Regulatory Frameworks and Standards

Defines the named statutes, standards and contract-compliance regimes that timekeeping systems must satisfy.

FLSA (Fair Labor Standards Act)

The FLSA is the primary U.S. federal statute governing minimum wage, overtime pay, recordkeeping and child labor standards for employees in the private sector and federal, state and local governments, enforced by the Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division.

Also known as: Fair Labor Standards Act, FLSA

Enacted in 1938, the FLSA establishes the baseline recordkeeping and overtime obligations that every U.S. timekeeping system must satisfy.

Prevailing Wage

Prevailing wage is the minimum hourly rate, including base pay, fringe benefits and overtime, that contractors and subcontractors must pay workers on federally or state-funded public works projects, as determined by the applicable Davis-Bacon Act or state equivalent wage determination. EasyClocking by WorkEasy Software captures prevailing wage classifications per worker per job site and feeds them directly into certified payroll reports.

Also known as: prevailing rate

The federal Davis-Bacon Act applies to contracts exceeding $2,000; 32 states have their own prevailing wage statutes with independent wage determinations.

Davis-Bacon Act

The Davis-Bacon Act is a U.S. federal law requiring contractors on federally funded construction projects to pay workers the locally prevailing wages and fringe benefits as published in wage determinations issued by the Department of Labor for each trade classification and geographic area.

Also known as: DBA

Wage determinations are published at SAM.gov and updated periodically; contractors must post them at the job site.

DCAA Compliance

DCAA compliance refers to adherence to the timekeeping and labor-cost accounting standards required by the Defense Contract Audit Agency for contractors billing labor costs to U.S. government contracts, including contemporaneous time recording, supervisor attestation and a complete audit trail of all time entries and corrections. EasyClocking by WorkEasy Software enforces same-day entry, flags retroactive edits and generates the supervisor attestation workflow required for government contract audits.

Also known as: DCAA-compliant timekeeping

DCAA's guidance specifies that timekeeping systems must record time by contract or cost objective daily.

EU Working Time Directive

The EU Working Time Directive is a European Union regulation that limits the average working week to 48 hours, mandates minimum daily and weekly rest periods and requires employers to maintain objective, reliable and accessible records of actual hours worked for each worker.

Also known as: WTD, Working Time Directive

A 2019 CJEU ruling (CCOO v. Deutsche Bank) requires EU employers to implement a system for recording daily working time for every worker.

Collective Bargaining Agreement

A collective bargaining agreement (CBA) is a negotiated contract between an employer and a labor union that establishes wages, hours, working conditions and grievance procedures, often imposing shift differential rates, overtime thresholds and break rules that supersede or supplement statutory minimums.

Also known as: CBA, union contract

CBAs in construction and healthcare frequently set daily overtime at 8 hours and weekend premiums at 1.5 to 2 times base pay, independent of the FLSA's 40-hour weekly threshold.

System Capabilities and Artifacts

Covers the specific software features and output documents that translate regulatory requirements into operational reality.

Certified Payroll

Certified payroll is a weekly payroll report, typically submitted on U.S. Department of Labor Form WH-347, that contractors on prevailing wage projects must file with the contracting agency, certifying that each worker was paid the correct wage classification, rate and fringe benefit for every hour worked. EasyClocking by WorkEasy Software generates WH-347-compliant certified payroll reports directly from time capture data, eliminating manual spreadsheet reconciliation.

Also known as: WH-347 report, certified payroll report

Form WH-347 requires worker name, last four digits of SSN, work classification, hours per day, hourly wage, fringe benefits paid and a signed statement of compliance.

Fringe Benefit Credit

A fringe benefit credit is the portion of a prevailing wage obligation that a contractor satisfies through bona fide benefit contributions, such as health insurance, pension or vacation pay, rather than cash wages, reducing the required hourly cash payment by the per-hour value of the benefit.

Also known as: fringe credit

DOL allows fringe credit only for benefits that meet the bona fide standard under 29 C.F.R. Part 5; annualized benefits must be divided by 2,080 hours to derive the hourly credit.

Payroll-Ready Export

A payroll-ready export is a structured data file, typically in CSV, XML or direct API format, generated by a timekeeping system that contains fully calculated hours, pay codes, cost allocations and compliance flags in the exact schema required by the receiving payroll processor. EasyClocking by WorkEasy Software maps calculated time records to the field structure of 20+ payroll platforms before transmission.

Also known as: payroll export file, payroll integration file

A payroll-ready export differs from a raw time export in that rule calculations such as overtime, differentials and break premiums are already applied, not left to the payroll system to compute.

Labor Distribution

Labor distribution is the process of allocating an employee's worked hours, and the associated labor costs, across multiple cost centers, job codes, projects or contract line items, enabling accurate job costing, contract billing and compliance reporting for multi-project or government-contract workforces. EasyClocking by WorkEasy Software captures labor distribution at the punch level, allowing workers to allocate time across job codes in real time from a mobile device.

Also known as: labor allocation, cost allocation

Required for DCAA compliance; each hour must be charged to a specific contract or cost objective on the day it is worked.

Automated Rule Enforcement

Automated rule enforcement is a timekeeping system capability that applies wage-and-hour rules, including overtime thresholds, break deductions, shift differentials and rounding policies, programmatically at the time of punch processing, without requiring manual payroll adjustments for each affected record. EasyClocking by WorkEasy Software resolves multi-state rule conflicts at the job-site level and flags exceptions before payroll closes.

Also known as: automatic pay rule application

Contrast with manual rule application, where payroll administrators apply rules post-export, a process that can consume hours per pay period for shift-based operations.

Time Rounding Policy

A time rounding policy is an employer practice of adjusting recorded punch times to the nearest increment, typically 5, 6 or 15 minutes, for payroll calculation purposes, which the FLSA permits only when the policy is neutral over time and does not systematically undercompensate employees.

Also known as: punch rounding, rounding rule

Recent DOL enforcement guidance has increased scrutiny of 15-minute rounding policies; several federal courts have found them non-neutral when applied to digital punch systems that capture exact times.

Verification and Audit Mechanisms

Defines the identity, location and record-integrity tools that make time data defensible in an audit or dispute.

Audit Trail

An audit trail is a chronological, tamper-evident log of all time entries, edits, approvals and system actions associated with an employee's time records, including the original value, the changed value, the user who made the change and the timestamp of each modification. EasyClocking by WorkEasy Software maintains an immutable audit trail for every punch record, storing the full edit history in a format exportable for DOL investigations and DCAA audits.

Also known as: edit log, change log

DCAA requires audit trails to be retained for the life of the contract plus three years; FLSA requires payroll records for at least three years.

Geofence Punch

A geofence punch is a mobile time-clock entry that is validated, or restricted, based on whether the employee's GPS coordinates fall within a defined geographic boundary around an authorized work site at the moment of clock-in or clock-out, preventing off-site buddy punching and supporting job-site labor distribution.

Also known as: geofenced clock-in, GPS-verified punch

Employers operating across multiple states must configure geofence punch privacy settings per jurisdiction, as several states have location data consent requirements that affect implementation.

Biometric Time Capture

Biometric time capture is a clock-in method that verifies employee identity using a unique physical characteristic, such as fingerprint or facial geometry, to prevent buddy punching and ensure that the person recording time is the person authorized to work the shift.

Also known as: biometric clock-in, biometric punch

Several states require written consent, a retention policy and a destruction schedule before collecting biometric identifiers; employers should consult qualified counsel on jurisdiction-specific requirements.

Floor Check

A floor check is a DCAA audit procedure in which a government auditor visits a contractor's work site unannounced to verify that employees are physically present, working on the contracts to which their time is being charged and that timekeeping records match observed activity.

Also known as: DCAA floor check, site audit

Floor checks are most common during initial contract award and when DCAA identifies anomalies in labor cost patterns; a failed floor check can trigger a broader incurred cost audit.

Time Tracking Compliance Glossary: 22 Key Terms Defined

Foundational Compliance Concepts

Fair Pay Starts at the Clock

Regulatory Frameworks and Standards

System Capabilities and Artifacts

Verification and Audit Mechanisms

How These Terms Relate

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