Warehouse time and attendance software built for three shifts

The buyer’s guide to warehouse time and attendance software

A plant on three shifts has timekeeping problems an office never meets: a shift that ends on a different date than it started, a night premium that changes the overtime rate, phones banned from the floor, and three leads who each know only their own crew. This guide covers what warehouse time and attendance software has to handle, the federal rules on differentials and the workweek, breaks in three states, records, and how to choose.

What warehouse time and attendance software needs to do

Five jobs, in order. Take the punch at the door from a shared device with each person’s own PIN, because a card rack lets anyone punch anyone. Work out breaks, late starts and missed clock-outs from the punches, keeping the original when something is fixed. Put each hour in the right workweek, including the hours after midnight. Price overtime on the regular rate, differential included. Then let each shift lead approve their own crew and send the hours to payroll without retyping. The time clock kiosk, time and attendance, timesheets and payroll in Workzenly are those five jobs on one record.

Warehouse workforce management also means scheduling three shifts or a rotation and onboarding people who arrive through a staffing agency, so the time clock should sit next to scheduling and onboarding. Comparing vendors? Our list of the best time and attendance software covers the main options, and the free attendance tracker templates are a starting point if you are still on paper.

Overtime when you pay a shift differential

Federal law does not require a night premium; the Department of Labor says extra pay for night work is a matter of agreement between employer and employee. Once you pay one, 29 CFR 778.207 requires nightshift differentials to be included in the regular rate, whether a percentage of base pay or a set amount per hour, and overtime is 1.5 times that rate. Our shift differential guide has the full math; here is Jenna’s week from above.

Priced on base pay alone, the premium would be $36.00 and the week $888.00, $2.73 short, repeated for every night worker in every overtime week, and back wages can be claimed for prior years. Two rules follow. Write down which hours earn the differential, by window or by shift. And count differential hours from the punches, not the schedule: a picker who stays an hour late inside the window is owed the premium for that hour. Our overtime guide and overtime calculator use the same regular-rate method.

Night shifts that cross the workweek boundary

Under the FLSA a workweek is a fixed and regularly recurring period of 168 hours, seven consecutive 24-hour periods, which may begin on any day and at any hour of the day (29 CFR 778.105). Once set it stays fixed, and it can be changed only if the change is meant to be permanent and not designed to evade overtime. Each workweek stands alone (29 CFR 778.104): hours cannot be averaged across a biweekly pay period. Federal recordkeeping rules also require you to record the time and day of week the workweek begins.

For a 10:00 PM to 6:30 AM third shift, the choice decides where a Saturday night goes. Ironbend’s workweek starts Sunday at 12:00 AM, so Ray’s Saturday cover shift on Nov 7 split into 2.0 hours for the week ending Nov 7, overtime because he already had 40, and 6.0 hours for the week starting Nov 8. Many three-shift operations avoid the split by starting the workweek at a shift change, as our guide to 1st, 2nd and 3rd shift hours explains. Either is lawful; pick one at setup.

Rotating patterns: 2-2-3 and DuPont

When a warehouse goes 24/7, it usually moves to 12-hour rotating shifts. A 2-2-3 schedule uses four teams on a 14-day cycle: work 2, off 2, work 3, off 2, work 2, off 3, for 84 hours every two weeks and every other weekend off. With a workweek starting Sunday at 7:00 AM the weeks alternate 36 and 48 hours, so each person earns 8 overtime hours per cycle; with a Monday 7:00 AM start the same grid splits 60 and 24, for 20. A DuPont schedule runs 28 days: 4 nights, 3 off, 3 days, 1 off, 3 nights, 3 off, 4 days, 7 off. It averages 42 hours but the weeks come out 48, 72, 48 and 0, so overtime lands in three of every four weeks, and the 72-hour week is a night block with the differential. The software job is to show hours per workweek before you publish, carry the pattern forward, and keep swaps inside the lead’s approval. Our free shift schedule templates have the grids if you want to try a pattern on paper first.

Breaks on a three-shift floor

Federal law does not require breaks. The Department of Labor’s Fact Sheet 22 says short rest periods, usually 20 minutes or less, count as hours worked, while bona fide meal periods, typically 30 minutes or more, generally need not be paid if the employee is completely relieved from duty. A packer who eats at the station while the line moves is working. States add their own rules.

Set your break rule during setup so the unpaid meal comes off the right night and short rest breaks stay paid. On 12-hour shifts, check whether your state requires a second meal period, as Washington and Illinois do.

This guide is general information, not legal advice. Wage, break and safety rules change every year, so check your state labor department or an employment lawyer for your situation.

Records, OSHA and temp workers

The FLSA requires hours worked each day and each week for non-exempt staff, payroll records kept 3 years and time cards 2. Workzenly keeps every punch, edit and approval in each person’s record, ready to export. OSHA adds a separate record under 29 CFR 1904. An employer with 10 or fewer employees at all times during the last calendar year is exempt unless OSHA says otherwise in writing, and certain low-hazard industries are exempt by NAICS code. Everyone else keeps the OSHA 300 Log and 301 reports, posts the certified 300A summary from February 1 to April 30 of the following year, and keeps all of it for 5 years. Workzenly is not an OSHA log. Every employer must report a work-related fatality within 8 hours and an in-patient hospitalization, amputation or loss of an eye within 24 hours.

Temp workers add one line to that record. OSHA treats a staffing agency and the host employer as joint employers of temporary workers who share responsibility for their safety, and 1904.31 puts injuries to agency workers you supervise day to day on your 300 Log, coordinated with the agency so each is recorded once. The agency runs a temp’s payroll until you hire them, so ask how its timekeeping lines up with yours and get advice on joint employment if the arrangement runs long. When you move a temp onto your payroll, you are now the employer: send the offer letter and have the new hire paperwork, the W-4, Form I-9 Section 1 and direct deposit, done on their phone before the first shift on your books.

How to choose

1. Run last week through it. Take one night shift that crossed midnight, one missed clock-out and one person over 40 with the differential, and see which tool produces a correct pay stub with the fewest manual steps.
2. Check the kiosk. If phones stay in lockers, the shared tablet is the time clock. Ask how PINs, breaks and the crew list work, and whether kiosk and phone punches share one timesheet.
3. Ask where the differential goes. It belongs in the regular rate before overtime is priced, counted from the punches, not the schedule.
4. Set the workweek on purpose. Decide the start day and hour, record it, and check how the system handles the Saturday night shift.
5. Test the lead’s view. A 3rd-shift lead should see 3rd shift and nothing else, and approve the week in one tap. Every time hours are retyped between tools, someone fixes a pay stub later; our payroll process guide lists every step.

If you want to see your own three shifts in Workzenly, book a demo and we will set up a workspace with your company’s name before the call. Plans and prices are on the pricing page.