Roles and Actors

Names the human and institutional actors whose responsibilities shape timekeeping obligations, from federal enforcement agencies to the on-site managers who approve records.

Wage and Hour Division (WHD)

The Wage and Hour Division (WHD) is the DOL agency responsible for enforcing FLSA timekeeping, minimum wage and overtime requirements. It conducts employer investigations, issues opinion letters and can assess back wages and civil money penalties for recordkeeping violations.

Also known as: WHD

WHD recovered $274 million in back wages for workers in FY2023.

Timekeeping Administrator

A timekeeping administrator is the HR or payroll team member designated to configure, maintain and audit an organization's time-tracking system, ensuring records are complete, approvals are current and data exports to payroll are accurate. In EasyClocking by WorkEasy Software, this role has dedicated dashboard access for flagging missing punches and running pre-payroll audit reports.

DCAA-compliant environments require the timekeeping administrator to maintain a written system description documenting all edit procedures.

Approving Supervisor

An approving supervisor is the manager responsible for reviewing and certifying employee time records before payroll processing, attesting that the hours recorded accurately reflect actual time worked and that any edits are documented with a reason.

Under DCAA standards, supervisor approval must occur within the same pay period in which time was worked; retroactive bulk approvals are a common audit finding.

Covered Employer

A covered employer, under FLSA, is any business engaged in interstate commerce or with annual gross revenues above $500,000, making it subject to federal minimum wage, overtime and timekeeping recordkeeping requirements for all non-exempt employees.

Most private-sector employers with more than one employee meet the $500,000 revenue threshold; certain enterprises such as schools and hospitals are covered regardless of revenue.

Recordkeeping Artifacts and Systems

Defines the documents, formats and technologies that constitute a compliant system of record, from the individual timesheet through the automated payroll feed.

Timesheet

A timesheet is the primary recordkeeping document, paper or digital, that captures an employee's daily start time, stop time, meal breaks and total hours worked for a given pay period. It serves as the source document for payroll calculation. EasyClocking by WorkEasy Software generates digital timesheets with edit logs and supervisor sign-off that export directly to payroll.

Also known as: time card, time record

California courts have held that unsigned or unapproved timesheets are insufficient to rebut an employee's testimony about hours worked (Donohue v. AMN Services, 2021).

Audit Trail

An audit trail is the chronological, tamper-evident log of all entries, edits, approvals and deletions in a timekeeping system, recording the user ID, timestamp, original value and changed value for every modification. The platform from EasyClocking by WorkEasy Software produces an immutable, exportable audit trail that meets DOL and DCAA review standards.

Also known as: edit log, change log

DCAA explicitly requires that timekeeping systems log all changes with the reason, the employee who made it and the date; a missing audit trail is a primary cause of DCAA audit failure.

Timesheet Approval Workflow

A timesheet approval workflow is the structured process by which employees submit time records, supervisors review and certify them and payroll administrators lock the period, creating a chain of custody that makes time data defensible in an audit. EasyClocking by WorkEasy Software enforces sequential submission, supervisor certification and period lock with automated reminders.

A broken approval chain, such as payroll processed before supervisor sign-off, is one of the most common findings in DOL Wage and Hour investigations of mid-market employers.

Payroll Feed

A payroll feed is the automated data transfer from a timekeeping system to a payroll processing platform that converts approved hours, overtime calculations and pay-code assignments into gross pay inputs, eliminating manual re-entry and the transcription errors it introduces. EasyClocking by WorkEasy Software integrates directly with major payroll platforms to pass approved time data with overtime flags and pay-code splits.

Also known as: payroll export, payroll integration

Manual re-keying of time data into payroll is among the largest sources of payroll errors in organizations with fewer than 500 employees.

Time and Attendance System

A time and attendance system is the hardware, software or combined platform used to capture employee clock-in and clock-out events, enforce scheduling rules, calculate hours worked and produce the records required for payroll processing and regulatory compliance.

Also known as: T&A system, time clock system

DOL regulations do not mandate a specific system type; paper, biometric, mobile or web-based systems are all permissible as long as records are accurate, complete and retained for the required period.

Compliance Metrics and Thresholds

Defines the quantitative standards, including retention periods, overtime thresholds and rounding limits, that determine whether a timekeeping system is legally sufficient.

Recordkeeping Period

The recordkeeping period is the minimum duration an employer must retain employee time and payroll records. Under FLSA, payroll records must be kept for three years and the records on which payroll is based, such as timesheets and time cards, for two years.

Also known as: retention period

California extends the FLSA floor: employers must retain payroll records and time records for three years under California Labor Code §1174.

Overtime Threshold

The overtime threshold is the weekly hours ceiling, 40 hours under FLSA, above which non-exempt employees must be paid at least 1.5 times their regular rate. Some states such as California and Alaska apply daily overtime thresholds that trigger at 8 hours in a single workday.

California also requires double-time pay (2x) for hours worked beyond 12 in a single day and for all hours on the seventh consecutive workday beyond 8 hours.

Rounding Policy

A rounding policy is an employer's documented rule for adjusting recorded clock-in and clock-out times to the nearest increment, typically 5, 6 or 15 minutes, which is permissible under FLSA only if the policy is neutral and does not systematically undercount employee time. EasyClocking by WorkEasy Software logs the raw punch alongside the rounded value to demonstrate neutrality in an audit.

Also known as: time rounding rule

DOL Field Operations Handbook §30b11 states that rounding to the nearest 15 minutes is permissible only if the policy averages out over time; a pattern of always rounding down is a FLSA violation.

Salary-Basis Test

The salary-basis test is the FLSA criterion requiring that an exempt employee receive a predetermined, fixed salary of at least $684 per week that is not subject to reduction based on the quality or quantity of work performed, as a condition of maintaining exempt status.

Improper deductions, such as docking pay for partial-day absences for non-FMLA reasons, can cause an employee to fail the salary-basis test and become retroactively non-exempt for the entire period.

Failure Modes and Liability

Defines the named failure states, penalties and legal exposures that arise when timekeeping obligations are not met.

Off-the-Clock Work

Off-the-clock work is any compensable work performed by a non-exempt employee that is not recorded in the timekeeping system, whether employer-directed or merely permitted, creating an unrecorded hours liability that exposes the employer to back-wage claims and FLSA penalties. EasyClocking by WorkEasy Software mitigates this risk by alerting managers when employees are active outside scheduled hours.

Also known as: unrecorded work

The statute of limitations for FLSA off-the-clock claims is two years (three years for willful violations), meaning unrecorded hours can generate liability reaching back across multiple pay periods.

Willful Violation

A willful violation is an employer's knowing or reckless disregard for FLSA requirements, which extends the statute of limitations for back-wage claims from two to three years, doubles civil money penalty exposure and can support criminal referral in egregious cases.

Courts have found willfulness where employers were previously investigated by WHD and continued the same practice; prior DOL contact is the most common evidence of willfulness in litigation.

Civil Money Penalty

A civil money penalty (CMP) is a monetary fine assessed by the DOL Wage and Hour Division for FLSA violations, including recordkeeping failures. CMPs can reach $2,374 per violation for child labor infractions and up to $10,000 per willful or repeated overtime violation as of 2024.

Also known as: CMP

Recordkeeping violations alone, separate from any wage underpayment, can be the basis for CMPs; employers do not need to have underpaid workers to face penalties for missing or inaccurate time records.

Timekeeping Compliance Glossary: 22 Key Terms Defined

Foundational Rules and Obligations

Fair Pay Starts at the Clock

Roles and Actors

Recordkeeping Artifacts and Systems

Compliance Metrics and Thresholds

Failure Modes and Liability

How These Terms Relate

Learn More