Management settings - Company settings - Rounding rules, grace periods and automatic breaks

Management > Settings > Company settings > Rounding rules

Permission level: Manager

This is where you define the rounding rules and grace periods for clocking data.

This affects the costings of timesheets and helps define exactly how much employees are paid. Please make sure all of rounding rules and grace periods align with your business policies and procedures before saving your settings.

You can also set universal automatic breaks here, if required.

Rounding rules

Rounding rules define how clocking data is rounded - by how many minutes, and in which direction. This flows through to payroll and affects the exact times employees are paid for.

Example: A typical setting here would be to round to the nearest 15 minutes.

To do this, you would set the round time to 15, and set the round direction to nearest. If an employee clocks in at 7 minutes to 9, this would be rounded forward to 9. If they clock in at 8 minutes to 9, this would be rounded backward to 8:45.

1. Click Ignore rounding rules if you would NOT like to use this feature.
2. Select a Round arrive time to determine the number of minutes by which the arrive time will be rounded.
3. Select an Arrival round direction - backwards, nearest or forwards
   1. Backwards (by the specified number of minutes)
   2. To the nearest (number of minutes)
   3. Forwards (by the specified number of minutes)
4. Repeat for Round departure time and Departure round direction
5. Click Save
   

   ** Please note that rounding rules do not apply during Grace Periods **   
   
   

   
   

Arrival early and late/ departure early and late times make up the window where rounding rules will be ignored.

In the configured example above:

1. A 40-minute window for the arrival grace period.

2. A 60-minute window for the departure grace period.

3. The clock start/end times outside the grace period window will round to the nearest minute.

Grace periods

Grace periods differ to rounding rules, in that they affect how and when timesheets are automatically approved. If both start and end times of the shift fall within the grace periods defined, the timesheet with be automatically approved so managers don't have to do this manually.

Please also note that "Automatic Approval within Grace Periods" does not work when you have "Pay from schedule" enabled in Company Settings.

1. Click Automatically approve when within grace period to switch this feature on
2. Select an Arrive early grace period - this refers to the grace period given to the early arrivals
3. Select an Arrive late grace period - this refers to the grace period given to the late arrivals.
4. Select an Depart early grace period - this refers to the grace period given if employees leave before their shift ends.
5. Select an Depart late grace period - this refers to the grace period given for overtime.
6. Click Save 

When grace periods are set, hours clocked within the grace period window will snap the "pay times" to the start/end times of the shift.  That is:

• when the clocked START TIME falls within the set "Arrive early grace period" and "Arrive late grace period", the timesheet PAID start time will revert to the start time of the Rostered Shift.
•  when the clocked END TIME falls within the set "Depart early grace period" and "Depart late grace period", the timesheet PAID end time will revert to the end time of the Rostered Shift. 
• When clocked Start Times and End Times fall outside of Grace Periods, then Rounding Rules will apply.

For Example:
If you can add a grace period of  8 minutes on the start time on both arrive-early and arrive-late, plus add a "round arrive time" of 15 minutes forward, it will do the following:

- If an employee clocks in within 8 minutes of the start time, the grace period setting will round to the actual start time of the rostered shift

- If an employee clocks in earlier than 8 minutes early or later than 8 minutes late, the grace period setting will round forward to the nearest 15 minutes

Automatic breaks