Settings — Labor

Feature Overview

Labor settings control how your restaurant handles employee time, overtime calculations, and pay structure. By configuring these rules once, you ensure that every labor report, timecard, and payroll export reflects your restaurant's actual overtime policies — including both simple weekly overtime thresholds and advanced department-level rules for more complex scheduling environments.

How It Affects the System

• Labor Settings at the top of the page define restaurant-wide defaults — such as whether employees are required to clock in through the POS, and any general pay period configurations.
• Standard Overtime Rules set the weekly hour thresholds at which overtime pay kicks in. When an employee's logged hours cross these thresholds, their hours are automatically classified as overtime in labor reports, payroll exports, and the Daily Labor, Labor Cost, and Alpha Payroll reports.
• Advanced Overtime Rules allow per-department overtime configurations. For example, if kitchen staff have different overtime triggers than front-of-house staff, you can define separate rules for each job department. Advanced rules take precedence over standard rules when both are configured.
• Any unsaved changes on this page will trigger a browser warning if you attempt to navigate away — the system detects pending edits and protects you from accidentally losing your configuration.

Prerequisites / Requirements

• Restaurant edit or view permissions are required.
• Job departments must be configured in Settings > Permissions before they can be referenced in Advanced Overtime Rules.

Step-by-Step Guide

Accessing Labor Settings

1. Navigate to Settings > Labor.
2. The page loads three sections: Labor Settings, Standard Overtime Rules, and Advanced Overtime Rules.

Configuring Labor Settings

1. In the Labor Settings section, review and update the general labor preferences for your restaurant (such as pay period structure or clock-in requirements).
2. Changes in this section are saved automatically.

Setting Standard Overtime Rules

1. Scroll to the Standard Overtime Rules section.
2. For each overtime tier, set the hour threshold (the number of hours after which overtime pay applies) and the overtime rate (e.g., 1.5x).
3. To add a new overtime rule tier, click the + Add button at the bottom of the rule list.
4. To remove a tier, click the delete icon next to that rule.
5. Click Save to apply the standard overtime rules.

Configuring Advanced Overtime Rules (Per Department)

1. Scroll to the Advanced Overtime Rules section.
2. Click + Add Rule to create a new department-level rule.
3. In the rule editor:
   • Select the department this rule applies to from the dropdown
   • Set the hour interval and corresponding overtime rate
4. Add as many tiers as needed for each department.
5. Click Save to apply the advanced rules.

Saving All Changes

1. After making changes to either overtime section, click the Save button for that section.
2. If you attempt to navigate away without saving, the system will display the message: "You have unsaved changes, are you sure you want to leave?" Click Cancel to return and save, or OK to discard changes.

Common Troubleshooting / FAQs

Q: My labor reports are not calculating overtime correctly even though I've configured the rules. Verify that the overtime rules were saved successfully — the page will warn you if unsaved changes are present when navigating away. Also confirm that employee timecards were clocked using the POS and that their job class is linked to the correct department. If using Advanced Overtime Rules, confirm the affected employees' departments match the department configured in the rule.

Q: I can't see the Advanced Overtime Rules section. Advanced Overtime Rules require job departments to exist. If no departments have been set up in Settings > Permissions, this section may be empty. Create at least one job class and department in Settings > Permissions first, then return to Settings > Labor to configure department-level rules.