4. Break Settings

The next setting to work out for your Timecards are for deducting employees’ Unpaid Breaks.  Again, we are in the Settings page, and on the left-hand side we are going into Timecards, but then this time into employee Break Times.

If your employee breaks are paid, you can just put this setting to ‘Paid’, and click ‘Save’.  But if you have unpaid employee breaks, you must select ‘Unpaid’, and then decide how you want to deduct the unpaid breaks.

The first option is to use break times assigned on the Schedule. This means you put a deduction on each shift you create in your Schedule –  for example an unpaid break of 30 minutes in a 9 to 5 shift –   and that unpaid break will be deducted automatically once you have assigned the shift to your employee.  This is a good starting option in your account.

The second option is to deduct break times as they are recorded on the Timestation. This option requires your employees to be consistent with clocking in and out for their breaks each day to make sure the breaks are deducted accurately.

The last option is to create rules for automatic deductions based on the amount of hours worked by each employee.

Rules can be created here to apply uniformly to all employees, or you can create different rules based on age, location, schedule, position, payroll department, or company payroll code.

As a first step, you must create a Default Break Rule.  This rule will apply if there are no other conditions met for other rules you potentially create.

To create this rule, click on the little yellow pencil, and in the first box enter in how many hours must be worked before any unpaid break can be deducted. Click the “Add Rule” button to then cover the next time period that must be worked before a different unpaid break can be deducted.

Once you’re happy that you’ve met all the conditions for your work day, click Save. Be sure to cover the hours of your longest and shortest shifts.  And remember: the first rule should cover the hours when a break is NOT deducted:  In the above example, if I work less than 6.5 hours no break is deducted. 

You can now create a new rule to apply for a specific age group, location, schedule, position, or payroll group. 

In this example, a group is created for employees who are under 18, who will have different break rules to the rest of the workforce.  These rules will only apply until an employee turns 18. 

The set-up is the exact same as for the previous rule we created:  be sure to cover all eventualities for your workday, and don’t forget a rule for when no break should be deducted.