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Timecard Punch Management Best Practices

James Guentner
  • Updated

This guide explains timecard correction roles, missing punches, overlapping shifts, wrong positions, and Auto Transfers. It provides best practices for moving punches, correcting entries, deleting rows, and editing Auto Transfer shifts in the proper order.

Contents

Applicable Roles

Missing Punches

Employee forgets to punch in/out

Employee Punches in twice to the same Position (punched in again instead of punching out)

Employee adds a shift that overlaps an existing shift on that day

Moving Punches

Employee's with Ancillary Jobs and/or Multiple Positions

Approver adds an Ancillary Job to an existing shift

Overriding Punches created with Auto Transfer

Removing a Shift created with Auto Transfer

Frequently Asked Questions

When do I need to Reapply Parameters?

When do I have to Remove Lower Approvals?

When do I have to Save/Recalculate?

Why can't I delete some meters on my Timecard?

What are Auto Transfers?

Applicable Roles 

  • Personal Profile Only (PPO) - all users (with Timekeeping enabled) can view their own Timecard.   However, HR Admin's. can grant additional rights on a Position that allow Staff the ability to edit and even approve their own timecards.
  • Timecard Approvers - can view and edit all Timecards for which they are assigned as Approver 1,2 or 3 (regardless of role).  However, they are restricted from making edits to the Totals tab.  Only elevated users* can modify Timecard totals on the Totals tab and lock Timecards.  
  • Elevated Users - can view, edit (override), Reapply Parameters, and lock everyone's* Timecard including rows on the Totals Tab.  Elevated Users are anyone with the following Roles in the system:
    • Business Office role
    • SchoolFront Support role      
    • HR Admin** role
    • Attendance Administrator** role

* Elevated Users can not approve or edit their own timecards. Like users with Personal Profile Only roles, they must be granted additional rights on their Position that gives them the ability to edit and even approve their own timecards.

** When enabled in Feature Administration > Time Keeping >

Missing Punches

Missing punch can be corrected on unlocked / approved Timecards by user with the correct roles. Missing punches are caused when a employee: 

  1. Forgets to punch IN/OUT
  2. Punches in twice without punching out of a Position

Employee forgets to punch in/out 

The system will highlight the missing punch(s) with a red box on the Timecard.  Correct by manually adding the missing punch(s) on the Timecard:

  1. Open the Timecard in question, select the desired Pay Period 
  2. Enter the missing punch with the correct value 
  3. Select [Save/Recalculate] (figure 1)
    • The entered punch field will have a gold background and a , when clicked will provide information regarding the override 

      Figure 1 - Add a missing Punch to the Timecard

Employee Punches in twice to the same Position (punched in again instead of punching out)

When a user punches into the same Position on the same day, the system will create a row for each punch on the time card, both with missing punches.  The system will highlight the missing punch(s) with a red box. 

Correct by manually adding the missing punch(s) on the Timecard: 

  1. Open the Timecard in question, update Pay Period if needed.
  2. Enter (Override) the missing OUT punch with the correct value 
  3. Select [Save/Recalculate] (figure 1.1)
  4. Check and delete the extra row 

    Figure 1.1 - User punched in twice

Employee adds a shift that overlaps an existing shift on that day

Easy to do sometimes when you're correcting / approving timecards. In the following example, the user mistakenly added a second shift (2:00pm - 5:00pm) when they already had an existing shift on the Timecard (7:00am - 3:00pm).  The system then did the following:

  1. It created a new row for the hour the shifts overlap
  2. Created a new shift at 7:00am with a missing OUT Punch
  3. Created a new shift at 5:00pm with a missing IN Punch (see figure 1.2)

    Figure 1.2 - User added a shift that overlapped an exiting one on their timecard

Correct by:

  1. Open the Timecard in question and select the correct Pay Period
  2. Delete the the last two rows
  3. Enter the correct OUT Punch (see figure 1.3)

    Figure 1.3 - Delete the wrong shift(s), correct the OUT punch. Add another shifty with the correct in out times
  4. Create a new row with a non overlapping IN Punch (figure 1.4)

    Figure 1.4 - Corrected Timecard

Moving Punches

Employees with multiple Positions or Positions with Ancillary Jobs may mistakenly punch into the wrong position or Ancillary Job. The best practice for correcting this is to move the punches to the correct Position or Ancillary Job.  Users with the correct roles can Move Punches on unlocked/approved Timecards:

  1. Open the Timecard in question and select the correct Pay Period (figure 2)
  2. Check the shift in question on the Timecard  
  3. Select [Move Punches]

  4. Select the correct Position / Ancillary Job and then [Move Punches] from the pop-up window (figure 2) 

    1. The 'Move Punches To' modal will appear.  Select the Position and Ancillary Job (if applicable) that the punched time is to be moved to
    2. The selected punched times will have been moved to the designated Position and/or Ancillary Job.  The row that the punched times were moved from, will now be blank



    Figure 2 - Moving Punches 
     

    5. Then check the old empty shift/row (figure 3)

    6. Select [Delete Row] and then confirm the deletion in the pop-up window

    7. Select [Save/Recalculate] to save your changes 


    Figure 3 - Deleting the empty shift (row)

Employee's with Ancillary Jobs and/or Multiple Positions

Sometimes employees forget to punch out before punching into their next Position or Ancillary Job. Fortunately the system is intelligent enough that it will punch that person out and into their new Position or Ancillary job automatically.  

When this happens, its called an "Auto Transfer" because the system is moving punches to a new row on the Timecard automatically. It was developed to make HR Hub users life a little bit easier in that they could punch directly into their next Position without punching out, saving a few steps.

The Auto Transfer logic will run whenever shifts overlap on a timecard and the shifts are different Positions or Ancillary Jobs. 

Correcting a Timecard with Auto Transfers can sometimes be tricky.  To begin with, it can be difficult to even identify them. A good rule of thumb, If deleting a punch just doesn't work,  you are probably dealing with an Auto Transfer. 

In the following example, an Approver or HR Admin added a Snow Removal shift to correct a timecard. 

Approver adds an Ancillary Job to an existing shift

An Approver or HR Admin manually added a missing Snow Removal shift that overlapped an existing shift (Custodian) on the Timecard. Because Snow Removal is an Ancillary Job, the Auto Transfer logic automatically adjusted the Timecard by:

  1. The system added a new Snow Removal shift on a new row (figure 6)


    Figure 6 - Auto Transfer Example
     
  2. It punched them out of their Custodial shift and 
  3. It created a 3rd shift (row) for the remaining custodial hours worked after the Snow Removal's shift OUT punch

Timecard entries created with the Auto Transfer logic are managed differently

The punches the system created are now linked and must be managed in tandem.  In the above example where an Approver added a "Snow Removal" 8am -10am shift in the middle of an Employees 7am-3pm custodial shift, the Auto Transfer logic:


Figure 7 - When making overrides, change IN / OUT meters in tandem so overlap conditions are not created

  1. Linked the IN Punch of Snow Removal 8-10am shift to the OUT punch of the Custodial 7-8am shift. (Yellow highlights above) making BOTH of those punches read only. (figure 7)
  2. Linked the OUT Punch of Snow Removal 8-10am shift to the IN Punch of the Custodial 7-8am shift. (Pink highlights above) making BOTH of these punches read only as well

Overriding Punches created with Auto Transfer

As an Approver, I need to be able to adjust meters created with Auto Transfer (like figure 7).  I want to add a hour to the Snow removal shift.  

Best Practice:  

  • When making overrides, change IN / OUT meters in tandem so overlap conditions are not created
  1. Override the OUT punch for snow removal (figure 8)
  2. Make the same change to the IN punch so the shifts don't overlap

    Figure 8 - Override IN / OUT meters in tandem so overlap conditions are not created

Removing a Shift created with Auto Transfer

This scenario presents itself when a Timecard contains an Ancillary Job (or another Position) that is adjacent to or in the middle of an existing shift.  In Figure 6, note that the user punched out of their Custodian Position for two hours of Snow Removal Ancillary Job.  They then Punched back in and finished out their Custodian shift. 

Again, correcting a Timecard with Auto Transfers can sometimes be tricky.  When attempting to remove the Ancillary Job, the Approver notices that the system will not allow them to delete the Ancillary Job's punches or the row.  

Best Practice 

  • Order of Operation is important.
  • You can not just delete rows with punches because the Auto Transfer logic will just recreate them.  Same goes for deleting punches out of order.  
  • Start from the last shift on the day you are correcting and delete (or correct) its IN/OUT punches, then work backwards in time like this until you get to the shift you want to correct or delete.  
  • When override punches on rows created with Auto Transfer, don't cause a overlap with the override.

Remember, order of operation is important. To remove the row:

  1. Start from the last shift and delete the meters on that shift. (figure 9)
  2. Then work backwards from the last to the first shift deleting the IN/OUT meters
  3. Correct the Out punch on the original shift
  4. Delete the empty rows
  5. Save your changes by selecting [Save Recalculate]
    Figure 9 - Remove a Ancillary Job that was added in the middle of an existing shift

 

Frequently Asked Questions

When do I need to Reapply Parameters?

When changes are made to any of the following attendance or timekeeping setup options, Elevated Users must use Reapply Parameters to have those changes applied to the Time Card

When do I have to Remove Lower Approvals?

Approvers can remove their own approval and all lower level approvals.  The Timecard will be read only until all approvals have been removed. The fastest way to do that is for a HR admin to user [Remove Lower Approvals] 

Examples:

  1. The Employee has approved their timecard:
    • Approvers 1-3 can remove that approval because they are higher level approvers
  2. The Employee and Approver 1 has approved a timecard:
    • The employee can remove their own approval, but can not remove Approver 1's approval (because its higher)
    • Approver 1 can remove their own approval and the Employees because it's a lower level approval
  3. The Employee and Approver 1-3 have all approved the Timecard:
    • Approver 2 can remove their own approval and any lower level one (Approver 1, Employee)
    • Approver 3 can remove their own and all lower level approvals (Approver 1-2, Employee)

When do I have to Save/Recalculate?

[Save Recalculate] after making any edits to the Timecard

Why can't I delete some meters on my Timecard?

If deleting a punch on a un-locked un-approved timecard just doesn't work, you are probably dealing with an Auto Transfer. See Overriding Punches created with Auto Transfer for any overview of managing Timecards with these types of automatically created entries.

What are Auto Transfers?

An "Auto Transfer" is an entry created on the timecard automatically by the system when users forget to punch out before punching into their next shift, or Approvers add a Ancillary Job shift to a Timecard with an existing shift. 

It was developed to make HR Hub users life a little bit easier in that they could punch directly into their next Position without punching out, saving a few steps.  It also helps Approver correct Timecards.