How to let employees apply for overtime in Timekeep

Overtime usually shows up after they already stayed late. Someone stays past 5 PM. The next morning you get a Viber message. You try to remember if you said yes. Payroll comes and you are still deciding whether those 90 minutes should pay.

Timekeep can take the ask first. Your staff apply for the minutes on a work day. You approve or decline on one page. When they clock out, Timekeep marks the overtime as approved, but only up to the minutes you already said yes to. Extra minutes above the request do not get paid.

This is off until you turn it on.

Turn the setting on

Open Payroll Settings. Only the owner can change this. Find Overtime requests, switch it on, then save.

With it off, overtime still lives on Attendance. You approve it after they clock out.

With it on, employees get Apply OT in the portal, and Track gets an Overtime page. Owner, manager, and supervisor can review requests. Scheduler and bookkeeper cannot.

This does not change how overtime pay is computed. Regular day overtime is still 125%. Rest day and holiday extra rates stay the same. Night differential stays the same too. What changes is who asked, and how many minutes you already allowed.

How your staff apply

They open the employee portal, enter their PIN, and land on their week schedule. On a work day they tap Apply OT. They type the minutes and, if they want, a reason.

They can apply for today or a later work day. They cannot apply for a past day, an off day, a leave day, a day they already clocked out, or a day that already has a pending or approved request.

After they submit, that day shows the minutes as pending. They can cancel while it is still pending. They cannot cancel after you approve or decline. If you decline, Apply OT comes back on that day and they can ask again.

Staff on a fixed monthly salary can still apply. Payroll still pays them no overtime. The request is only a record of what you allowed.

How you review it

Go to Track, then Overtime. The list opens on pending requests. Each line shows the employee, the day, the minutes, the reason, and Approve or Decline.

Approve saves it. If they already clocked out that day, the approved minutes apply on that attendance right away. Decline needs a reason. After you approve, that day shows the minutes as approved. There is no email. You both see the status on the portal schedule and this page.

If you would rather approve overtime after they stay late, that still lives on Attendance. How to track and approve overtime hours walks through that screen. A day with no approved request still needs it.

What happens when they clock out with an approved request

Say you approved 90 minutes. They clock out two hours late. Payroll pays 90 minutes of overtime. Attendance still shows the two hours they stayed. The extra 30 minutes are unpaid.

If they only stay 45 minutes past the shift, payroll pays 45. You do not pay for time they did not work.

If they leave on time, that day is not treated as approved overtime. A request is not extra pay when they did not stay late.

If you later change that day's attendance, the approved request still caps how many overtime minutes get paid.

Try it free for 30 days at timekeep.ph.