Detailed Timesheets

Use this forum to discuss desired new features for TimeTrex
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wjhudson
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Detailed Timesheets

Post by wjhudson »

California payroll laws require that the timesheet that is signed by the employee contain lunch and break times as well as the time-in and time-out and total time worked.

We would like to see an option for a 'detailed time sheet' that would contain this information much like a prettied up version of the punch summary report.

As it is now, our payroll administrator would have to take the punch summary report in .csv and import it to a spreadsheet, reformat it, and have the employee sign that.
Bill Hudson
shaunw
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Post by shaunw »

Do you have a link to the law itself?
wjhudson
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Post by wjhudson »

Thanks for your attention to this. I am looking for the actual law now, but here is a link to a decision that mentions (but does not directly cite) the law.

http://www.fbm.com/index.cfm/fuseaction ... Breaks.cfm

I will get the link to the actual law as soon as I can.
Bill Hudson
wjhudson
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Post by wjhudson »

shaunw wrote:Do you have a link to the law itself?
http://www.dir.ca.gov/IWC/IWCArticle1.pdf

Section 7 A 3 directs that records shall be kept of time including meal periods.

Section 11 A mandates that meal periods shall be given (with some narrow exceptions) for any employee who works more than 5 hours.

A 'paper trail' of audit records must be kept for (I believe) 3 years. Electronic records are not sufficient for this purpose. In case of a lawsuit we would need to produce employee-signed timesheets showing meal breaks.
Bill Hudson
shaunw
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Post by shaunw »

I'm not clear if they require actual "start/end" times of the meals/breaks, or if they require just the total time. There is a large difference here, because actually showing start/end times on a printable timesheet will result in timesheets potentially pages and pages long. If its just the total time, it would be relatively simple to add to our current printable timesheet.

The PDF seems to state (in section 7A) that when operations cease during a meal period, those do not need to be recorded. This seems entirely backwards to me, because it would seem the meal periods you are not paying the employee for are the ones you want to record and have them sign-off on. Unless I'm understanding "operations cease" incorrectly.

Nonetheless, printable timesheets that show every single punch start/end times probably won't be available for a while, adding total meal/break times to the current printable timesheet could probably be done for v2.2.0 though.
wjhudson
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Post by wjhudson »

shaunw wrote:I'm not clear if they require actual "start/end" times of the meals/breaks, or if they require just the total time. There is a large difference here, because actually showing start/end times on a printable timesheet will result in timesheets potentially pages and pages long. If its just the total time, it would be relatively simple to add to our current printable timesheet.

The PDF seems to state (in section 7A) that when operations cease during a meal period, those do not need to be recorded. This seems entirely backwards to me, because it would seem the meal periods you are not paying the employee for are the ones you want to record and have them sign-off on. Unless I'm understanding "operations cease" incorrectly.

Nonetheless, printable timesheets that show every single punch start/end times probably won't be available for a while, adding total meal/break times to the current printable timesheet could probably be done for v2.2.0 though.
Welcome to California, the State of Insanity.

According to our HR Manager, we must record the times for start/end of the workday, and start/end of the meal break(s). The reason is that the wording of the regulations in conjunction with the court rulings places the burden of proof of compliance upon the employer. So, should an ex employee choose to file a complaint through the Department of Industrial Relations or file a civil suit against us, claiming that we did not provide that employee with meal breaks, we would be required to show that they took their meal breaks every workday for each day of employment, up to three years before the complaint.

Failure to provide proof that the employee took a meal break results in the assessment of an hour of wages per day at the employee's "normal" rate (which can extend the employee into overtime). Meal breaks must be documented, work breaks (which by law are paid breaks) do not need to be documented.

Total times would not be sufficient, because we would also have to show that they took their break in the proper window. If the employee works for 6 hours, takes a 1/2 hour meal break, and then works for another 2 hours, then we are in violation, and they are entitled to an additional hour of wages. For an 8 hour workday, the employee is to take their break after 4 hours. I think there is an hour of grace for the meal break, so they *should* start their break after 4 hours, but *must* have started their meal break by 5 hours.

I tried to argue that the electronic record of the punches would be sufficient, but the HR manager says that DIR has ruled in the past that an employee-signed hardcopy timesheet is required.
If the punch summary report could be output to PDF with a title and signature block, that would suffice.

We're piloting the software for a couple of employees. At the present time the HR people will be using the punch summary report by employee to cross-check the signed timecards. When we have employee compliance with the system, then we will take the punch summary report, export it into .csv and create a timesheet form in Excel that the employee will sign. This will work for now, but if we move forward with the software for more employees, that may become cumbersome.

... and the California Legislature wonders why people choose not to start businesses in California.
Bill Hudson
wjhudson
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Post by wjhudson »

After looking at this for a little while, I believe our best short-term solution is to write a stand-alone timesheet in Crystal. However, I'd like you to still consider the long-term modification of adding this level of detail to the timesheet.

I would be happy to provide the .rpt file once I've finished it. I could also use a brief description of the values in the punch.type_id column.
Bill Hudson
shaunw
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Post by shaunw »

From my understanding of the link you posted, it directly contradicts what you stated, but we do understand that the law is often gray and what the law is understood to say and what the courts/tribunals decide are often different, so employers want to cover all angles for liability reasons.

Unfortunately as I mentioned adding every single punch to a printable timesheet can result in a very large timesheet. A two week period barely fits on one page with one line per day, so think of at least 4 lines per day, or more. Each TimeSheet could easily be in excess of 4 pages. If you add in one or two breaks you're looking at 6-8 lines per day, or 6-8 pages per employee per bi-weekly pay period... So much for being a "green" state as well.

What if we posted the lunch/break total times on the timesheet, and added text along the lines of:

"I hereby verify that the above hours accurately and fully reflects the time worked, and that all hours worked were in compliance with local state and federal labor laws."

Failing that, you could always consider purchasing a custom development contract from us to add this functionality.
wjhudson
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Post by wjhudson »

shaunw wrote:From my understanding of the link you posted, it directly contradicts what you stated, but we do understand that the law is often gray and what the law is understood to say and what the courts/tribunals decide are often different, so employers want to cover all angles for liability reasons.
I think that the lawyers have secretly passed a 'full employment act' for themselves. It's sometimes quite difficult to tease the meaning out of the regulations, but the Department of Industrial Relations is quite adamant about the regulations as I've tried to lay them out (IANAL, YMMV, etc).
shaunw wrote: Unfortunately as I mentioned adding every single punch to a printable timesheet can result in a very large timesheet. A two week period barely fits on one page with one line per day, so think of at least 4 lines per day, or more. Each TimeSheet could easily be in excess of 4 pages. If you add in one or two breaks you're looking at 6-8 lines per day, or 6-8 pages per employee per bi-weekly pay period... So much for being a "green" state as well.
:P

shaunw wrote: What if we posted the lunch/break total times on the timesheet, and added text along the lines of:

"I hereby verify that the above hours accurately and fully reflects the time worked, and that all hours worked were in compliance with local state and federal labor laws."
According to my HR manager, that would still not be sufficient.
shaunw wrote: Failing that, you could always consider purchasing a custom development contract from us to add this functionality.
If the pilot program works well, and we decide to expand the use of this to all of our hourly employees, then that may well be our next step.

The Crystal Reports version of our timesheet is coming along well. I'm fortunate in that our hourly pay period is 1 week, not 2, so the timesheet can reasonably fit on 1 US Letter page. As I said, when I'm done with it, I'd be happy to pass it on to anyone else who runs into this problem.

I'm very happy to have found Timetrex, and I think it will work out well for us.
Bill Hudson
chanon
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Post by chanon »

I have this problem also. If you add lunch and break time on timesheet pdf version, It will be nice.
Can you modified for me? I want to pay if you can.
shaunw
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Post by shaunw »

If you are looking for custom development services, please contact sales@timetrex.com.
JeffersonKim
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Post by JeffersonKim »

There's an alternative to using Crystal Reports that's free :)

http://forums.timetrex.com/viewtopic.php?p=4112
shaunw
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Post by shaunw »

Just an update, there will be a detailed printable timesheet available in the next version of TimeTrex due out by the middle of September.

It will contain all the punches for each day, as well as break out individual overtime and absence times, on top of all the information that the current "summary" timesheet contains.
r_levesque
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Post by r_levesque »

shaunw wrote:Just an update, there will be a detailed printable timesheet available in the next version of TimeTrex due out by the middle of September.

It will contain all the punches for each day, as well as break out individual overtime and absence times, on top of all the information that the current "summary" timesheet contains.
I have just upgraded and I do not see this feature. My company is now requiring this data. Any thoughts?
shaunw
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Joined: Tue Sep 19, 2006 2:22 pm

Post by shaunw »

If you go to TimeSheet -> MyTimeSheet, click on the printer icon in the upper left with writing on the paper. That is the detailed TimeSheet report. The icon to the left of it without any writing on the paper is the TimeSheet Summary report. You can also go to Report -> TimeSheet Detail to see the same thing.
seraulu1
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Re: Detailed Timesheets

Post by seraulu1 »

r_levesque wrote:
shaunw wrote:Just an update, there will be a detailed printable timesheet available in the next version of TimeTrex due out by the middle of September.

It will contain all the punches for each day, as well as break out individual overtime and absence times, on top of all the information that the current "summary" timesheet contains.


I have just upgraded and I do not see this feature. My company is now requiring this data. Any thoughts?
shaunw wrote:If you go to TimeSheet -> MyTimeSheet, click on the printer icon in the upper left with writing on the paper. That is the detailed TimeSheet report. The icon to the left of it without any writing on the paper is the TimeSheet Summary report. You can also go to Report -> TimeSheet Detail to see the same thing.
Wow thanks!!!! how to hypnotize someone
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