A high-tech York firm is in line for two major national awards.

Mitrefinch in Green Lane, Clifton Moor, which manufactures digital clocking-in devices, is a finalist in two categories of the prestigious National Business Awards, sponsored by Orange.

The firm, which employs 70 people in its UK head office and another 30 in Dublin, Sydney and Toronto, is in line for the health and safety award, as well as the Orange Award for Bright Business.

Mitrefinch has had no reportable injuries at work, largely because it consciously makes health and safety an integral part of its work patterns by being preventative.

The Bright Business accolade is within its reach because of its innovative new product called Time & Attendance.NET, software which allows people working internationally to clock in wherever they may be, using mobile phones.

This same product propelled the firm to victory in the Best Use of Technology category in the 2004 Evening Press Business Awards.

National Business Award winners will be announced at an awards ceremony at the Palace Hotel, Manchester, on July 12.

Tanja Letica Wootton, Mitrefinch's marketing manager, said: "We didn't originally apply for health and safety, but each category asks for details of your H & S record and organisers later phoned us to suggest that we submit a stand-alone entry in that category. I'm glad we did.

"We believe that by having health and safety as part of our business culture we have derived positive benefits such as having not a single day lost through industrial injury over the past three years, improved efficiency when we are on customers' sites.

"We are also able to pitch for new business which we would not have been able to win without a good safety record and practices."

Time & Attendance.NET was launched last July and took the market in human resources software by storm, adding ten per cent to the company's turnover.

Updated: 09:24 Monday, April 18, 2005