic signature is identified in the database, then the computing device once again communicates with the electronic identity reader 28 (this illustrated through line 38) and the record is verified with a date and time stamp which is then drawn from the reader 28. The date and time settings are maintained within the reader 28 at atomic clock accuracy, and are independent of the date and time settings of the attached computing device 28. If pre-installed data relating to the electronic signature 18 or 20 is not found, then a record will not be established. The computing device database is also used to store all verified records. Each time a date and time stamp is drawn from the electronic identity reader 28, the verified record is automatically written to and stored within the database. Once in the database, the verified records can then be transmitted (indicated by line 40) either directly to the primary fund provider 12 or to a central data collection bank (not shown) by way of any established commercial network such as telecommunications infrastructure, wireless link or the internet. The data that is sent to the primary fund provider 12 is preferably in the form of customized reports. If the data is sent from the computing device database directly to the primary fund provider 12 then the reports may be created through the computing device 30 using appropriate software. If the data is sent to the primary fund provider 12 via the central data collection bank, then the reports may be created at the central data collection bank itself.

WO 2006/053398 PCT/AU2005/001767 8 The service recipient comprises two levels of authorisation, there is a master recipient, and a secondary recipient. The master recipient has a higher level of authorisation than the secondary recipient, for example the master recipient is the only recipient that has account verification authority. That is, the master recipient has the ability to sign off service records as a true and correct record for submission. It is only after the master recipient has verified a record or group of records that the recorded data may be passed to the primary fund provider. And it is only after the primary fund provider has the verified data that the service funding resources are delivered. In other words, the service provider will not be paid until the service recipient has received verified the service records and cross checked them against prescribed service orders assigned to the service provider for the benefit of the service recipient. This means that it is in all party's best interest to establish accurate data records. The date and time stamp drawn from the electronic identity reader 28 not only provides a very accurate record of the date and time of a particular action, but is also a counter-fraud measure in that the atomic clock forms part of the reader 28 itself and is not accessible through the computing device 30. As those skilled in the art would realise, the date and time set on a computing device 30 may be easily changed to produce false records. Each time data is transferred from the computing device database to the primary fund provider 12, maintenance of the atomic clock is achieved via a return signal. When the electronic identity reader 28 establishes the record with a date and time stamp, and stores the record in the database, an identical record is written to and stored in a memory device (not shown) within the electronic identity reader 28 itself. This is simply a safety measure in the event that the computing device 30 fails and recently stored data is thereby not able to complete the function of establishing an attendance record and transmitting the data to the data collection bank / server 42. When the computing device 30 is restored the electronic identity reader memory device will deliver the service data for verification by the master recipient. The primary fund provider 12 may retrieve data from the data collection bank / server (indicated by line 42). The terminal display will also have an attendance record which is presented live at the terminal 24. The benefits of the system 10 of the present invention should now be obvious. Records reflecting the actions of service providers 14 and service recipients 16 verified with an accurate date and time stamp are made available to a primary fund provider 12. The fund provider may then use these records for the purposes of monitoring verification, compliance and auditing, and WO 2006/053398 PCT/AU2005/001767 9 for any other purpose for which the verified records prove useful. A more detailed representation of this process can be seen in the flow chart of Figure 3. It is to be understood that a date and time stamp may be required not only for attendance start and end times, but also to record any other action undertaken between the attendance start and end times. For example, in the case of child care services, actions such as the service provider feeding a child, changing nappies, or a service recipient perhaps dropping off a second child, are each required to be recorded. Accordingly, such actions are also to be accorded a verified date and time stamp. Illustrated in Figure 4 is a flow chart 46 of a process for recording multiple actions between a recorded attendance start and end time. The first step in this process is the initial attendance start record of the service provider 14 or service recipient 16. This initial step is achieved when the electronic identity reader 28 is made to read the identity of the participant and the record is verified, as described above. Software installed on the computing device 30 will then prompt the identity with a number of selectable action input check boxes 48 whilst displaying the date and time stamp drawn from the electronic identity reader 28 alongside each box. The action input check boxes 48 are indicated on the flow chart 46 by action input check box 1, action input check box 2, and action input check box n which serves to indicate that there can be any number of further action input check boxes. As is shown in the flow chart 46, if action input check box 1 were not selected, a record of this action is simply not established. If however the check box is selected, then a start date and time stamp associated with that action will be recorded. In order to formally establish the record and to also record an action end time, the participant will be prompted again with a 'record' check box. Once again, if this is not selected, a verified record of the action will not be established, however, if the 'record' check box is selected, a verified record of the start and end time associated with the action will be recorded and stored in the same way as previously described. It is only the master recipient that is able to check the 'record' check box. The process thus allows for multiple actions to be undertaken during any one logged on session. The above description has focussed on the general principle of date and time data capturing in accordance with the present invention. The following description is an example of how the above principle may be applied to a service, and in particular, to a child care centre. Once again, the present invention is not intended to be limited to use on child care services only.

WO 2006/053398 PCT/AU2005/001767 10 In this example, the service provider is a health care support service, the service recipient is the parent of the child to be minded, and the primary fund provider is the State or Federal Government who subsidises the services delivered by the health care support service. An identity card 18 is firstly issued by the Government to an appropriate person at the child care support service, for example, the manager or owner. A separate identity card 20 is also issued to the service recipient, upon request. In this case, we will consider the master recipient to be the mother of the child, and a secondary recipient may be the father or relative, an "authorised adult". Each card will carry important information relating to the card owner, and at the very least will provide a name and potentially photographic image of the card owner at the terminal 24 when swiped. It is to be understood that each individual identification record may include more than one photographic image, for example, a parent's identification record may include their own photograph as well as the photographs of their children. An example of what may occur over the period of a few days in a child care support service is as follows. The owner of the child care support service (the service provider) arrives at work on one day and swipes his or her card and logs on. The care provider will not log off until all children in care in this session are logged out. If the logging out of a child has been missed then the Care Provider must log them out before logging themselves out at the end of the day. Logging on effectively creates the service provider start time. Where there is more than one care provider, further staff who arrive at the child care support service should also have their own swipe cards so that records pertaining to their attendance may also be recorded. The terminal will include a display screen on which appears all relevant information relating to the card owners, as well as a number of menus, including a menu displaying the names of children who are currently logged on into care or who have been registered for an absence (allowable or approved) for the day, and a menu displaying a master list of children in the care of the care provider. The service provider has the ability to log children's attendances in certain situations, for example, in situations where they are required to take children to school/kindergarten and collect them from school/kindergarten. When a parent enters the child care centre, they swipe their card and thereby establish a service recipient start time. The parent's electronic identity will then appear on the display screen and the information may also include the name and photographic identities of their children. There will be an action input check box for each child. Therefore, if say a first child is dropped WO 2006/053398 PCT/AU2005/001767 11 off, the appropriate action input check box is selected by the parent and a verified record of the drop-off is established at atomic clock accuracy, this time being displayed continuously beside each check box on the screen for personal verification by the parent. If the parent then leaves, it may well be a requirement for the service provider to record when particular service actions are undertaken such as changing nappies and feeding. The service provider or staff member thus has a number of action input check boxes to select from, these being associated with actions to be completed by themselves. In this case, one of these will be to record when a particular child has been provided with a specific activity, like being taken to or collected from pre-school or school. Thus when the service provider begins a non-parent presence care activity with a child, he or she will select the check box and thereby establish an action start time record, again with the date and time appearing on the screen for personal verification. When the unsupervised activity is complete, the service provider will then action the computing device and reader to record the action end time. This may be achieved by simply having a selectable 'record' icon associated with the action. Alternatively, the check box may be associated with the child/parent's identity. The parent may now wish to drop off a second child at the child care centre on the same day, or perhaps a second child on a different day. Thus, when the parent arrives with his or her second child and accesses the appropriate identity screen, she would then select the action input check box associated with her second child. This will effectively establish a start time record for the second child without affecting the first child's record. Thus, if this occurs on the same day, there will be two children logged in at the same time but having different recorded start times. Finally, when the parent arrives back at the child care support service to pick up both children, she will review that all actions have been delivered by the care provider, and when satisfied will authorise each action by ticking the appropriate "verified as accurate" check box. The authorised service recipient / parent must establish the verification of the entire session which may pertain to records created by the care provider over the space of a few days, or over a full week, or any other predetermined period of time. Only the master recipient is able to verify such records, the authorised adults have limited ability in that they are only able to sign children in and out of care. Non-verified records will be displayed in red on the display screen and must be verified before the service claim data can be sent to the collection bank/server and thereby to the primary fund provider for settlement of services funding.

WO 2006/053398 PCT/AU2005/001767 12 Although not described above, there may well be a number of further actions which took place throughout the attendance session, these being associated with further action input check boxes. When the child care service provider principle and/or staff have completed their duties, they too are to swipe their cards thereby establishing a record of their own attendance, whilst finally, the child care centre administrator will swipe his or her own card to end the service provider session. It is to be understood that every date and time stamp drawn from the electronic identity reader 28 for the purpose of establishing a time and attendance record is stored in both the computer database and the reader memory. Although not described above, it is to be understood that bio-metric verification may be required each time a card owner logs in or out, and optionally, every time the card is swiped. It is to be understood that the information associated with each swipe card may be different depending on the participant who owns the swipe card. For example, the electronic identity of children, which will be accessible through the parent's card, may include any allergies or other medical information associated with that child. Those skilled in the art should now also realise the broad scope of services to which the present invention may be applied. For example, the system 10 may well be applied to services involving contract labour whereby monitoring of contract compliance is necessary. Other examples include the fields of nursing, community aged car, and disability support services. A nurse, personal care worker, or domestic assistant may have a personalised card which carries information related to their qualifications, contracted operations, and associated rates. For example, an Agency contract nurse may be qualified to do two or more jobs and so one day may log in at a hospital or other establishment as a clinical nurse, and the next day may log in with a community care service provider as a relief community care case manager. Another use of the present system may be in a building site whereby each occupant must swipe his or her card on entry and exit through the building. This would prove very useful in emergency situations such as fires in that authorities will be able to establish exactly how many occupants are trapped inside.

WO 2006/053398 PCT/AU2005/001767 13 Further, in the case of services that require the service providers to travel, such as in security patrols, the reader 28 may well be made to be portable and may include its own display screen, and software which allows data to be synchronised to a main computer. Under these conditions, there will also be the option to dump the data stored in the reader to a remote database. This could be done by well known means such as modem or ADSL connection. A global positioning system (GPS) could also be used in association with portable readers. This provides occupational health and safety benefits in that it would provide the ability to monitor the safety of "lone workers", such as those who may be providing a security patrol monitoring or cleaning service for example. It is to be further understood that different services will require specifically designed software to be installed onto the computing device. For example, where in a child care support service a staff member may be required to select a check box relating to when a child is to be fed, or taken to and collected from pre-school, other services would require a completely different set of actions and a different set of menus. Particular information will be accessible by all three participants, however, this will be controlled by a strict username and password system and data which is accessible by the service provider and service recipient will obviously be limited. Finally, the following list summarises some of what may be obtained as a result of capturing data using the system 10 of the present invention: * Service transaction information for service recipients * Service provision and service receipt regulation compliance reports * Demographic policy research and review * Resource budgeting * Administration process management design * Electronic time sheets for payroll processing * Electronic invoices for billing * Funding disbursement claims and contract compliance reporting WO 2006/053398 PCT/AU2005/001767 14 * Spot audit checks of who is logged in and where logged in o Live connections in real time o Dial up connections on demand o Scheduled downloads related to the last data transfer * Historic audit reviews either broad in scope or day and time specific * Historic data analysis for demographic reporting * Historic data analysis for service performance reviews Further advantages and improvements may very well be made to the present invention without deviating from its scope. Although the invention has been shown and described in what is conceived to be the most practical and preferred embodiment, it is recognized that departures may be made therefrom within the scope and spirit of the invention, which is not to be limited to the details disclosed herein but is to be accorded the full scope of the claims so as to embrace any and all equivalent devices and apparatus. In any claims that follow and in the summary of the invention, except where the context requires otherwise due to express language or necessary implication, the word "comprising" is used in the sense of "including", i.e. the features specified may be associated with further features in various embodiments of the invention.

Claims (24)

1. A time and attendance management system characterised by: involving at least a primary fund provider, a service provider and a service recipient wherein the service recipient is the beneficiary of service resources provided by the primary fund provider in respect of services delivered by the service provider; a means for the primary fund provider to issue unique identities to each of the service provider and service recipient; a means for identifying and verifying said unique identities; a means for recording date and time data relevant to services delivered; and a means for said primary fund provider to access said date and time data.

2. A time and attendance management system as characterised in claim 1 wherein service resources are not provided to the service provider until the primary fund provider has verified the date and time data.

3. A time and attendance management system as characterised in claim 1 or claim 2 wherein said service recipient comprises a master recipient, and optionally, at least one secondary recipient.

4. A time and attendance management system as characterised in claim 3 wherein said date and time data is not accessible by the primary fund provider until the master recipient verifies the data.

5. A time and attendance management system as characterised by any one of the above claims wherein said unique identity is in the form of a serial number associated with a portable memory storage device which is assigned to each of said service provider and service recipient.

6. A time and attendance management system as characterised in claim 5 wherein said unique identity further includes biometric information relating to the carrier of the portable memory storage device.

7. A time and attendance management system as characterised in claim 6 wherein said biometric information is in the form of fingerprint or palmprint information. WO 2006/053398 PCT/AU2005/001767 16

8. A time and attendance management system as characterised in claim 6 wherein said biometric information is in the form of iris information.

9. A time and attendance management system as characterised by any one of claims 5-8 wherein the means for identifying and verifying a unique identity is in the form of a portable memory storage device reader.

10. A time and attendance management system as characterised in claim 9 wherein said portable memory storage device reader is adapted to be kept at a service provider premises.

11. A time and attendance management system as characterised in claim 9 wherein said portable memory storage device reader is transportable and adapted to be carried by said service provider.

12. A time and attendance management system as characterised in claim 11 wherein the location of the transportable reader is trackable by the primary fund provider.

13. A time and attendance management system as characterised by any one of claims 9-12 wherein said reader includes a storage means associated therewith, said storage means adapted to store information relating to each unique identity.

14. A time and attendance management system as characterised in claim 13 wherein said reader is configured to verify each unique identity by comparing the identity stored in the portable memory storage device with that which is stored in the reader storage means.

15. A time and attendance management system as characterised in claim 13 or claim 14 wherein said storage means is in the form of a computing device with access to a remote database containing information relating to all unique identities.

16. A time and attendance management system as characterised by any one of the above claims wherein the unique identities are further verified by photographic recognition of the carrier of the portable memory storage device.

17. A time and attendance management system as characterised in any one of claims 9-16 wherein said reader constitutes said means for recording the date and time data. WO 2006/053398 PCT/AU2005/001767 17

18. A time and attendance management system as characterised in claim 17 wherein the date and time associated with a particular service is obtained via an atomic clock which is remotely accessible by said reader.

19. A time and attendance management system as characterised by any one of the above claims wherein said date and time data is stored in a central depository which is fully accessible to the primary fund provider, and which may be made partially accessible to the service provider and service recipient.

20. A time and attendance management system as characterised in claim 19 wherein said central depository and said remote database are the same.

21. A time and attendance management system as characterised by any one of the above claims wherein said system is used in connection with child care services.

22. A time and attendance management system as characterised in any one of the above claims wherein said system is used in connection with nursing, community aged care and disability support services.

23. A time and attendance management system as characterised in any one of the above claims wherein said system is used in connection with mobile security patrols.

24. A time and attendance management system as characterised in any one of the above claims wherein said system is used in connection with cleaning services.