Tracking Flexi-Time

Flexi-time in some parts of the world usually refers to accumulated overtime hours that an employee can build up and exchange for the equivalent amount of time off. Basically, you need to keep track of time worked over a defined threshold. That’s no problem with Virtual TimeClock because you can create overtime rules to accommodate just about anything.

Some of the international customers I've chatted with recently track flexi-time monthly even though overtime is calculated on a daily or weekly basis. So when you run employee timecards for an entire month, the overtime will be calculated separately. This can then either be paid out or entered as a leave award. I recommend creating a new leave category called “Flexi”. You would just have to manually add the hours to Flexi every month for each employee and when they use the Flexi time, you would add it to their timecard as paid leave.

Jeff
Technical Support Team
Redcort Software, Inc.

Does Paid Leave Count Towards Weekly Overtime?

We often get asked if paid leave counts toward weekly overtime calculations. Well, that depends on whether you want it to or not. By default, any paid leave time (vacation, sick time, holidays, etc.) does not count as hours worked for the calculation of weekly overtime. We've found this to be the way most businesses want and expect their time clock software to work. For example, if someone works 35 hours in the week and also gets paid for an 8 hour holiday, their timecard would show 35 regular hours and 8 hours paid leave.

However, there is a seldom used setting that causes leave hours to count towards weekly overtime calculations. Turn on administration, click Configure and Overtime. Click Overtime Preferences in the toolbar.

Now if someone works 35 hours in the week and also gets paid for an 8 hour holiday, their timecard would show 40 regular hours and 3 hours weekly overtime.

Jeff
Technical Support Team
Redcort Software, Inc.

Tracking Comp Time

What is comp time?
Comp (compensatory) time is an alternate way of rewarding overtime work. Instead of paying an hourly employee time-and-a-half for working extra hours, employers would give them an hour and a half of time off for each hour of overtime worked. The FLSA (Fair Labor Standards Act) places heavy restrictions on the use of comp time to avoid paying overtime. There are some exemptions for public sector employees like police officers and firefighters, and federal and state government employees. In most cases the practice is illegal for private employers. Each state's law can be different regarding comp time so it's best to check with the agency that handles wage and labor standards for your state.

Can I track comp time with Virtual TimeClock?
The answer is "Yes" but it does involve some manual processes. Virtual TimeClock software already segregates hours worked on employee timecards based on the overtime rules assigned to each employee. Rather than paying the employee these hours at the premium rate, you can create a new leave category called "Comp Time" and add them as an annual leave award. You do need to add the hours at the comp time rate rather than hour-for-hour. For example, for every extra hour worked the employee would earn one and one-half hours of paid time off.

Jeff
Technical Support Team
Redcort Software, Inc.

Understanding Workweeks

All employees covered under FLSA (Fair Labor Standards Act) must receive overtime pay for hours worked over 40 in a workweek. So what defines a workweek? Well, the FLSA defines an employee's workweek as "a fixed and regularly recurring period of 168 hours (seven consecutive 24-hour periods)." The workweek doesn't have to line up with the calendar week. In fact, it can begin on any day of the week and at any hour of the day.

Our Virtual TimeClock software allows you to set when your workweek begins and will accurately keep track of weekly overtime totals even if the workweek crosses payroll periods. This means you're always in compliance with the FLSA rules that apply to overtime pay requirements. The default workweek in Virtual TimeClock is Monday, but it's easy to change. Turn administration on and from the Configure menu choose Overtime. Click the Overtime Settings icon in the toolbar to open the global overtime settings. You'll see a popup menu for changing what day to start your workweek.

Jeff
Technical Support Team
Redcort Software, Inc.

Troubleshooting Overtime

We've talked recently about how to track down missing overtime on your employee time cards. The steps went something like this:

• Check employee overtime assignments
• Check overtime rule configuration
• Check employee salary type
• Check the shift restart setting

It's the last step I want to discuss because this setting's impact on your employee time cards can be tricky. Go to the Tools menu and choose Time Calculations. In the Daily & Weekly Overtime section, you'll see a setting that says "Hours off the clock before restarting daily overtime calculations". Basically, this setting controls how much time a worker has to be clocked out before a new shift is started. A new shift resets hours worked back to zero for calculating daily overtime. The default setting is 4 hours. If this is set too low, then daily overtime won't calculate because Virtual TimeClock thinks you want to start a new shift. Your time card would look something like this:

See, no daily overtime was calculated. If it's set too high, the next shift may be included with the first one. Your time card would look something like this:

See how the entire next day is combined with the previous day's hours as overtime? It's best to leave this setting at 4 hours unless you have a compelling reason to change it.

Jeff
Technical Support Team
Redcort Software, Inc

Tracking Approved Overtime

We talk to a lot of business owners trying to solve a variety of time and attendance problems. Two of the most common we hear about are how to prevent buddy punching and how to prevent unauthorized overtime. We have some new security features coming next year that will help with buddy punching, and you can use the current shifts feature to help prevent unnecessary overtime.

You can keep track of approved overtime by using courtesy clock in and out restrictions. Remember, courtesy clock ins record the shift start time no matter how early the employee punches in. So what do you do if you have employees that need to work approved overtime either before or after their shift ends?

One method would be to create an activity called something like 'Approved Overtime' that's good for manual entries only. Since a courtesy clock in and out will automatically record the shift times as the recorded time, you'll need to add a manual entry for the approved overtime. This also makes the approved overtime hours clearly distinguishable on employee time cards.

Another method would be to prevent clocking in early or late without manager approval. However, this method only works when using clock in and out restrictions that prevent early and late punches.

Jeff
Technical Support Team
Redcort Software, Inc

Missing Overtime?

Many new users contact us right after running their first payroll because no overtime has been calculated on their employee time cards. If that's happened to you, here are the time clock software settings you need to check, starting with the most common and ending with the least used.

1. Has an overtime rule been assigned to each employee? Go to the Lists menu, choose Users, and select an employee name from the list. Click the Wages tab and pick an overtime rule from the Overtime drop-down list.
2. Have your overtime rules been configured properly? Go to the Lists menu and choose Overtime. Select the rule that's been assigned and make sure it's configured the way you want. For example, is the weekly threshold set at 40 hours?
3. Do you have salaried workers? Salaried workers are exempt from overtime calculations. Go to the Lists menu, choose Users, and select an employee name from the list. Click the Wages tab and check if the Type drop-down list is set to Salary or Hourly. Change to Hourly of you want overtime calculations to occur.
4. Did you change how many hours an employee has to be off the clock before starting a new shift? Go to the Tools menu and choose Time Calculations. How long do you have to stay clocked out before restarting daily overtime calculations? The default setting is 4 hours. If this is set too low, daily overtime won't calculate because Virtual TimeClock thinks you want to start a new shift.

If none of these seem to solve your issue, contact us. We'd love to help get your employee time cards printing just the way you want.

Jeff
Technical Support Team
Redcort Software

Tracking On Call Hours

We often get asked how to force certain hours to be overtime. In many companies, employees get paid a premium when performing duties after hours or when they're on call. That's easy to do when using activities, but first I want to discuss the difference between time clock software and payroll software.

The purpose of time clock software is to keep track of how many hours an employee has worked and then total those hours in an accurate and easy way for payroll processing. The purpose of payroll software is to assign rates to various types of hours to meet state and federal labor requirements, and employee contracts. For example, Virtual TimeClock allows you to assign overtime rules to employees, and those rules define when the time thresholds are met for premium pay. Because overtime calculations are based on minimum thresholds of hours worked, there's not a way to force hours under the threshold to calculate as overtime. That's where activities come in.

Since every punch time in Virtual TimeClock gets assigned to an activity (even if it's just the default activity of 'In'), it's easy to separate the number of hours that need to get paid at the premium rate, which is the job of your payroll software. Go to the Lists menu and choose Activities. Add a new activity called something like 'On Call' and make it available only when adding manual entries. Now when employee time cards are generated you'll know how much time to pay employees for on call duties at their premium rate.

Jeff
Technical Support Team
Redcort Software

Daily and Weekly Overtime Calculations

The automatic calculation of regular, overtime, and paid leave hours is one of the main reasons businesses invest in time and attendance software. So it's important to make sure your employee time clock software configuration matches your business rules. There are some settings in Virtual TimeClock that can affect how daily and weekly overtime is calculated. These settings should rarely change, but it's a good idea to know how they impact your time card software reports if you decide they do need to be adjusted.

The Time Calculations tool window allows you to set what time rounding rules are currently in effect, how worker breaks are calculated, how the time format for certain reports and export files is displayed, how overtime is calculated for multiple daily shifts and paid leave, and how salaried worker hours are computed for job costing. We're going to take a look at the settings that directly affect daily and weekly overtime calculations.

Hours off the clock before restarting daily overtime calculations

This setting controls how daily overtime totals are calculated for multiple daily shifts. Essentially, it determines how much time a worker needs to be off the clock before shift totals are restarted. By default, a new shift will start for workers after 4 hours off the clock. This means as long as an employee clocks out and back in within 4 hours, Virtual TimeClock will still consider that as one shift and apply the daily overtime rule assigned to the employee. However, if the employee clocks out and then punches back in after 4 hours, Virtual TimeClock considers this the start of a new shift and restarts daily overtime calculations.

Include leave in weekly overtime calculations

This setting controls whether paid leave is included as hours worked for the purpose of calculating weekly overtime. This is certainly a non standard practice and will cause all paid leave hours to be treated as both regular and overtime hours. If this setting is enabled, Virtual TimeClock will no longer display leave in a separate column on your printed or exported time card software reports.

Jeff Morrow

Time Clock Software Specialist

Redcort Software

Adding Time Clock Software Users

Virtual TimeClock software users include anyone who uses and manages the time clock. This includes employees who actually use the time clock to punch in and out, managers who need to monitor their worker's activities, and time clock administrators who have access to all time clock functions. Here's how to quickly add a new user.

First Step: Create a new user record

From the Lists menu, choose Users. Click the + button beneath the list of existing users. The last and first name are the only required pieces of information. The other fields are optional and can be useful when printing employee telephone or contact lists. Click Save.

Second Step: Assign an overtime rule to the user

Since you're still in the new user record you just created, click on the Wages tab. This is where overtime rules are assigned to each individual worker. Select the appropriate rule from the Overtime drop-down list and click Save. You can close the Users window now.

Third Step: Have the new user create their password

Select the new user's name in the main time clock window. Now from the Tools menu, choose Change Password. Leave the Old Password field blank because there isn't one. Now enter the new password and confirm it before clicking Change.

Fourth Step: Add the new user to your export

If you export your timecard data for analysis or payroll processing, then you'll need to add the new user to your export. From the File menu, choose Export. Select the export you use and then click the name of the new user to check them off for inclusion in the export. The settings will automatically be saved when you close the window.

Refer to the User's Guide for your Virtual TimeClock software for instructions on importing new users into your time and attendance software.

Jeff Morrow

Redcort Software

Got Overtime?

If your business is required to track daily and/or weekly overtime, you'll need to make sure you assign an overtime rule to new workers. After creating the new user record in your Virtual TimeClock software, click on the Wages tab. You'll be able to select an overtime rule from the Overtime drop-down list.

Need to setup a new overtime rule? No problem, we've got instructions posted in a recent newsletter.

Merry Christmas from the entire time clock software support team!

Jeff Morrow

Redcort Software