Ok, I've been trying to figure this out, but I have hit a wall due to my inexperience with payroll systems.
I need to be able to show the actual punch times (or imported punch times) on reports.
I also need the system to round the punch times for payroll purposes (so a few minutes early in or late out is not calculated as overtime.)
The problem I have run into, when I imported my punches when rounding was enabled, it rounded all the punches and I could no longer see the actual punches. Now that I have started over and imported the punches without a rounding policy enabled, I don't know how to round the punches for pay purposes.
What can I do to fix this?
Rounding Problems
Can you change the actual punch that was gathered from a timeclock if needed? For instance, we have rounding turned on and it works perfectly. We had problems with the timeclock this morning and it wasn't accepting punches for a few users. We fixed the problem, but now they show their actual time as being late. Can we change the actual time or just the reported time?
Ok, we fixed those AM punches that had the wrong time. Over the past few days, we have noticed other things that appear to be rounding related:
Sometimes the actual time on an IN or OUT for lunch is 12:53, but is being reported as 12:54 as if it were rounding up.
We also have some users clocking in in the morning at 11:00 (actual time) and the system rounds them up to 11:15. They are scheduled to start at 11:00 am and there is a STRICT IN 15 minute rounding (to prevent overtime). There is no grace period set on that policy.
Why would the system round in either of those scenarios?
Sometimes the actual time on an IN or OUT for lunch is 12:53, but is being reported as 12:54 as if it were rounding up.
We also have some users clocking in in the morning at 11:00 (actual time) and the system rounds them up to 11:15. They are scheduled to start at 11:00 am and there is a STRICT IN 15 minute rounding (to prevent overtime). There is no grace period set on that policy.
Why would the system round in either of those scenarios?
Its likely due to seconds. TimeTrex always rounds punches to the nearest minute regardless of any rounding policy, however it only shows hours and minutes in the interface.
So the actual time could be 12:53:59 (shown as: 12:53 in the interface) but TimeTrex would round that to 12:54:00 (shown as: 12:54).
Now when a 15min up rounding policy is activated, an actual time of 11:00:01 (shown as 11:00) without any grace period would be rounded up to 11:15:00 (shown as: 11:15)
So the actual time could be 12:53:59 (shown as: 12:53 in the interface) but TimeTrex would round that to 12:54:00 (shown as: 12:54).
Now when a 15min up rounding policy is activated, an actual time of 11:00:01 (shown as 11:00) without any grace period would be rounded up to 11:15:00 (shown as: 11:15)
The Start / Stop window helps TimeTrex determine which schedule actually fits with the current punch.
For example if an employee is scheduled to start work at 8:00AM, but is called in at 5:00AM, the Start / Stop window would have to be at least 3 hours for TimeTrex to determine that the 5AM punch belongs to the 8:00AM schedule. This is used for strict rounding, in late, out early exceptions etc...
Of course there are cases where you may not want the 5:00AM punch to be considered part of the 8:00AM schedule, so the Start / Stop window needs to be set accordingly. Typically we recommend between 1-2hrs.
For example if an employee is scheduled to start work at 8:00AM, but is called in at 5:00AM, the Start / Stop window would have to be at least 3 hours for TimeTrex to determine that the 5AM punch belongs to the 8:00AM schedule. This is used for strict rounding, in late, out early exceptions etc...
Of course there are cases where you may not want the 5:00AM punch to be considered part of the 8:00AM schedule, so the Start / Stop window needs to be set accordingly. Typically we recommend between 1-2hrs.