Wage Rules

Wage rules help keep you in compliance with governmental rules regarding missed meals, split shifts and other work issues affecting employee wages and benefits.

Automatic Missed Meal Premium

Also called a "missed meal penalty", the automatic missed meal premium rule allows you to credit an employee with regular time hours (the premium) for every missed meal in a block of work. The following properties are supported:

Property	Description
Add	The number of regular hours (the premium) to add for every missed meal, for example 1.00. These hours are added to the regular time pay code for the time entry that incurred the missed meal.
For every	The minimum number of continuous hours that must be worked before a meal is considered missed, for example 5.00. Any hours worked over this value without a meal break will trigger the missed meal penalty.
Waive If	Waives the second missed meal if hours worked are over this value. If hours worked are over twice this value then no waive occurs. A blank value means no waive occurs.
Minimum Meal	The minimum number of hours that constitute a meal, e.g. 0.5 (30 minutes).
Adjust regular hours	If checked the missed meal hours (the premium) will be added to the regular time hours for the time entry.
Adjust pay amount	If checked the pay amount will be increased by the missed meal hours (the premium) * pay rate for the time entry.

Note: Only one missed meal premium will be computed each day.

The additional regular hours or premium is added to the employee's regular hours for the appropriate time entry. Also, the pay amount for that time entry will be increased by the appropriate amount (regular hours x employee's pay rate).

To make it easier to report on missed meal premiums, you can optionally define the following two custom timesheet fields: "Meal Penalty Hours" and "Meal Penalty".

The "Meal Penalty Hours" field is the number of regular hours (the premium) added. This is a number field, and is created from the System > Templates > Manage Custom Fields page. You must name the field exactly as shown (without the quotes). Once you have created the field, you can later edit it and change the name if desired without affecting operation.

The "Meal Penalty" is the premium (number of regular hours added) multiplied by the employee's pay rate. This is a currency field, and is created from the System > Templates > Manage Custom Fields page. You must name the field exactly as shown (without the quotes). Once you have created the field, you can later edit it and change the name if desired without affecting operation.

If you want to waive the missed meal calculation for a day you can create a checkbox custom field named "Meal Penalty Waiver" and put it on the timesheet details. If checked for a time entry that has a missed meal premium (visible by the comment added), then the premium will be removed. You must name the field exactly as shown (without the quotes). Once you have created the field, you can later edit it and change the name if desired without affecting operation.

Calculation Notes

Meal penalties are computed using a California lab law approach in which total work hours are divided into blocks of, in the case of California, 5 hours. This can result in somewhat surprising behavior. For instance, let's suppose an employee works the following hours in a day:

In Out Hours

9:00AM 12:00PM 3.00

12:45PM 6:45PM 6.00

You might expect that the employee would be granted a missed meal premium for the second punch as it exceeds 5 hours. This would not be the case, however. The first 5 hour work block starts at 9:00AM and goes to 2:45PM (accounting for the meal break from 12:00PM to 12:45PM). As there was a meal break in that 5 hour block no penalty is granted. The next 5 hour block starts at 2:45PM (not 12:45PM!). As the employee clocked out at 6:45PM there are only 4 hours in this block, so no penalty is granted.

Missed Meal Premium Example

A typical example would be that of California:

Add: 1.00

For Every: 5.00

Waive If:

Minimum Meal: 0.50

To waive the second meal in California the configuration would be:

Add: 1.00

For Every: 5.00

Waive If: 6.00

Minimum Meal: 0.50

Automatic Split Shift Premium

The automatic split shift premium rule allows you to credit an employee with extra pay (the premium) for every split shift worked. A split shift is one in which a day's work is divided into two or more parts separated typically by at least one hour. The following properties are supported:

Property

Description

Shift separation

The number of hours between two work shifts that, if greater than this value, would indicate a split shift. In other words, if two work shifts in a single day have a time separation greater than this value then they are considered a split shift.

Minimum wage

The minimum wage used in computing the premium. The premium is computed according to the following formula:

Premium = M - ((E - M) x H)

Where M = Minimum pay, E = Employee's hourly rate and H = the number of hours worked.

The additional pay or premium is added to the employee's pay amount for the appropriate time entry.

To make it easier to report on split shift premiums, the additional pay or premium is also added to a timesheet custom field named "Split Shift Premium". You can create this field from the System > Templates > Manage Custom Fields page. You must create a currency field named exactly as shown (without the quotes). Once you have created the field, you can later edit it and change the name if desired without affecting operation.

If you want to waive the split shift calculation for a day you can create a checkbox custom field named "Split Shift Waiver" and put it on the timesheet details. If checked for a time entry that has a split shift premium (visible by the comment added), then the premium will be removed. You must name the field exactly as shown (without the quotes). Once you have created the field, you can later edit it and change the name if desired without affecting operation.

Split Shift Example:

A typical example would be a shift separation of 1 hour. Let's presume an employee works two shifts with more than 1 hour between them, for example:

8:00AM - 12:00PM - 4 Hours

2:00 PM - 6:00PM - 4 Hours

If the employee has a pay rate of $10.00/hour, and the minimum wage is set to $12.00/hour, then the premium or additional wage would be:

Premium = 12 - ((10 - 12) * 8) = 28

The employee would gain an additional $28.00 pay.