Access control FAQs
What UK businesses ask us before they fit access control. If yours is not here, call the Leeds team on 0113 350 9043.
What is a commercial access control system?▼
A commercial access control system controls who can enter a business premises and which areas within it they can reach, using credentials such as cards, fobs, PINs, mobile phones or biometrics instead of keys. Each person is given permissions, entry can be limited by time of day and by door, and every use of a controlled door is recorded so you can establish afterwards who went where and when.
How much does a commercial access control system cost?▼
It depends on the number of doors, the credential chosen, whether the doors already have suitable locks and how the cabling runs, so any published figure would be wrong for most buildings. A single door with a card reader is a modest job; a multi-site system with biometrics and turnstiles is not. Computime surveys and quotes against the actual site.
Ask for a survey.
How does Computime compare with Paxton, Salto or ACT?▼
They make excellent door hardware and have deeper product ranges. If access control on its own is all you need, they are a sound choice. The difference is that they do not make time and attendance, so pairing the two means either a third-party integration someone maintains or two systems reconciled by hand. With Computime the badge that opens the door is the clocking, feeding the same timesheet,
payroll export and
fire roll call.
Can access control double as clocking in?▼
Yes, and it is the main reason people come to Computime for it. One badge at the main entrance both opens the door and starts the shift. A door someone passes four times a day is not automatically the right clocking point, so most sites end up with entry doors that clock and internal doors that do not.
What happens to access when somebody leaves?▼
You put a leave date against them in the software and their permission is cleared everywhere, including at the readers themselves. From that date they cannot open a door or clock in, and nobody has to walk round the building with a laptop or change a lock. A key that never comes back is a lock you either replace or worry about; a credential is switched off in seconds from a desk.
How do people get out in an emergency?▼
Break glass units are fitted as standard on controlled doors, so anybody can release a door by hand without needing a credential or a working network. Doors can also be released automatically when the fire alarm sounds, but that depends on the customer’s alarm panel being interfaced to the door hardware, which is a design decision taken at survey rather than something that happens by default. Your
fire risk assessment should drive that decision.
What happens if the power fails?▼
It is a design decision per door. Doors on escape routes are specified to fail safe, meaning they release and let people out. Doors protecting something valuable are usually specified to fail secure, so they stay locked. Battery backup keeps the system running through short interruptions, and the fire risk assessment should drive which doors are which.
Who is accounted for after an evacuation?▼
Because the system knows who came in and has not left, it can produce the list of who should be at the assembly point, and show how many people were last recorded in each zone of the building. With
fire roll call that list is on the marshals’ phones rather than printed inside the building, and several marshals can work the same list at once from any authorised device. It covers staff and signed-in visitors, though no system knows about somebody who walked out of a side gate without using a reader.
Is biometric access control allowed under UK GDPR?▼
Yes, and thousands of UK businesses use it, but biometric data used to identify someone is special category data, so there is more to do than with a card. You need an appropriate lawful basis, staff need clear information about what is held and why, and a data protection impact assessment is usually expected. The
ICO’s guidance on special category data sets out what is expected. Cards work perfectly well if that is more than you want to take on.
Can we start with one door and add more later?▼
Yes, and most people do. A common route is the main entrance first, then whichever internal door caused the last awkward conversation, then the rest as budget allows. Adding a door later is a normal job rather than a redesign, and the same software manages one door or fifty across several sites.
How are visitors and contractors handled?▼
They get their own access level, limited to the areas they need and often to particular hours or days. Signed in through
visitor management, they also appear on the same on-site list as staff. Contractor credentials can be set to expire, so nobody is still carrying working access months after the job finished.
Who installs it and who provides support?▼
Computime surveys, installs, trains and supports it, so one company is involved rather than a manufacturer, a reseller and a separate installer. When a reader stops working you ring Leeds and speak to someone who knows your system.
How long does access control installation take?▼
A single door is usually a day. A larger system depends mostly on cabling and how much of the building can be worked in at once, and it is better phased around your operation than having the main entrance out of action. The survey gives a realistic timeline before you commit.
Does access control work across multiple sites?▼
Yes. Sites are managed from one place, so someone who moves between locations carries one credential and one set of permissions rather than a fob for each. Access rights can differ by site, and a manager can be given oversight of their own location only.
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