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For years, rounding employee times on time cards has been a common practice and some businesses continue using rounding methods with their own employees. The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) states that the practice of rounding employee time to the nearest 5, 10, and 15 minutes is allowed as long the rounding is fair and averages out to ensure an employee is fully compensated for all hours worked.
For example, if you always round to the nearest 5 minutes and an employee clocks in at 7:56 a.m. their time should be rounded up to 8:00 a.m. If they clock out at 4:04, their time will round up to 4:05 p.m. For more examples of rounding time check out this article about preventing padded times. The rounding method used should not be changed frequently to avoid overtime costs. Doing so results in failure to comply with the law. Thankfully, there is automated time tracking software that helps employers fairly compensate employees so you can avoid running into lawsuits such as the recent AHMC Healthcare, Inc. v. The Superior Court of Los Angeles County.
In our time clock software TimeClick, accurate rounding on employee reports is available to assist businesses in complying with the law. Below we’re going to touch on the settings for rounding for each version of TimeClick. If you are not yet using a time tracking software, feel free to try TimeClick for free or call in for a live demo (435-753-4102) to see if it fits your business needs.
If you’re already using TimeClick, check what version you are currently running by opening TimeClick and going to the Help tab >> About TimeClick.
It is highly recommended to upgrade to version 2018, the most current version available. As laws are updated, so is TimeClick to ensure compliance with federal and state laws over the years. Please contact our technical support team at 435-753-4102 for upgrade details specific to your company.
TimeClick 2018
Rounding on Reports
To apply the rounding used in your company policies,
- Enter Admin mode
- Navigate to the Report Center
- Select your report
- Select the rounding method on the left side of the window
You can save this setting along with your other settings by creating a report preset just beneath the calendar. More details on creating presets are found in this post.
Please note, when in the Advanced Settings you have the option to set the exact number of minutes you will round to. This number cannot exceed 15 minutes due to the limitation for rounding set in the federal law. The software already limits this number for your protection.
Preventing Time Theft
But what if you have employees who play the system and clock in extremely early without actually working until their scheduled start time? A clever employee may begin using the rounding to their advantage. When it comes to preventing time theft, TimeClick has a schedule feature that monitors punctuality and can prevent employees from clocking in excessively early.
To set up the schedule
- Enter Admin mode
- Navigate to Employees
- Enter an employee’s record
- Go to the Clock Schedule tab
- Mark the box “Enable Employee Schedule”
This schedule is designed for employees with consistent work hours like 8 a.m. – 5 p.m. daily. If employees have certain days that vary such as every Tuesday and Thursday they come in at 7 a.m. instead of 8 you can use the Individual Day Schedule.
Below the day schedule are the Buffers. Here you can adjust the bars to tell the time clock program when you consider this employee on time and when they would be considered late. These metrics show up in the Punctuality Report in the Report Center.
If the admin marks the box “Prevent employee from Clocking In before scheduled time”, this employee cannot clock in before the time you would consider “on time”. So, if an employee is scheduled to come in at 8 a.m. but has a habit of clocking in at 7:45, they will be paid for an extra 15 minutes each day.
This is a problem if they aren’t working during those 15 minutes. It only takes one week before you’re paying them for an hour and a half of time that they were playing on their phone and chatting with coworkers. Instead, you can set their “on time” buffer to something like 7:55 so they will not be paid for extra time that is not put toward doing their job but they can still clock in early enough to beat a rush.
However, be aware of when your employees are in fact doing actual work when they come in early or leave late. If you see on the punctuality report that they are consistently early or late take the opportunity to talk with them and keep an eye on their work.
In short, this tool is very useful for employers who have employees stealing time and need to track employee punctuality habits for management purposes. For questions about TimeClick’s rounding features, contact our support team at support@timeclick.com or 435-753-4102.
Versions LE 16, 12, SP1, and 10
Rounding Settings
Rounding in these Legacy, or older versions of TimeClick is applied as employees clock in and out so it automatically applies to reports. If you need to see the exact moment employees clocked in and out you can use the View Records Sequence in Administration mode >> Audit Tools.
To apply rounding to clock actions
- Enter Administration mode
- Click on Preferences
- Select the appropriate rounding type
- Click Finished to save your settings
Rounding Employee Time to a Schedule
An employee schedule function is available in Legacy, or versions LE 16 and older, which allows you to round an employee’s clock in/out times to scheduled start and end times. Make employees aware of this feature and that they are not expected to perform actual work until their start time.
To locate this function
- Log into the Administration mode
- Click the “Employees” button then “Edit Employee Record.”
- Select an employee and choose “Work Schedule” or “Schedule Rounding” depending on the legacy version you are running
When you have successfully entered a start and end time for your employee, you can select the checkbox to “Adjust* To Normal Start Or End Time If Within: __ Minutes.” In the drop-down box, you will select the desired 5, 10, or 15-minute interval within which the program will round the employee’s time to their normal start or end time.
Take John Appleseed for example. We have set John’s normal starting time to 8:00 a.m. We have also checked the box to “Adjust To Normal Start Or End Time” and set the number of minutes in the drop-down box to 10.
If John comes in each day at 7:51 a.m. to pick up a few extra minutes while he’s sitting around drinking his coffee, the report will round his clock in time to 8:00 a.m. Note that if John shows up late at 8:05 a.m. because he got stuck in line at the coffee shop, TimeClick will not round and his time will remain 8:05 a.m. on the reports. If John decides to stay a few minutes past his normal time, say, 5:08 p.m., his time will be rounded back to 5:00 p.m. You can do this for employees that have a fixed schedule for each day or you can enter a daily schedule to cater to employees who may be scheduled at 7 a.m. on Mondays but 10:30 on Tuesdays.
Note that exact times will still be recorded in the time clock program. When you go to Modify Times in the administration mode and select an employee, you can view the exact clock in and out entries that they have made.
If you need further explanation on employee’s work schedules, feel free to contact our support team via phone (435) 732-4102, email, or live chat.