A payroll and attendance system is required by law. No matter if you have 10 employees or 100,000, you need a system that is easy to use. Administrative support services benefit when the system is efficient.
There are a lot of questions that employees and management regarding payments and outputs for payroll. It is important that administrative support services work closely with human resources so that employee expectations are kept accurate.
What is 40 Hours per Week?
Since labor unions fought for the right to a 40 hour work week with time off on the weekends, people use 40 hours per week as the standard for a full-time job. But is it really?
There are 3 concerns here:
- 40 hours – full time
- Unpaid lunch calculation
- Number of days
Because of this, we are answering these time clock related questions below.
Is 40 Hours a Week Full Time?
Yes and no. In the general cases, 40 hours a week is considered full time. But because of unpaid lunches and breaks, some companies call full time 32 or even 28 hours per week. It really depends on the business and the laws of your local area.
Does 40 Hour Work Week include Lunch?
Typically no. If you are scheduled for 40 hours with an unpaid lunch, the lunch hours are removed. If that is the case, you’ll actually work less than 40 hours per week to help buffer against overtime.
That being said, if you do work 40 hours, you would be scheduled from 9 to 6 instead of 9 to 5.
How Many Days is 40 Hours a Week?
Typically, 40 hours refers to 5 days per week. Some businesses work 4 days by making each day 10 (11) hours. You can get to 40 hours in 3 days by working 14 hour shifts. You can get to 40 by working 2 days of 20 hour shifts.
Another way is working 3 days one week of 12 hours and 4 days the next week 12 hours rotating. The average overtime works out to 40 hours per week. This is typical of hospitals where burnout is a real concern.
It really depends on how your business sets up the schedule.
40 Hours Conclusion
No matter what your schedule looks like, it is good to ask Human Resources these questions at the time of your interview. Also, once you are in the position, get to know the administrative support services team so they can answer your questions, too.
Base Wage Rate
Base wage rate differs depending on your job position. Typically, minimum wage is $7.25. If your a waitress (or similar support role), the base wage is $2.33 (plus tips). State laws can cause your minimum pay to be higher than Federal Law, but never lower than that.
Businesses that choose to pay less than that are risking their employees filing a complaint with a wage and overtime commission.
What is Base Pay plus Commission?
Base pay plus commission means that this business is willing to pay you the lowest possible pay per hour with the opportunity to earn more money from each sale you make. People understand that car salesmen work off of commission and try to sell you warranties.
Beauty salon operators also work base plus commission which is why they try to sell shampoo and hair accessories in the store.
Timesheets and Timecards
Manually-punched or hand-written timesheets take a lot of time from administrative support services. In cases of mass schedule glitches (like winter emergencies), the administrative support team works overtime to get employees paid on time.
In order to be more efficient, payroll officials have come up with common timesheet codes to communicate what is going on.
These codes are:
- UAT
- FTR
- LL
- UGR
What does UAT mean on a Timesheet?
When you schedule is made, there is a set number of hours that you are expected to work. When you take a sick day, you do not work a portion of those hours. This is considered to be unallocated time or UAT.
Also, if the handwriting on a timesheet is so bad, a payroll person might use the UAT to signify that they were not able to put worked hours in the system due to employee error. This causes lots of conflicts between employees and managers trying to get this fixed.
What does FTR mean on a Timesheet?
Some weeks the demands of an employee are excessive and the employee forgets to turn in their time sheets or leaves their timesheets partially blank. In this case, the code used indicates a failure to record the proper time or FTR.
What does LL mean on a Timesheet?
When managers set up your schedule, there is a set number of hours expected. When employees work beyond the time they were scheduled, this can be called labor long or LL.
This happens quite often with employees who stalk the time clock to game the system to get paid 15 minutes extra per day by clocking in and out at the right moments. This results in unaccounted overtime, and can be recorded as LL to alert managers to possible time clock fraud.
What does UGR mean on a Timesheet?
In order to meet international pay wages and standards, different pay scales are attributed to different countries. Businesses that operate internationally find that they have lots of wage challenges as countries change their wage laws at their own time frame.
UGR stands for user group. Typically, this is a country code. If the country is not listed for country codes, use 99 for most payroll systems.
Travel Pay
Employees may get reimbursed for hotel room, food, entertainment and gas; these all fall under travel pay.
What does Travel Stipend Mean?
According to the wage laws of your state, you may or may not be paid for your travel time. Typically, any time spent traveling for your company (be it door-to-door sales or going to a business conference), must be compensated.
Employee handbooks typically have these rates set out so that the employee can calculate the proper stipend easily.
Because of gas mileage fraud, companies are starting to use phone apps to accurately record gas mileage for compliance.
Payroll and Attendance Systems Calculate Overtime Holiday Pay and More
Best Payroll and Attendance System is Time Clock Wizard
Time Clock Wizard (TCW) gives an edge to administrative support services as the best online payroll and attendance system. It is very easy to use the dashboard of TCW to efficiently solve payroll issues experienced by employees and managers.
TCW also makes it easy for companies to remain in compliance of their wage and payment laws.
Due to the changes in FLSA in December, it is very important to be looking for a time clock solution that provides a time stamp of when the employee/and 3rd party contractors clock in and out before adjustments are made.
There are many more questions about payroll and attendance systems that will be discussed in the next article.
You can try Time Clock Wizard for free by clicking on this link now: Limited-time free trial for TCW.
