An overtime policy is a set of rules that dictates which hours on your employee time cards will be counted as overtime hours, instead of regular hours. Typically, overtime hours are paid out at a different rate than regular hours are, but their configurations can differ vastly, depending on factors such as your company's pay structure, or even some state laws.
The starting day is important for overtime policies
Setting a start date for the week is so the system knows where to start calculating when determining how many hours have been worked within a week, which is important when figuring out overtime since most overtime policies trigger on "When an employee has worked X amount of hours, everything after is overtime.".
For example, if you have a weekly-based overtime policy and January 1 is a Sunday, your work week is January 1st through January 7th. If you set the beginning of the week to Sunday, the policy will know to take all hours worked within that week into calculation, but nothing after or before.
Now, take the same example but set the start of the week to Wednesday. Then the system will total all hours between January 4th through January 11th.
This setting is not important if you have a daily overtime structure, so in those situations, you can leave this setting alone.
Configure overtime settings in Setup Wizard
The overtime section of the Fingercheck Setup Wizard allows you to select a basic overtime policy to be set up for your employees.
An overtime policy is a set of rules that dictate which hours on your employee time cards will be counted as overtime hours instead of regular hours. Typically, overtime hours are paid out at a different rate than regular hours, but the configurations can differ vastly depending on factors such as your company's pay structure or even some state laws.
When setting up your company, you'll be asked to select from a list of pre-made suggestions based on some commonly seen configurations. These are as follows:
Pay an overtime rate of 1.5 times the regular rate after working 40 hours a week.
Simply put, if an employee works more than 40 hours in a given work week, all time after the 40 will be marked as "Overtime"- meaning their base pay rate will be increased by 1.5 times for that period.
Pay an overtime rate of 1.5 times the regular rate after working 8 hours a day.
In this preset, if the employee works more than 8 hours on any given day, all time passed at that point will be marked "Overtime", and they'll be paid 1.5 times their normal rate for that time.
Pay an overtime rate of twice the regular rate after working 12 hours a day.
This configuration, commonly referred to as "Double Time", grants employees who work past the 12-hour mark two times their normal pay rate for those hours.
Pay an overtime rate of 1.5 times the regular rate on the 7th consecutive day.
This one should be the same as the first preset, but it's not! The reason is that this one will only apply the 1.5 times pay rate to the 7th day in a row an employee works.
Pay an overtime rate of twice the regular rate after working 8 hours on the 7th consecutive day.
Again, this one sounds similar to the third preset, but it's not. This one only applies the two-times pay rate to the 7th day in a row the employee works, and only after the 8th hour on that day.
Keep in mind that you're not restricted to just one selection; you can have multiple! For example, you can select the second and third presets to create a situation where any employee who works between 8-12 hours gets the 1.5x rate for that time, and if they go over 12, they'll get the 2x rate for that time.
If your business is located in California, you may recognize this as the configuration of rules used for the state of California's overtime law.
Set up or change an overtime policy
Log in to your Fingercheck account as an Administrator.
Make sure you have an earning code configured for overtime. See How to Set up Earning Codes.
Click the SETUP tab.
Select Policies > Overtime Policies.
The page lists any existing overtime policies for your company.
To add an overtime policy, click Add on the right side of the window.
A list of pre-defined overtime policies appears.
To add a pre-defined policy:
Click the policy's Add button.
A pop-up window appears.Update the fields as needed, and click Continue.
Click OK.
To add a custom policy:
Click Add Custom.
Complete the fields in the Details section, which are defined in the Fields for overtime policies section below.
To add rules to your policy, click Add in the Overtime Rules section at the bottom of the page, and complete the fields, which are defined in the Fields for overtime rules section below.
Click Save.
Attach the Overtime Policy to a Master Profile.
Go to Setup > System > Master Profiles.
Open the profile you want to edit, and enter the policy in the Overtime Policy field.
Click Save.
Overtime policies fields
If you click Add Custom or you want to edit an overtime policy, enter information into the following fields to define the policy:
Field | Description |
Code | An abbreviated name for the overtime policy (for example, OT). This, in combination with the Description field, determines the full name of the policy, as it will be displayed in other areas of Fingercheck. |
Description | A descriptive name for the overtime policy (for example, Overtime). This, in combination with the Code field, determines the full name of the policy, as it will be displayed in other areas of Fingercheck. |
Not Allowed | When selected, this checkbox disables the policy. Even if it is triggered, it does not do anything. |
Before/After Scheduled Start Time | When selected, these checkboxes are used with Daily-type Overtime Policies that allow employees to work hours outside of the ones assigned to them. |
Starting Day of the Week | Used for Weekly and Bi-Weekly-type Overtime Policies. This field tells the system what day is considered the beginning of the workweek, so the system knows when to reset the counter for an employee's hours worked. |
Include Paid Break/Meal/Holiday/Absence/Overtime Hours | These checkboxes tell the policy to count hours that would not be considered otherwise, such as time absent due to sick leave or a holiday or time spent out on lunch. |
Overtime rules fields
Overtime rules tell the policy how to look at hours and calculate them to determine when overtime should happen. To create an overtime rule, complete these fields:
Field | Description |
Over Time Type | Tells the system what time period to calculate for.
Typically, this is set to Daily or Weekly. You can choose from other options such as Saturday or Sunday, and any hours worked on those days would be counted as overtime.
Another option is DayConsecutively7InWorkWeek, which gives overtime on the 7th consecutive working no matter how many hours were worked in the week. |
Hours Above | Tells the system the beginning of the range in which hours worked should be marked as Overtime. |
Hours To | Tells the system the end of the range in which hours worked should be marked as Overtime. |
Division Earning | Tells the system what earning code to use for overtime hours. The earning code dictates the rate at which those hours should be paid.
Earnings are set in the SETUP tab > Payroll > Earnings. See How to Set up Earning Codes. |
Is Comp Time | If selected, hours that fall within the range of Overtime are disqualified. Instead of counting those hours towards overtime, the system ignores them. |
Comp Time Accrual | Used in combination with the Is Comp Time checkbox to make it so the hours count towards an accrual policy, instead of overtime. |
Start/End Time | Used when labeling a certain range of time as eligible for one kind of overtime rule, different from any other range of time. |
Sequence | Used to dictate the order in which rules are applied, which can be useful in situations where multiple rules can apply at the same time. |
Here is a brief video showing how: