Are you rounding your employee’s time sheets to make payroll easier, prevent early clock-ins, or even boost employee pay? It’s essential to accurately and legally round time clock punches to protect yourself and your business.
Here are a few rounding rules to keep in mind while adjusting time sheets.
Rounded timesheets cannot benefit the employer. Any adjustments made to the timesheet cannot be a means for the employer to save money. For example, if an employer saw a timesheet with a start time of 8:03 and then rounded it to 8:15, the employer would save a quarter hour’s worth of pay, even though the employee worked most of the quarter hour and should be compensated accordingly.
Follow the 7-Minute Rule. According to the Department of Labor, “Employee time from 1 to 7 minutes may be rounded down, and thus not counted as hours worked, but employee time from 8 to 14 minutes must be rounded up and counted as a quarter hour of work time.” If you want to double-check your timesheet rounding, the chart below breaks down how to round time sheets to the nearest 15-minute mark.
You cannot round in increments greater than 15 minutes. While it’s common to round time sheets to the nearest quarter hour, employers can also round by the 1/10 of an hour (6 minutes) or by 5 minutes. Remember that employers cannot round in increments greater than 15 minutes.
Tired of spending time adjusting each employee timesheet manually?
Skip the hassle of rounding employee hours with Chronotek!
Employees can clock in anywhere and on any device – even job site phones! Chronotek eliminates the need for employees to wait in line at a kiosk, allowing them to clock in and out at the precise moment they need to. Shift Lock™ also automatically locks time cards to the employee’s scheduled in and out times while notifying them of the edit at the moment, preventing early clock-in and late clock-out.
Learn more about how Chronotek can help your business run like clockwork!
