Replacing your Schlage HandPunch
What happens to your punch history, which terminal replaces yours, and what it costs. Written for people who already own the hardware — not a sales comparison.
Most teams replacing a HandPunch are around 20 people and set themselves up in under an hour. Past 100, book a call — the terminal count and site layout are worth working through first.
Your HandPunch will not connect to ClockIt
We would rather lead with that than waste your time. ClockIt reads terminals that speak the ADMS push protocol — that means ZKTeco and eSSL devices. A HandPunch does not, and no amount of configuration changes it.
So this is a hardware replacement, not an integration. The rest of this page is about what that actually involves and what it costs, including the parts people usually discover too late.
What a HandPunch is
The HandPunch is a hand-geometry terminal — originally from Recognition Systems, later sold under the Schlage and Ingersoll Rand names and serviced through Amano. Instead of reading a fingerprint, it measures the size and shape of the hand and verifies against a stored template in about a second. The terminal only collects punches; it always needed separate time-and-attendance software behind it to turn those punches into timesheets.
This guide covers:
Why teams move off HandPunch
The hardware is a decade or more into its life
Most HandPunch units still running were installed years ago. Replacement parts and units increasingly come from the refurbished and second-hand market rather than from new stock, which is a difficult position to be in when the clock your payroll depends on fails on a Thursday.
It needs software behind it that you buy separately
A HandPunch on its own produces nothing usable. It has to be paired with a time-and-attendance package, and for many sites that package is as old as the terminal and runs on a PC in the office that somebody has to keep alive.
Hand geometry has been overtaken
The technology was excellent for its era. Modern fingerprint and face-recognition terminals verify faster, cost a fraction of what a HandPunch cost new, and push punches straight to the cloud instead of waiting to be polled by a local machine.
Nobody can see the data until it is collected
Punches sit on the terminal until the software pulls them down. If you want to know who is on site right now, you cannot — you find out after the fact.
What replaces what
| Your HandPunch setup | With ClockIt |
|---|---|
| HandPunch terminal reading hand geometry | ZKTeco fingerprint or face-recognition terminal, pre-configured for your account |
| Separate time-and-attendance software licence | ClockIt at $2.99/user/month, software included |
| PC in the office polling the clock | Built-in ADMS pushing punches to the cloud in real time |
| Reports you run at the office machine | Live dashboard and reports from any browser or phone |
The terminal you need
Time Clock X990 FP+RFID Ethernet
The X990 is the industry-standard biometric workhorse, now upgraded for the cloud era. Designed for high-traffic environments like factories, warehouses, and large offices, it combines a rugged hardware build with lightning-fast fingerprint verification (<0.5s).
$450
- Free worldwide shipping
- Arrives pre-configured for your ClockIt account
- Yours outright — no lease, no per-clock licence
How the migration actually goes
- 1
Export your history before you unplug anything
Pull your punch history out of the existing software as CSV while the system is still running. This is the step people skip and regret — once a terminal is decommissioned or a licence lapses, historical punches stored on-device or in a local database can become very hard to reach. Keep the export regardless of whether you import it; payroll audits reach back years.
- 2
Create your ClockIt account
Free to start, no card. Add your employees, set your pay period, and configure overtime rules to match what your old system was doing. Most teams have this done in well under an hour.
- 3
Plug in the new terminal
Your ClockIt device arrives pre-configured for your account. It connects over WiFi or Ethernet and pushes punches to the cloud using built-in ADMS — no local server, no static IP, no port forwarding, no software to install on a PC in the back office.
- 4
Enrol employees and run both in parallel
Enrol fingerprints or faces on the new terminal — a few seconds per person. Run the old clock alongside the new one for one full pay period so you can reconcile the two before you retire the old hardware. Nobody should cut over blind on payday.
- 5
Retire the old terminal
Once a pay period reconciles cleanly, decommission the old clock. Keep the CSV export from step one in your records.
The integration capabilities of this mobile time clock app are outstanding. It seamlessly connects with our existing HR and payroll systems, creating a streamlined workflow that has significantly reduced errors and improved our overall efficiency.
HandPunch migration questions
Can I connect my HandPunch 3000 to ClockIt?
No. The HandPunch family predates the ADMS push protocol ClockIt uses and has no way to send punches to a cloud service directly. Replacing the terminal is the only honest path, and a modern fingerprint terminal costs considerably less than a HandPunch did new.
What happens to the punch history stored on my HandPunch?
Export it from whatever time-and-attendance software has been collecting from the terminal, as CSV, before you decommission anything. Punches held on the terminal itself are reachable only through that software, so do this while the system is still running.
Is fingerprint reading as reliable as hand geometry for dirty hands?
This is the real question for workshops, kitchens and sites where hands are wet or dirty, and it is a fair one — hand geometry was genuinely tolerant of that. If it applies to you, take the face-recognition terminal rather than the fingerprint one. It is contactless, needs no clean finger, and is faster at shift change.
We have several HandPunch units across sites. Does that work?
Yes. Every terminal pushes to the same ClockIt account, and each one can be assigned to its own site, so punches arrive already attributed to the right location. For multi-site rollouts book a call and we will size it with you.
Does ClockIt integrate with my existing terminal?
Almost certainly not, and we would rather say so plainly than waste your time. ClockIt connects to terminals that support the ADMS push protocol — that means ZKTeco and eSSL devices. Hand-geometry readers, proximity-card clocks and most access-control terminals do not speak it. If your device is not a ZKTeco or eSSL, the honest answer is that you need new hardware, which is why we sell it pre-configured rather than pretending a connector exists.
How much does the hardware cost?
Terminals in our shop run $450–$650 with free worldwide shipping, and they arrive already configured for your ClockIt account. That is a one-time purchase, not a lease, and there is no per-clock software licence on top of it.
What does the software cost after that?
ClockIt is $2.99 per user per month. There is a free plan to start on and no setup fee, no per-terminal licence, and no annual contract required.
We have 100+ employees. Can we talk to someone first?
Yes — book a call. Once you are past roughly 100 people the questions get specific to your setup: how many terminals across how many sites, how shifts and overtime rules are structured, and how punches need to reach payroll. That is a conversation, not a signup form.
Replacing something else?
Ready to retire the HandPunch?
Start free and set your account up today — the terminal can follow once you know it fits. Under 100 employees, most teams do this without talking to anyone.