In today’s society all business are recommended to have security systems installed, this can be CCTV Systems, Door Entry Systems and Access Control Systems, or a combination of all.

Before you purchase any particular type of Access Control System, you need to think about what areas you need to prioritise and what is of most importance to you and your business. You need to ensure your business property as well as staff is safe and secure in your premises. There are also other advantages with access control, there may be a need to ensure staffing levels are correct at all times and in high security departments you will need to know the comings and goings of people, this can all be done with access control. Safety and control for your business are really what we are talking about, there are many ways of achieving this and in this article I have chosen a few solutions that I can recommend myself from our experience these are effective and cost effective methods and equipment used are what we ourselves would have in our business and home.

From the control of a single internal door through to a fully computerised, multi-site network of control points, you can have your Access Control System customised to suit your specific needs. The best option, in my personal opinion is to organise a site survey to take place from an experienced installer as then you will be able to ascertain with the installers assistance what system is the optimal for your premises be it your business or home.

You can control most standard types of internal and external electronic and magnetic door releases and devices, including barriers making full use of location points, whether in full view or hidden out of sight.

Operated by contactless smart cards or key fobs, or biometrics, you will have full control over who is allowed access through any controlled point at any time of any day, placing it at the forefront of security solutions.

You can also have an adapted and extended system with extra time and attendance clocks and access control kit quickly, easily, and without complication.

Which System To Choose

If you need to control the access of one or many independent doors in a building, the Standalone Access Control System can be used. You gain access by using a PIN with a keypad or by a proximity or magnetic token. The way you gain access will depend upon which keypad you have chosen. When having this type of system installed, you will have to program each door individually, which includes if a token needs to be barred or the code needs to be changed, this has to be done on each individual door in the building.

However you could also chose a PC Based Access Control System, this allows you to control one or many doors in a building over a network via a PC.

Access through each door can be gained by using a PIN with a keypad, proximity or magnetic token or by possession with hands free tokens. How you can gain access depends upon which type of keypad you have chosen for your system.

The PC Based System offers you the control from a PC over the network which means you can change access of a token immediately. The command is sent to all doors in the building. You can also set up different types of access levels for individuals or groups of users.

Another great benefit with these types of systems are that you can create reports of the access gained in the building, ie you can see who went where and when.

Biometrics

Biometrics is an Access Control system technique of studying the physical characteristics of a person such as your fingerprint, hand geometry, eye structure or voice pattern.

Biometric methods of identification work by measuring unique human characteristics as a way to provide irrefutable proof of identity, for example, finger or iris scanning or dynamic signature verification.

For the effective \”two-factor\” security authorisation of an individual to a Tensor time and attendance or access control or fingerprint recognition is used in conjunction with a smart card.

Access Control Smart Cards

There’s a selection of smart cards available on the market that can operate your Access Control System.

A very popular smart card is the Paxton Net2. It is approximately the same size as a standard credit card, and is thin and flexible enough to be carried in your wallet.

Renowned for being robust, an Access Control smart card can be read in under