Align stat is a tool used by those who have their hours distribution by shift start date, and subsequently need to split these hours to cater a different in pay for shifts overlapping midnight into a statutory holiday.

In this article, we'll break down the following on aligning stat days in Time Processing:

Understanding why align stats is needed

Align stat hours

Example of Align stat hours

Important information for Align stat hours

It's important to be aware that aligning your stat days in only necessary for branches that are using Shift start date. Here's a breakdown to help you understand the difference between Shift Start Date and Calendar Date (Midnight Cutoff). Read the explanations below:

Before showing you how this will display in Time Processing, let's look at where to you can set your preference.

From the homepage of eTime Xpress, go to Configuration > Company Branch > Branch Bill/Pay Settings > File > Preferences. Here, you can select the distribution of your hours by Shift Start Date or Calendar Date.

Only specific shifts can be used for Align stat hours.

Shifts that are are worked and not locked (not approved), or shifts that are worked and partially locked (partially approved) can be aligned. If a single shift which is open or not worked or approved is selected, this option will not be enabled.

You'll also need to ensure that your statutory days align with the time you're trying to align stats. This can be done at Branch level in eTime Xpress, or in General Settings in Schedule Xpress.

You can find the Align stat hours under Time processing tools.

The tooltip message is an explanation of which shifts can be used for Align stat hours.

The Tooltip message reads:

This option will adjust shifts which span midnight into, or out of, a Stat day such that the Stat rate is only paid of billed for the part of the shift which actually took place on the Stat day. We recommend this option is only used when other shifts which would generate overtime are already approved.

Once you've selected the shifts to align your shift stat hours, you'll notice that by default, Payroll and Billing is unchecked by default.

If you select an option, you'll then be permitted to give your override reason. This is essentially the reason of approval.

Shift breaks allocations helps to define how you want to allocate break hours between the current day (Shift Start Date) and the next day.

Your database will default to using Evenly, which distributes the each half of the break across the Shift Start Date and next day. The other options of Shift break allocations, are:

For easier use before aligning your shift stat hours, we highly recommend filtering for shifts which span midnight.

You can do this by heading to your advanced filters and selecting All Shift Statuses.

From here, you can select Shifts spanning midnight into or out of a holiday day. This will give represent only those shifts that require the align stat hours tool.

You can then highlight all the shifts and align all stat hours.

Moving on to an example, we're going to apply Align stat shift hours for 3 shifts, and we'll discuss how these hours have been distributed and how the shift break allocation has affected them.

Two of the shifts start on 31st December and carry over to the 1st January (stat day), while one shift begins on the 1st January (stat) and ends on 2nd January.

As can be seen prior to the change, two shifts on 31st December are paying regular hours, and the single shift on 1st January is paying all stat hours. When we align the stat day hours, we'll see a change to the hours distribution, and the pay rates total will change.

So, now we'll align the 3 shifts stat hours. In this example, we'll choose Evenly as the Shift break allocations.

The shifts' hours will now distribute accordingly.

The new change of shift hours distribution will be highlighted in red.

The new hours will be paid as per the Regular and Stat rates, unless a change is made before approving time.

If you've previously partially locked a shift in eTime Xpress, then only one of the two will show when aligning your stats.

Partially locking a shift in eTime Xpress is done in the Time & Attendance module. Once inside Time & Attendance, go to Data > Lock > Lock Shift or Lock All. You'll then be given the option to partially lock if you choose only one of Payroll or Billing.

In the example above, we're locking the shift for Payroll. Let's now look at how it will effect aligning stat hours in Time Processing.

You'll see that because you partially locked the shift for Payroll, you cannot align stat hours for Payroll because when the shift is locked, it can no longer be changed unless it's unlocked or you remove the time approval.

The Pay stat settings located under each employee account will affect if stat is to be paid to the employee.

Note: Both Pay stat settings work in sync, meaning that if you make a change to the Pay stat field, it will reflect in both Schedule Xpress and eTime Xpress.

In Schedule Xpress, you can head to Manage people > choose employee > Pay info. Under Pay info, they'll be a checkbox and if it's ticked, the employee is entitled to stat pay. If not, they will not receive any stat pay.

In eTime Xpress, you can head to Employees > choose employee > Pay settings. The section labelled Pay Stat will be defined by a Yes or No.

When you attempt to align stat hours for an employee who isn't entitled to stat, the pay hours will remain regular, but the bill hours will be calculated as stat for whatever portion of the shifts falls on the stat day.

If a shift cannot be aligned for stat hours, you'll receive an error message. Including the number of shifts you're trying to align, It will read:

Error. 4 out of 4 shift(s) could not be updated: Shifts are not spanning midnight into or out of a holiday day or already aligned.

This will be because of one of three reasons below:

Warnings will still be present when making any additional changes to a shift which already has stat hours aligned.

For any more information on aligning your stat hours in Time Processing, please Contact Support now!