Overview

Businesses need to be able to record both paid and unpaid breaks because of compliance and auditing purposes. This can be done in both the rostering and timesheet functionality, including Clock Me In and Swag. By default, when an employees record breaks in their timesheets, the break duration is automatically deducted from paid hours unless the business has created a rule to pay employees for all breaks. By enabling the paid break feature, employees will be able to record both paid and unpaid breaks in timesheets.

This feature applies to:

• Businesses subscribed to a plan that includes Time And Attendance (usually Plus plan users).
• Timesheets that use a start/finish time and not timesheets where units/hours are entered. 

How to access the paid breaks setting

1. Log into your payroll.
2. Click on Payroll Settings.
3. Select Timesheets screen.
4. Select: Enable employees to include both paid and unpaid breaks in their timesheet (only relevant to timesheets with start/end times). checkbox. Once enabled, a sub-setting will display that allows employers to cap the maximum number of times that the employee will be paid for their break. For example, if the employer sets a cap of 20 minutes but the employee takes a break of 35 minutes, the first 20 minutes will be paid and the remaining 15 minutes will be treated as unpaid.
5. Click Save.

Rosters & paid and unpaid breaks

1. Log into your payroll.
2. Click on Rostering.
3. Select the required date range or personnel.
4. Click on the shift you want to view or edit.
5. A new Paid break checkbox is now available in shifts to configure whether break is paid or unpaid:
6. Multiple breaks can be added to a shift where some are unpaid and others are paid.
7. Click Add break and then for each break you can individually select which is paid and which is not.

Timesheets & paid and unpaid breaks

A new Paid break checkbox is now available in the timesheet grid so that employees and/or managers can configure whether break taken is paid or unpaid. This functionality spreads across the following timesheet areas -

• Importing timesheets from roster and custom file upload
• Timesheets created via Clock Me In and Swag.
• Timesheets created via employee portal
• Timesheets created via manager dashboard

Example of Approve Timesheets screen showing the paid break label on timesheets:

Rostering and paid and unpaid breaks

1. Log into your payroll.
2. Select Rostering from the side menu.
3. View the correct date range you require. 
4. You can see paid breaks are now shown on the list. 
5. Example of comparing timesheets to roster & picking up variance in paid breaks:

Paid break costing

When viewing the timesheet costing the paid breaks are shown and accounted for. 

Similarly with rostering, any shift containing a paid break will be costed accordingly:

Swag with paid and unpaid breaks

In Swag, employees are able to indicate whether a meal/rest break is to be paid if the paid break setting has been enabled at the business level.

1. 1. Log into the Swag app.
   2. Tap on the Work icon.
   3. Select Timesheets from the menu across the top of the home screen view.
      
   4. Tap the timesheet that needs editing. You can only edit timesheets that have not yet been approved.
      
   5. You can edit the following fields:
   • Work type
   • Location
   • Date
   • Start time
   • End time
   • Break start
   • Break end
   • Notes.
   5. Make the required changes and tap Submit.
      

Viewing paid and unpaid breaks in the Timesheet Report

You can also see paid and unpaid break totals as separate columns in your Timesheet Report export. Tick Show paid/unpaid break breakdown in the Timesheet Report filter panel before downloading the report. This replaces the single Break Duration column with two columns — Paid Break Duration and Unpaid Break Duration — so you can provide an auditable record of which breaks were paid and which were not. See Timesheets Report for more information.