Rounding Policies
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Rounding policies define the interval and direction that employee punches are rounded to. Rounding policies can greatly affect payroll expenses by determining how much time employees are paid, or docked, for coming in late, or leaving early.
Rounding Policy Theory
The theory behind rounding is to offer employers a method where employees are only paid for the time the employees are at work or ready to work.
For example, if an employee is scheduled to start work at 8:00 AM, walking through the front door at 7:59 AM might not be acceptable. The employee might have to turn on the lights, remove their jacket, start the computers or machinery, and grab coffee before beginning real work. If employers do not want to pay them for this non-productive time, a rounding policy can be put into effect.
See the Basic Operation section for details on viewing, adding, editing and deleting.
| Rounding Policy Tab |
| FIELD |
DESCRIPTION |
| Punch Type |
Specifies which types of punches that will round in this policy. It’s important to understand the significance of setting a Punch Type to Lunch Total, Break Total, or Day Total. Each type will initiate a total rounding that applies to the total lunch, break or day time and rounds it to the specified interval. This is useful if it does not matter to the employer when employees punch In/Out as long as the total punch time is rounded to the specified interval. In TimeTrex, every punch must be paired with another punch. (See Punching In/Out for more information.) For every IN punch, there must be a corresponding OUT punch in order to calculate the total amount of worked time. Consequently, Lunch/Break/Day total rounding simply rounds the last punch in the pair so that the overall total time of the pair will round to the interval that you specify. For example, take the following punches with no rounding: In: 8:03 AM Out: 5:05 PM Total Time: 9:02 (9 hours and 2 minutes) If you were to apply Day Total and Average rounding with a 15-minute interval, the same punches would look like this: In: 8:03 AM Out: 5:03 PM <-- changed from 5:05 PM to 5:03 PM Total Time: 9:00 (9 hours exactly) As you can see, only the OUT punch is modified to a value that would result in the total time rounding to the nearest (average) 15 minutes—in this case, 9 hours exactly. However, each individual punch can be a value that itself is not rounded (5:03 PM is obviously not rounded to the nearest 15 minutes). NOTE: Transfer punches are only rounded when the Punch Type is set to Transfer. They are not rounded as part of All Punches, All In or All Out punches. |
| Round Type |
Sets the direction which punches will round toward.
| TYPE | DESCRIPTION |
|---|
| Down | Punches are always rounded down. | | Average | Average will split the interval in half and round values in the lower half down and the values in the upper half up by the specified interval. | | Average (Partial Min. Down) | For intervals not evenly divided in half to the minute, the partial minute rounds down. Example: If the interval is set to 15 minutes, which is an uneven split when divided in half (7.5) then this rounding type rounds the .5 or partial minute down to 7 minutes and the balance of 8 minutes making a 7/8 minute split. So a punch in at 7:52 AM will be rounded down to 7:45 AM, and a punch at 7:53 AM will be rounded up to 8:00 AM. | | Average (Partial Min. Up) | For intervals not evenly divided in half to the minute, the partial minute rounds up. Example: If the interval is set to 15 minutes, which is an uneven split when divided in half (7.5) then this rounding type rounds the .5 or partial minute up to 8 minutes and the balance of 7 minutes making an 8/7 minute split. So a punch in at 7:52 AM will be rounded up to 8:00 AM, and a punch in at 7:51 AM will be rounded down to 7:45 AM. | | Up | Punches are always rounded up. |
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| Interval |
Defines the amount of time that punches will round. For example, if this value is set to 1 minute, all times will round to the closest minute. If this value is set to 15 minutes, times will round to the closest quarter hour. It’s important to understand the relation of Interval with Round Type. If the Round Type is set to Up, and Interval set to 15 minutes, all times will round up to the next 15-minute interval. (For example, 7:34 AM will round up to 7:45 AM; 7:46 AM will round to 8:00 AM). Another example: If you set Round Type to Average, all times will round to the nearest interval. (7:34 AM will round down to 7:30 AM; 7:41 AM will round up to 7:45 AM). |
| Grace Period |
This is the amount of time given to the employee before rounding takes place. For example, if Round Type is set to Up and Interval is set to 15 minutes with a Grace Period of 3 minutes, and the employee punches IN at 8:02 AM, the punch will round down to 8:00 AM since the punch is within the Grace Period window. You should set this to 0 when using the Average rounding type. |
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Strict Schedule
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By checking this box, punch times will round to the scheduled time of each employee. When you specify this option, TimeTrex will never record time that exceeds the schedule for any employee. This is known as pre-authorized overtime. However, if the employee punches in late, or punches out early, those punches will round according to this policy. For strict rounding to work, the employee must be scheduled on that day and punch within the defined Start/Stop Window. For example: If an employee is scheduled to start their shift at 8:00 AM, and they punch in at 7:48 AM, but Strict Schedule is enabled, TimeTrex will record the punch time as their schedule time of 8:00 AM. If they punch in after their schedule time, then the time will round normally. The opposite is true for setting Strict Schedule at the end of a shift. If an employee punches out after their schedule end time of 5:00 PM, TimeTrex records it as their scheduled time of 5:00 PM. If they punch out before their schedule end time, 4:50 PM, TimeTrex will round the time accordingly. When using Lunch, Break, or Day Total rounding with Strict Rounding, the total time cannot exceed the scheduled total time. TIP: With each punch, TimeTrex records the actual punch time (before rounding), which supervisors can see when necessary. This allows supervisors to make manual adjustments at a later time if the employee actually did work overtime. |
| Window Based On |
Enables conditional rounding by defining what the below Start/Stop settings are based on.| WINDOW BASED ON | DESCRIPTION |
|---|
| Scheduled Time | Employees scheduled time, either Start or End time. | | Scheduled Time or Not Scheduled | Employees scheduled time, either Start or End time or apply even if the employee isn't scheduled at all. | | Static Time | Specific static time, such as 9:00AM, defined in the Static Time field that appears below. | | Static Total Time | Specific total shift time, such as 8 hours, defined in the Static Total Time field that appears below. |
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| Start Window |
Amount of time before the above selection when the window starts. For example if the above selection is Static Time set to 9:00 AM, and the Start Window is set to 00:15 then the window will start at 8:45 AM. |
| Stop Window |
Amount of time after the above selection when the window ends. For example if the above selection is Static Time set to 9:00 AM, and the Stop Window is set to 00:10 then the window will stop at 9:10 AM. Only punches that fall within the Start/Stop Window meet the condition and will be rounded. |
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