Working-time account: target, actual and balance

The working-time account in Shiftdesk

The working-time account shows whether an employee has worked more or less than contractually agreed. It is the basis for overtime compensation, payout and fair workforce planning.

Concept: target, actual, balance

Term	Meaning
Target	Contractually agreed hours (e.g. 40 h/week × weeks in the month)
Actual	Hours actually worked (approved time entries)
Balance	Actual minus target. Positive = plus hours, negative = minus hours

Who has a working-time account?

Not every employee needs a working-time account. In Shiftdesk it is controlled per employee via the flag Plus/minus account active (\plusminusenabled\).

• Active: Full-time and part-time staff with fixed contract hours, flexitime, shift work
• Inactive: Mini-jobbers with a fixed flat-rate number of hours, casual staff without target hours, hourly-paid staff with pure actual billing

Calculation per month

At the end of the month, Shiftdesk calculates for each active employee:

1. Target hours = contract hours × number of working days / week conversion, less vacation, sickness and public holidays
2. Actual hours = sum of all approved net working times
3. Monthly balance = actual - target
4. Cumulative balance = balance from the previous month + monthly balance + corrections

How to open the working-time account

Go to Working-time account in the dashboard. You see a table with all employees and columns for target, actual, balance and change versus the previous month. Click an employee to expand the daily basis.

Display and format

• +12:30 h = 12 hours and 30 minutes plus
• -3:45 h = 3 hours and 45 minutes minus
• 0:00 h = balanced

What counts, what doesn't?

• Counts in: Approved working times, paid breaks (if configured that way), on-call with a factor
• Does not count in: Pending entries, rejected entries, unpaid breaks
• Special case: Vacation and sickness reduce the target, not the actual

What to do with the balance?

Plus hours can be paid out, converted into vacation or taken off as time off — see Working-time account corrections.

Tip

Review the working-time account monthly together with the Time log. That way you avoid quiet mountains of plus or minus hours building up over the years.