Shifts, breaks and timekeeping

Shifts tell Sahora when employees are expected to work, so it can count lates, undertime and absences. This guide shows how to set up shifts and breaks, how lates are counted, and the company's timekeeping choices.

Before you start

• Owner / Management users and payroll officers can add shifts. The Breaks and Timekeeping cards and the late settings can be changed only by an Owner / Management user.
• Employees without a shift follow their pay group's work days, with no fixed times.

Add a shift

1. Open Company setup and choose Shifts.
2. Type the Shift name, for example Day 8-5.
3. Choose the Type:
   • Fixed hours: set the Start and End. An end before the start means the shift ends the next day. Lates and undertime are measured against fixed shifts.
   • Flexible (hours a day only): set the Hours a day.
   • Executive (hours not tracked): pay never uses the time records. A fixed salary is paid in full.
4. Choose the Break: The company's break, Its own break or No break. For its own break, set its minutes and whether it is paid.
5. Tick the Rest days.
6. Click Add shift.

Assign the shift on each employee's page, or to many employees at once with Bulk changes (see Bulk changes). To change a shift's break later, click Edit breaks under it, then Save the shift's breaks.

Set the company's break

1. In Company setup, scroll to Breaks.
2. Choose How breaks are tracked:
   • Auto-deduct: the scheduled break comes off the hours automatically; employees punch twice a day.
   • Punch-tracked: employees punch out and in for the break, four punches a day.
   • No break deduction: every hour from time in to time out counts.
3. Set the Break (minutes) and the Paid break switch, or turn on No scheduled break.
4. Optionally set a Break window from and Break window to. Break punches outside it are flagged.
5. For punch-tracked breaks, choose whether Overbreak is deducted as Undertime or Tardiness, and the Overbreak grace (minutes). Within the grace nothing is deducted; past it, every minute over counts.
6. Click Save breaks.

A shift can follow the company's break or have its own, and its own Break tracking choice.

How lates and undertime are counted

In Company setup → Payroll settings:

• Late grace period (minutes per day): DOLE doesn't require one.
• Late beyond the grace period: Deduct all minutes late or Deduct only minutes beyond the grace.

Tardiness and undertime are separate lines on the payslip.

Timekeeping choices

The Timekeeping card in Company setup holds:

• Clock in and out on the phone: on, employees with a portal login clock in from the portal. Off, you import your biometric device's records on the Time log page (see The time log and biometric files).
• Selfie with each clock-in: a live selfie with each clock-in and clock-out.
• How imported files are read: punches close together that count once, and the date order when the file doesn't show it.
• How many hours before a shift starts and after it ends a punch still belongs to that shift (for example a night shift's time out the next morning).
• Attendance flags: limits per calendar month that highlight employees on the attendance summary report. Blank means off.
• The overtime minutes a day from which the attendance exceptions report lists overtime worked without approval.

Click Save to keep your changes. For the checks on phone clock-ins, see Clock-in controls.

What can go wrong

• "An unpaid break must be at least ... minutes (Labor Code Art. 85)." Make the break longer, or mark it paid.
• "Give both ends of the break window, or neither."
• "The overbreak grace is 0 to 60 minutes."
• "The meal period rule (Art. 85) isn't in the statutory tables yet; breaks can't be saved until it is." Contact Sahora support.