Overview
The Overtime Calculator is a powerful feature that analyzes existing time entries and automatically marks them as overtime, depending on the criteria specified by you. It looks at the daily standard hours of employees and if there are none available, then at the weekly standard hours. It is generally used at the end of a pay period with the ability to define rules that are only applicable when looking at everything all at once. Wage issues are a major nightmare for business owners and the rules of paying overtime vary from state to state and country to country. This feature is flexible to accommodate the most complex overtime regulations, ensuring that your business does not face any problems if audited by an employment agency.
The batch overtime calculation runs against only time entries that are un-billed, while billed entries are ignored. The overtime status, bill rates and cost rates of time entries linked with invoices are thus not changed. Also, holidays and sick days are often not overtime eligible.
Before calculating overtime for your employees, you should decide upon a few things. You need to break down a 24-hour period into three parts corresponding to Regular, Overtime and Double Overtime. One period starts where the other ends. Thus, regular time might be from 0 to 8 hours, OT might start at 8 and go up to 12 hours, and then double OT might start at 12 hours and end at 24 hours. Regular time must start at 0 hours; however, double OT does not have to go all the way till 24 hours. Some companies do not want any more overtime work beyond 16 hours and so do not authorize it. Click to watch this video on calculating overtime in BQE CORE.
How To
Field Descriptions
| Field Name | Field Description |
| Overtime Calculator > Calculate Overtime > | |
|
Overtime Calculation Rules: Daily or Weekly |
You should set up one of the two depending on whether you want to base the overtime on daily hours worked or weekly hours. If you enter both, daily hours take preference over weekly hours in case of overtime and after daily overtime is triggered, BQE CORE does not check the weekly hours anymore. |
| Regular Time Stops at | Although the overtime laws vary from place to place, generally 8 hours of work constitutes regular time and any work beyond these 8 hours in a work day qualifies for overtime. So you can set the stop hours as 8 here. Similarly, for a week, 40 hours of work constitutes regular time and any work beyond these 40 hours in a work week qualifies for overtime. |
| Overtime Stops at | Generally, any work beyond 8 hours in a work day qualifies for overtime up to and including 12 hours. So you can set the stop hours as 12 here. Similarly, for a week, any work beyond 40 hours in a work week qualifies for overtime up to and including 60 hours. |
| Double Overtime Stops at | Generally, any work beyond 12 hours in a work day qualifies for double overtime up to and including 24 hours. You can set the stop hours as 24 here. Similarly, for a week, any work beyond 60 in a work week qualifies for double overtime up to and including 120 hours. |
| Use separate/special rules for the seventh consecutive day | As per the Seventh Consecutive Day rule, you have one set of overtime rule for the first 6 days and then another set for just the 7th consecutive day. Any work more than 6 days in a workweek qualifies for overtime. For the first 8 hours worked on the 7th consecutive day in a workweek, employees are compensated at the overtime rate (at least 1.5 times regular pay rate) and for all hours worked in excess of 8 hours, they are compensated at the double-overtime rate (at least 2 times regular pay rate). This option is not available for the Weekly calculation. |
| Regular Time Stops at |
You might set 8 hours of work as regular time and any work beyond these 8 hours as overtime. So you can set the stop hours as 8 here. |
| Overtime Stops at | You might set any work beyond 8 hours as overtime up to and including 12 hours. So you can set the stop hours as 12 here. |
| Double Overtime Stops at | You might set any work beyond 12 hours as double overtime up to and including 24 hours. You can set the stop hours as 24 here. |
| Rate Rules: Use new multipliers |
Instead of using the default overtime multiplier from the Employees or Fee Schedules screen, you can set new multipliers here for Overtime and Double Overtime. You can then choose to apply the new multipliers on top of the existing employee or fee schedule rates, and also choose to apply the multipliers on the bill rates instead of just the cost rates. Example: If you have 2 as the overtime multiplier in the fee schedule for employee AM and the cost rate is $20, it would make the entry update to $40/hour if it is OT eligible ($20 x 2). However, if you specify 3 here, it updates the rate to $60/hour instead ($20 x 3). If you choose to apply the new multiplier on top of the existing rates, then the new rate is $120/hour ($40/hour x 3). |
| Use Employee or Project Schedule rates | When calculating overtime, you can use just the default bill and cost rates from the Employees screen or the project's fee schedule rates, whichever is applicable. |
| Include existing overtime entries for recalculations | This is useful if you have incorrectly marked time entries as overtime and want to recalculate overtime for them. It updates the rates for overtime entries based on the date of recalculation, but does not affect the regular time entries. Also, the billed time entries are skipped for the overtime calculation. |
Calculate Overtime
To calculate overtime, watch this video or follow these steps:
- Open the Time Entries screen from the side menu > Time & Expenses and select Overtime Calculator from the More menu. (You can also access it from the More menu in Time & Expense Reviewer.)
- Select a Resource Group at the top to view a specific list of employees or vendors.
- Then select a resource on the grid whose overtime you want to calculate and click Calculate Overtime on that row. Else, select multiple rows and click Actions > Calculate Overtime to perform a batch calculation.
- On the Calculate Overtime dialog, select the date range to narrow down the time entry period for calculation. The time selected for the overtime calculation must include the dates for the entire 7 day week when a week includes the first day of one month and the last day of the next month. Example: If August 1 is a Thursday, the period selected to calculate overtime for August must be from July 28 to August 31. Similarly, if October 1 falls on a Tuesday, the period selected to correctly calculate overtime for October needs to be September 29 to November 2.
- You can select any Activity Items to Exclude from the drop-down and click Continue.
- Now, set the Overtime Calculation Rules on a Daily or Weekly basis. Check Field Descriptions above for details.
- Regular Time Stops at
- Overtime Stops at
- Double Overtime Stops at
- Select the 'Use separate/special rules for the seventh day' option if you want to apply the Seventh Consecutive Day rule in your company. Check Field Descriptions above for details.
- Set the stop hours for the seventh consecutive day for:
- Regular Time
- Overtime
- Double Overtime
- Next, set the relevant Rate Rules for calculating overtime. Check Field Descriptions above for details.
- Select the option to include existing overtime entries for recalculations. Check Field Descriptions above for details.
- Click Calculate to process the time entries. You can see the progress.
When you review your time entries, CORE has split the entries accordingly into regular time and overtime with the proper rates. E.g., 13 hours entered for May 18 gets split into 8 hours regular time at $80/hour and 5 hours overtime at $120/hour.
Note: Overtime calculations are not accurate if even one time entry within a week has been billed.
Apply Filters
To view selective data on the grid, watch this video or follow these steps:
- Open the Time Entries screen from the side menu > Time & Expenses and select Overtime Calculator from the More menu. (You can also access it from the More menu in Time & Expense Reviewer.)
- In the list view, click
on the right.
- On the Filters panel, select a filter from the drop-down and specify individual records or range.
- Click Add Filters to specify more filters.
- When you have finished, click Apply Filter. You can see selective data now.
- You can remove the individual filters by clicking
on each. To disable applied filters temporarily or remove all filters, click
next to the Filters icon and select Disable Filters or Clear All, respectively.
You can also check the detailed video on applying filters in CORE.
Mark Screen as Favorite
You can mark or flag the most-often used and important screens in CORE as your favorites up to a maximum of ten. These favorite screens then display separately on the side menu under the Favorites list. You can manage all your favorite screens in CORE from User Settings.
To mark this screen as your favorite, watch this video or follow these steps:
- Open the Time Entries screen from the side menu > Time & Expenses and select Overtime Calculator from the More menu. (You can also access it from the More menu in Time & Expense Reviewer.)
- In the list view, click
on the top-right.
- You can access this screen from the side menu under Favorites.
You can also check the detailed video on marking screens as favorite in CORE.