How overtime works
See how Clockspot applies your overtime rules to worked hours, separates each overtime tier, and presents the result in payroll reports.
Clockspot totals each employee's hours and classifies hours past your thresholds into overtime tiers. You set the rules in Payroll rules. This page explains how they're applied so the numbers on your reports make sense.
The three rule types
- Weekly — hours over the threshold within one workweek (e.g. over 40) use the multiplier. Your Workweek start day in Payroll rules decides where the week begins.
- Daily — hours over the threshold within a single day (e.g. over 8) use the multiplier.
- Seventh day — hours worked on the seventh consecutive day of a workweek use the multiplier. A threshold of 0 applies it to all of that day's hours.
Each rule has an hours threshold and a pay multiplier (for example, 1.5 or 2).
Tiers and how rules combine
Rules of the same type stack into tiers. With a daily 1.5× over 8 and a 2× over 12, the hours between 8 and 12 land in the 1.5× tier and the hours past 12 land in the 2× tier.
The same worked minute is never assigned to two overtime tiers. When daily and seventh-day rules overlap, the higher multiplier wins. Weekly overtime is then figured from hours that have not already been classified by a daily or seventh-day rule.
Which rules apply to each employee
Payroll rules supplies the company default. A dated custom version in Employee overtime on Employee Pay replaces that default for the employee’s complete workweeks; it does not add to the company rules. With no employee version, or a version choosing Company rules, the dated company default applies. An employee version with No overtime deliberately assigns no overtime. An employee whose dated Overtime eligibility is Not eligible still has no overtime.
Dated rules
Each version starts on a complete workweek. Add a later version when rules change; use a correction with a reason when an existing version was recorded incorrectly. Weeks without effective company or employee rules have no recorded rules.
Overtime eligibility and changes
- An employee whose dated Overtime eligibility on Employee Pay is Not eligible has regular work hours rather than overtime for that period.
- Calculations use the rules recorded for each workweek. Correcting or voiding a version can change the breakdown for affected weeks.
Where it shows up
Overtime appears, broken out per tier, on the Overtime and Payroll Summary reports.
Common questions
- An employee worked seven days but got no seventh-day overtime.
Seventh-day rules apply only when all seven days of the workweek have hours. A gap on any day means the seventh day is treated as a normal day.
- Can I set different overtime rules for different employees?
Yes. Use Employee overtime on Employee Pay to add dated custom rules. They replace the company default for the employee. The company payroll calendar and the employee’s dated overtime eligibility still apply.
Clockspot keeps clock-ins, corrections, approvals, and payroll-ready hours connected so owners and managers can review the workweek before payroll.
Want to simplify how your employees track time? See how Clockspot works.