🎯 For Admins and Schedule Managers.
Setup Punch Clock to make full use of this feature.
What are Punch Clock rounding rules?
In Planday, you can enable rounding rules for the Punch Clock. Rounding, in this case, means rounding up or down the actual time your employees clocked in or clocked out to a "round" time - such as 9:00 instead of 08:56.
For example, an employee has a planned shift from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm, shows up before the shift starts and punches in at 8:56 am for work. If a corresponding rounding rule is activated, the system automatically suggests the employee's start time as 9:00 - so it would be rounded up. Before approving shifts, you will always have the opportunity to change the times - active rounding rules only help you with suggestions which are not final. You can adapt the rounding rules according to the usual practices in your company.
Prior to setting up Rounding Rules in Planday, we encourage you to visit the Fair Work Commission Awards finder page or contact the Fair Work Ombudsman to discuss this further. Getting this right is very important and sets the foundation for paying your employees correctly. You should also seek any independent legal advice as appropriate for your business.
Please note that the Rounding rules can only be used in combination with the Punch Clock. You can learn more about Setting up your Punch Clock.
Configure the basics of rounding settings
Rounding settings make approval of time sheets faster and more accurate. It is especially useful for cases where the scheduled hours aren't necessarily what will be approved for payroll.
For example, if employees are required to clock in or out within 10 minutes of their shift, the Rounding settings can be set up to reflect that. You can also combine multiple Rounding settings to create a more robust set of suggestions. You can access rounding settings via Settings > Punch Clock > Advanced > Rounding settings.
There are two different rounding rules that you can set:
Common rules - Set common rules for how Punch Clock entries change when employees punch in or out earlier or later than their Shift times.
Custom rules - Custom rules replace common rules and allow you to set advance rule settings, allowing you to limit them by Departments, Employee groups, or Employee types.
How to set up common rounding rules
Common rounding rules define how punch times are rounded if employees punch in or out earlier or later than their scheduled time.
Below are some settings you can set as Common rules:
For both the Start and End times, you can choose from the following rounding methods.
No rounding, show punch time - By default, Planday will show the employees' punched times both for the start and end time and pay them by the minute.
No rounding, show shift time - If your employees usually get paid based on their scheduled hours, you can change the settings to No rounding, show shift time.
Round down - This option would round down to the nearest 5, 10, 15, 20, 30 or 60 minutes of the punch time. This option is useful if you always trim down the punch time to the nearest round value.
Round up - This option would round up to the nearest 5, 10, 15, 20, 30 or 60 minutes of the punch time. This option is useful if you are always trimming up the punch time to the nearest round value.
The basic settings are for Start and End times, but to build a more robust set of rules, you can create Custom rules giving you more control over the rounding behaviour and limiting the application to specific employees.
Please note that if you have set Custom rounding rules, they will take priority over the Common rules.
How to set up custom rounding rules
If you create Custom rules, these rules will override your Common rounding rules. The Custom rules can be combined with filtering on other variables, such as Departments and Employee groups, as well as being set to apply for a set number of minutes starting from scheduled times.
Press Create, and after you give the rule a name.
Type - You can then choose between the following rule types:
Punched in: Clock-ins, with no regard to scheduled times
Punched out: Clock-outs, with no regard to scheduled times
Punched in early: Clock-ins, registered before the scheduled start time
Punched in late: Clock-ins, registered after the scheduled start time
Punched out early: Clock-outs, registered before the scheduled end time
Punched out late: Clock-outs, registered after the scheduled end time
Rounding method - Choose what you want to happen to the times affected by the rule.
No rounding: This shows the time the employee clocked in or out
Round down: Rounds down to the nearest 5, 10, 15, 30, or 60 minutes
Round up: Rounds up to the nearest 5, 10, 15, 30, or 60 minutes
Round to nearest: Rounds up or down to the nearest 5, 10, 15, 30, or 60 minutes
No rounding, show shift time: Shows the originally scheduled time
No rounding, show punch time: Shows the actual time the employee clocked out
If you have chosen one of the options such as rounding up, down, or to the nearest, you can set the number of minutes before moving on to Targets and types.
Targets and types - Depending on the setup of your Planday account, you can choose between the following to limit the application of the custom rounding rule:
Departments - Apply the rule to specific Departments only.
Employee groups - Apply the rule only to specific Employee groups
Employee types - Apply the rule only to specific Employee types
Press Save when done.
Encourage employees to leave comments when clocking in and out
When employees clock in and out, they have the option to leave a comment. This comment is visible to the Schedule managers on the shift and during timesheet approval. We recommend managers encourage their employees to leave comments when arriving early or late, as well as when clocking out before or after the shift ends.
The combination of Rounding settings and comments makes it faster to approve hours for payroll. In addition, managers can save themselves from following up on employees when they deviate from their scheduled hours by stating the reason.
View the clocked-in hours affected by rounding rules
⬆️ After adding some rounding rules, when you go to approve the clocked-in shift hours under Timesheets (1), click on one of the entries to approve (2) and you can see:
The scheduled time and the punch time (3)
The time to approve (4). If you’ve set up rounding rules, Planday will take these into account. You can always edit this time before you click on the Approve button.
Learn more about Timesheets in How to manage and approve Timesheets in Planday.
Example of a common Punch Clock rounding setup
Here, we'll show you an example of a setup that is popular with many Planday customers. The basic idea is that when employees clock in or out within a few minutes of their scheduled time, Planday will suggest the scheduled shift time for approval. When the difference between the scheduled time and clocked time exceeds a set number of minutes, Planday will suggest the punched-in time for approval instead. Depending on comments or company policy, the manager can always edit what times to include for payroll.
Scenario
When employees clock in or out within 5 minutes before or after the scheduled time, Planday will suggest the scheduled shift’s time instead of their clocked time.
When employees clock in or out outside of 5 minutes before or after their scheduled shift, Planday will suggest the clocked time instead. Start and End times will be flagged for review.
Setup
Go to Settings > Punch Clock > Advanced. Check that the dropdowns for Start and End are set to No rounding, show punch time under Common rules.
These are the fallback settings for cases outside the rules you are going to set up under Custom rules.
Next, press the Create button under Custom rules.
Set a rule for when the employees clock in before their shift starts:
Give the rule a name
Select Punched in early
Set the Rounding method to No rounding, show shift time
Max deviation duration decides for how many minutes before a shift starts the Punch Clock entry will be rounded up to the scheduled start time. In this example, we set 5 minutes.
Scroll down to make changes to Targets and types if needed.
Press Save
Lastly, a rule for when employees clock out after their shift ends:
Click Create and give the rule a name
Select Punched out late
Set the Rounding method to No rounding, show shift time
Max deviation duration decides for how many minutes after a shift ends the Punch Clock entry will be rounded down to the scheduled end time. In this example, we set 5 minutes.
Scroll down to make changes to Targets and types if needed
Click Save
Changing the number of minutes a rule is applied is an effective way to make further adjustments. If employees are usually paid from the start time of their shift, then it makes sense to increase the number of minutes under Max deviation duration for when employees clock in early.
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