Overtime Classification Rules
How Everee splits shift hours into regular, overtime, and double time, including workweek and workday settings, federal and state rules, and company overrides.
When you send shifts, Everee classifies every hour as regular time, overtime, or double time. This page covers the rules it follows. It doesn't apply if you send pre-classified hours, because then Everee uses your classification as it is.
What gets classified
- Everee classifies each completed shift, in order, within the worker's workweek. Open shifts aren't classified until they end.
- Paid time counts and unpaid breaks don't. Paid breaks count as worked time.
- Workers whose position isn't eligible for overtime have all their hours classified as regular time.
- When a shift is added, edited, or deleted, Everee reclassifies the later shifts in that workweek that it affects. If those shifts were already paid, it issues corrections.
Workweek and workday settings
Two company settings define the clock that every overtime threshold runs against.
| Setting | What it controls |
|---|---|
| Workweek start | The day of the week a new workweek begins. Weekly totals reset here. |
| Workday start | The time of day a new workday begins. Daily totals reset here. The workweek begins at the workday start on the workweek start day. |
Both are company-wide. Everee applies them in the time zone of the shift's work location, so the same company can have different local boundaries at different locations.
Example: with a Monday workweek start and a 04:00 workday start, Monday's workday runs from Monday 04:00 to Tuesday 04:00, and the workweek runs from Monday 04:00 to the following Monday 04:00.
Avoid a workday start between 02:00 and 03:00. Daylight saving time changes make that hour ambiguous or missing.
To change either setting, contact [email protected].
Shifts that cross a workday or workweek boundary
Everee classifies by time, not by shift. When a shift crosses a boundary, it splits the shift there and classifies each piece against the counts for its own workday and workweek.
Crossing a workday boundary. Daily totals reset, so the hours after the boundary start a new day. With a 04:00 workday start, a 22:00 to 06:00 shift is 6 hours on the first day and 2 hours on the second. A daily overtime threshold applies to each part separately. Hours worked before the boundary can't push the later hours into overtime for the new day.
Crossing a workweek boundary. Weekly totals reset too, and so do the consecutive-day counts. With a Monday 04:00 workweek start, a shift from Sunday 20:00 to Monday 08:00 puts 8 hours in the old week and 4 hours in the new one. The 4 hours start the new week at zero. They can't be overtime from the old week's total. The 8 hours still count toward the old week.
A shift can come out of classification with several pieces, such as regular time followed by overtime. These are the classified intervals you see on the shift.
Back-to-back shifts count as continuous work for the consecutive-hours rule (see below), as long as one shift ends at the exact moment the next begins.
Federal and state rules
Everee decides which rules apply from the work location's state and the shift's date.
- If your company has an override for that state, Everee uses it. See Company overrides.
- Otherwise, if Everee maintains a rule set for the state, it uses that.
- Otherwise, it uses the federal FLSA rule: overtime for hours over 40 in a workweek.
The rule set is chosen as a whole. A state's rules aren't added on top of the federal rule, so state rule sets carry their own weekly threshold where one applies. Rule sets are effective-dated, and Everee uses the set in effect on the shift's date.
A rule set is made of up to six thresholds. Each is optional, and a missing one means that rule doesn't apply.
| Threshold | Effect |
|---|---|
| Weekly hours for overtime | Hours over the threshold in a workweek are overtime |
| Daily hours for overtime | Hours over the threshold in a workday are overtime |
| Daily hours for double time | Hours over the threshold in a workday are double time |
| Consecutive hours for overtime | Hours over the threshold of continuous work are overtime |
| Consecutive days for overtime | Once the worker has worked this many days in a row, all hours that day are overtime |
| Daily hours for double time after consecutive days | On a day that has reached the consecutive-days threshold, hours over this threshold are double time |
Consecutive days are counted within the workweek, so the count restarts at each workweek boundary.
Default rule sets
Everee's default rule sets are below. Every other state uses the federal rule.
| State | Weekly OT | Daily OT | Daily double time | Consecutive hours OT | Consecutive days OT | Double time after consecutive days |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Federal (all other states) | 40 | |||||
| Alaska | 40 | 8 | ||||
| California | 40 | 8 | 12 | 6 (the 7th day) | 8 | |
| Colorado | 40 | 12 | 12 | |||
| Kentucky | 40 | 6 (the 7th day) |
What the default rules don't cover
The default rule sets depend only on the worker's work location and the shift's date. Everee doesn't automatically apply state rules that depend on anything else:
- Pay rate. Rules that apply only to workers paid below a wage level, such as a multiple of the state minimum wage.
- Industry or employer type. Rules that apply to specific industries, such as manufacturing or agriculture.
- Worker type. Rules with different thresholds for specific kinds of workers, such as residential or domestic workers, or workers who aren't covered by the FLSA.
- Schedule agreements. Alternative workweek schedules, such as four 10-hour days.
- Non-weekly periods. Rules that measure overtime over a period other than the workweek, such as the 14-day period some healthcare employers use.
If a rule like this applies to your workers, or a state's rules aren't listed above, contact [email protected]. Everee can set up a company override when the rule can be expressed with the six thresholds above, such as a daily overtime threshold. Overrides apply to all of your workers in that state and can't vary by worker, so they work best when the rule applies to everyone you employ there. Rules measured over a period other than the workweek can't be expressed this way.
When more than one rule applies
- Double time takes priority, then overtime, then regular time.
- An hour that qualifies under several overtime rules is overtime once. Rules don't stack, so an hour is never paid twice. Each rule claims the hours it qualifies for, and the largest claim wins.
- Overtime from the weekly rule is classified as FLSA-qualified overtime. Overtime from any daily, consecutive-hour, or consecutive-day rule is non-FLSA-qualified overtime. Both pay at the overtime rate. Everee keeps them apart for tax reporting, including the OBBBA overtime deduction.
Company overrides
Everee can override the rules for a single company in a single state. Overrides are set up by Everee on request. Contact [email protected] with the state, the thresholds you need, and the date they take effect.
- An override has the same six thresholds as a state rule set, and it replaces the rule set for that company and state completely. It isn't merged with the state's or the federal rules, so a threshold you leave out is switched off, not inherited.
- An override has a start and end date. Shifts outside that range use the standard rules.
- It applies to shifts worked at locations in that state. Other states aren't affected.
- It changes classification only. Pay rate multipliers, such as 1.5x overtime, are separate settings.
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