Overtime Priced the Way It Was Actually Worked
Weekend and holiday multipliers, a fixed or salary-linked rate, minimum thresholds and daily caps — computed from the hours attendance actually recorded, not a monthly guess.
Overtime is one of the few payroll numbers where the law does most of the work for you: the multiplier is fixed by statute, not chosen by the company. What is left to get right is everything around that multiplier — which hours count, what base the rate is calculated on, whether a weekend hour is worth the same as a holiday hour, and whether the number came from an actual punch or from someone's memory of how late the team stayed. Most attendance tools treat overtime as a single flat rule applied at month end; AttendancePay treats it as a policy — configured once, evaluated the same way for every employee and every day, and priced from the attendance record that already exists rather than a parallel timesheet nobody trusts.
Where overtime actually goes wrong
One flat rate for every kind of extra hour
A weekend hour, a holiday hour and a late-finish weekday hour are not the same thing, but a single "1.5x everything" rule treats them as if they were — either overpaying routine extra hours or underpaying the holiday shift nobody wanted to work.
The wage base is a guess
"Twice the ordinary rate" only means something if everyone agrees what the ordinary rate is. Calculated on the wrong base — gross instead of basic-plus-regular-allowances, or including a bonus that should be excluded — every overtime rupee that follows is wrong in the same direction.
Hours come from memory, not from a punch
A supervisor approves "two hours of overtime" based on who stayed late, not on when they actually clocked out. That estimate becomes a real payment, and there is no record to check it against if it is ever questioned.
No minimum, no cap
Without a stated minimum, five minutes past shift-end triggers a full overtime entry. Without a cap, a data-entry slip turns into an unreviewed, oversized payout that nobody notices until the payroll report is already final.
Overtime and double-shift pay overlap
An employee who works a second full shift in a day is not owed overtime on top of the extra-shift payment for the same hours — a distinction that is easy to design correctly once and easy to get wrong every month if it is calculated by hand.
How overtime management works
- 1
Overtime is a policy setting, not a monthly decision
Enable overtime per attendance policy, with separate multipliers for weekend and holiday work and a distinct setting for ordinary weekdays.
- 2
The rate source is explicit
Price overtime at a configured fixed rate, or link it to the employee's own salary so the rate rises and falls with their pay — chosen once as policy, not argued over per payslip.
- 3
A minimum threshold and a daily cap are both configurable
Set the smallest block of extra time that counts, and the maximum overtime a single day can pay, so a rounding error cannot become a payroll surprise.
- 4
Hours are read from the attendance record
Overtime is calculated from the same punches that produce the day's worked hours, not from a separately maintained log.
- 5
The result is itemised, not folded into gross
Overtime appears as its own line on the payslip, with the hours and the rate that produced it, so it is answerable rather than opaque.
What you get
Separate weekend and holiday multipliers
Configure distinct rates for weekend overtime and holiday overtime, rather than one multiplier applied everywhere regardless of the day's status.
Normal-day overtime toggle
Some companies pay overtime only on weekends and holidays and never on an ordinary weekday running long — that policy choice is a single setting, not a manual exception process.
Fixed-rate or salary-based pricing
Price overtime at a flat configured rate, or derive it from the employee's own salary, so the rate stays consistent with how the rest of their pay is structured.
Minimum threshold and daily cap
A configurable minimum before overtime starts counting, and a maximum daily overtime amount, so both under- and over-counting are bounded by policy rather than by whoever is entering the data.
Calculated from actual attendance
Overtime hours are derived from the same worked-hours figure attendance already produces — not a second, manually maintained record.
Itemised on the payslip
Overtime is shown as its own earnings line with the hours and rate applied, so an employee or auditor can verify it without asking payroll to explain it.
Who this is for
See overtime management on your own data
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Frequently asked questions
Can weekend and holiday overtime be paid at different rates?⌄
Yes. Weekend and holiday overtime multipliers are configured separately, so a holiday hour and a weekend hour do not have to be priced the same.
Can overtime be based on the employee's own salary instead of a flat rate?⌄
Yes. The overtime rate can be a fixed configured amount or derived from the employee's salary, chosen as a policy setting rather than decided case by case.
Is there a minimum before overtime counts, or a cap on how much can be paid in a day?⌄
Both are configurable — a minimum threshold before extra time is treated as overtime, and a maximum daily overtime amount, so neither small rounding nor a data-entry error becomes an unreviewed payout.
Does overtime stack with double-shift pay on the same day?⌄
No — a day paid as a double shift is treated as its own pay event rather than also accruing standard overtime on the same hours, avoiding double payment for the same time worked.
Where do the overtime hours come from?⌄
From the attendance record itself — the same worked-hours figure that attendance produces from punches, not a separately maintained timesheet.
Can overtime be switched off for ordinary weekdays but kept for weekends and holidays?⌄
Yes. Whether ordinary weekday overtime accrues at all is a separate setting from weekend and holiday overtime, so a company that only intends to pay for weekend and holiday work can configure exactly that.