Overtime and extra time

FabWise captures the hours that were worked and stops there. Whether any of those hours are overtime depends on your jurisdiction — and deciding that for you would be legal advice we are not in a position to give. The weekly timecard sign-off is the line: you confirm the hours, your shop and your payroll provider decide what they're worth.

Why FabWise stops where it does

Overtime rules are not one rule. Federal law counts hours past 40 in a workweek; California adds daily thresholds and a seventh-consecutive-day rule; other states and some union agreements differ again. Which of them apply to a given shop, on a given day, for a given worker is a legal question with a jurisdiction-specific answer.

We could have guessed. We decided that guessing on your behalf — in a record you sign and hand to a payroll provider — would be giving legal advice, and that is not something a time-tracking tool should do.

So the boundary is the weekly timecard sign-off. A supervisor reviews the week, resolves anything flagged, and signs off that these are the hours worked. That signed record is the deliverable. What those hours are worth, and which of them are overtime, is your shop's determination with your payroll provider and your counsel.

What FabWise gives you toward that: an accurate record of who worked, when, and for how long — plus a flag when a shift ran past its schedule, so you can look at it while you still remember the day.

What FabWise does track

Hours worked

Every completed shift records the real capture — clock in, breaks, clock out — and a net worked duration with the meal deduction applied. That is what lands in your payroll export.

Extra time

The Extra Time inspection compares a shift's paid duration against its scheduled duration. Both sides are break-deducted and both come from the same calculation payroll uses, so a shift that started 15 minutes early and ended 15 minutes early nets to zero rather than counting twice.

When the extra time meets your threshold, the shift is flagged for review. The supervisor sees how many minutes over it ran and can approve it or ask about it.

This is schedule adherence, not overtime. A worker can rack up extra time without ever crossing 40 hours, and can cross 40 hours without any single shift running long.

Where to find it

Workers

Workstation → My Shifts — each shift shows your hours
Workstation → Performance — weekly hour trends

Supervisors

Admin → Timecards — a flagged shift shows a needs-attention pill; open it to see why
Admin → Shift Detail → Inspection Results — the Extra Time entry shows the scheduled duration, the paid duration, and the delta

Admins

Admin → Settings → Time Tracking → "Auto-approve extra time under" — shifts under this many minutes over schedule are not flagged. Set it to match your shop's normal drift; if shifts routinely run 20 minutes long, flagging every one of them is noise.
Admin → Settings → Shifts → "Week starts on" — sets which day your workweek begins, which determines how shifts group into weeks on timecards and exports.

What to do

Workers — if you're regularly working past your scheduled end, tell your supervisor. FabWise records it either way, but a conversation beats a flag.

Supervisors — review flagged shifts while the day is fresh. Was this a rush order, or a pattern? The record is only as useful as the context you add to it.

Admins — the extra-time threshold is a noise dial, not a policy. It changes what gets flagged for review; it changes nothing about what anyone is paid.

Common questions

Q: Why doesn't FabWise just calculate overtime for me?
A: Because the right answer depends on your jurisdiction, and in some cases on agreements specific to your shop. Federal, California, and union rules can all reach a different number from the same timecard. Deciding which applies to you is legal advice, and we would rather hand your provider an accurate record than hand you a confident guess.

Q: Does FabWise tell me who's approaching 40 hours?
A: Not as an alert. Timecards show each worker's hours for the week, so you can see totals — but there is no 40-hour threshold built in, because the threshold that matters depends on rules FabWise doesn't model.

Q: Does PTO count toward hours worked?
A: Not in the worked-hours figure. Time off is tracked separately and appears in its own columns on the payroll export, so your provider can apply whatever rule it uses.

Q: Can the workweek start day be changed?
A: Yes — an admin sets it in Settings → Shifts → "Week starts on," and it controls how FabWise groups shifts into weeks for timecards and exports. Changing it moves where week boundaries fall, which can change which hours land in which week. Whether that is appropriate is a question for your payroll provider or your counsel — FabWise follows the setting and does not evaluate it.

Q: What if someone works across two departments in one week?
A: All their shifts roll up to the same worker, so their weekly total covers everything regardless of department.

[Time Rounding](time-rounding.md)
[Shift Review](shift-review.md)
[Shift Approval (supervisors)](../admin/shift-approval.md)

Last updated: 2026-08-15