Working through midnight

Some employees work crazy hours at night, graveyard, or round the clock.

But it doesn't change how work hours are calculated.

No matter how crazy their schedule is, employees are compensated on how many hours they work in a day, and how many hours they work in a workweek.

Why? By law, that is how overtime is calculated.

So if an employee works through midnight, you have to draw a line in the sand that says when the workday starts. Then it can be calculated.

Our online time clock says an employee's workday starts when they clock in.

As an example, if an employee clocks in at 9 PM on Wednesday, and out at 5 AM on Thursday, they are compensated 8 hours for Wednesday.

To make this work, along with our Maximum shift setting, we also include a New Shift After setting.

New shift after

The default New Shift After is 3 hours.

This means that any IN punch that occurs at least 3 hours after the last OUT punch is considered a new shift.

Going back to our example...

If our employee clocks in at 9 PM on Wednesday, but clocked out at 1 AM on Thursday for a meal break, their next IN punch will keep them in the same shift as long as they clock IN within 3 hours.

But if instead they clocked back in at 5 AM, then the 5 AM punch is considered a new shift that starts on Thursday.

Bottom line, it's okay for employees to work crazy hours.

And if they do, hours will still be calculated correctly.