According to the german working hours act, if the working time exceeds 6 hours, the employee must take a break of at least 30 minutes. If the working time exceeds 9 hours, the break must be at least 45 minutes long. In TimeTrack, this legal break regulation is predefined. However, you can also create your own break regulation for employees.
The break duration is always deducted from the attendance, as it does not count as working time. In TimeTrack there is manual and automatic break deduction (if it is not disabled). Manual break deduction is performed by the employee, given that he/she has the authorization for it. Automatic break deduction is performed by the system according to the defined break regulations.
In TimeTrack, employees can clock out at the beginning of the break and clock in at the end, so that the system knows exactly when the break was taken.
Example: Max has a work from 10:00 – 22:00; this results in 10 hours of attendance and thus a mandatory 45-minute break. He clocks out at 13:00 for only half an hour. Once Max exceeds 9 hours of work time, the system deducts an additional 15 minutes from him. In this case, that’s after 19:30. The work he does after 20:00, and the related bonuses, are not affected by the break rule.
The left time entry shows what Max sees in TimeTrack. The right time entry shows how the system divides Max’s working time.
Employees can also enter their break duration in the attendance themselves. To do this, they must click on the entered attendance under Attendance tracking > Attendances. They can now edit the “Break” field themselves. A warning appears that the automatic brctieak deduon is deactivated for this entry.
Example: Max works from 10:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m., but he takes a break of 60 minutes instead of 45 minutes, contrary to the legal break regulation. The times at which breaks are deducted are important for surcharge regulations. The system deducts Max a 30-minute break after 6 hours and a 15-minute break after 9 hours of work. Additional breaks are deducted from the end of attendance.
If the employee does not specify the time period of the break, it will be deducted automatically – if the automatic break deduction is activated in the settings for the break regulation. In this case, TimeTrack adheres to the break regulation assigned to the user. Since the system does not know how long the working time will be, the breaks are deducted in separate parts according to the worked working time.
Example: Max clocks in at 10:00. As soon as a working time of 6 hours has been exceeded, the system deducts a 30-minute break from Max. After 9 hours of working time, TimeTrack deducts another 15-minute break from Max. Break deductions from the end of the working time would result in shortened working hours and night workers getting less surcharge pay.
The time entry on the left shows what Max sees, where the time entry on the right should represent the break deduction from the system.
However, if the working time lasts into the night, employees are entitled to bonuses. Nighttime surcharges are paid to persons who perform nighttime work. In Austria, night work is defined by labor law as working time that takes place after 8:00 pm.
Example: Max works until 11 p.m., which is why he performs 3 hours of night work. The 3 hours of working time from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. are considered nighttime surcharge. In TimeTrack’s overtime report, the 3 hours are automatically assigned to Max as nighttime overtime.
We are happy to help you!
Contact Polina from our support team:
support@timetrackenterprise.com
