Overtime - and what you can do with it

You are using our time tracking and over the last weeks some overtime hours have accumulated with your colleagues? Besides the simplest of all solutions - just not clocking in and thus reducing the hours - there are also other solutions at absence.io how you can work off the overtime, compensate it or pay it out - but how? Let's take a closer look at the possibilities.

Option 1: Work off overtime

The first and probably best-known option is to work off overtime. This actually just means that you get a working day or a part of the working day as time off in lieu and these hours are deducted accordingly from the overtime allowance. This can be done quickly and easily with a special Leave Type and a little trick!

Create a new Leave Type (Settings -> Leave Types -> Create Leave Type). 

It is important that this Leave Type counts as remote work and work time must be tracked - because if these hours are not clocked in, they will automatically be deducted from your overtime account and you will have worked the time off. 

A little trick with a big effect!

The advantage is that colleagues can manage and book their overtime themselves and with the Leave Type you can see in their calendars if they booked it. No extra step is needed - if you need an approval for the free time, you can also activate that in the Leave Type. 

Option 2: Compensate

You can also transfer the overtime via our Compensation Screen into a new created allowance and then let the users book their absences as overtime compensation. 

To do this, you first need to create and activate a new allowance. Go to Settings -> Allowances and activate a new hourly allowance. This allowance must also be linked to a Leave Type so the absence will deduct from the allowance.

To do this, go to Settings -> Create Leave Type and create a new Leave Type that deducts from the new overtime allowance: 

Once you have made these preparations, you can balance the overtime. To do this, go to the compensation screen, select the users and book the accrued overtime into the new allowance. You can find detailed instructions HERE. 

The overtime can now be used by the users in their Profile under Allowances -> Overtime Allowance with the new linked Leave Type. 

The advantage of this is that you have a rough overview of your users' overtime at regular intervals and can intervene if too much accumulates. On the other hand, it is of course a lot of manual work due to the rebooking and the overtime is not immediately available you always have to book it first.

Option 3: Pay out

The third option is to pay out the overtime. We can't take care of the payment itself, but we can help you with the booking. 

In this case, we no longer transfer the overtime to a quota, but pay it out:

And this is how it works: 

A user has collected a certain amount of overtime and wants it paid out. This means the overtime must be removed from his account - not transferred to another allowance. 

We proceed in the same way as with an hourly compensation, we select the users whose hours are to be compensated and start the hourly compensation: 

Now, instead of "Overtime Transfer", we choose "Payout":

Here you can see how many hours can be paid out and add a comment on the process. 

In the entry, it is possible to see how many hours have been paid out and which time entries have been compensated. 

HEADS UP: 

Currently, only the complete hours can be paid out or compensated. We are already working on the fact that in the future also partial amounts can be paid out or transferred.

However, we can also make it possible to pay out partial amounts via a little trick. 

The overtime compensation always sets the overtime account to zero. However, if you wanted to pay out only a partial amount, you can do the following:

- Go to the Profile of the employee and to his Public Information and time tracking. 

- There you select a new start date (date of compensation) and a new start balance (i.e. the amount that should remain on the colleague's account): 

And there you have the partial amount back on the account and the user can continue collecting his overtime.

Right now you have these three possibilities to use your overtime at absence.io. Of course we are as always working in the background to simplify the processes for you - we are always happy to receive feedback or suggestions for improvement!

Have fun with our solution!

Your absence.io team