GAP 101.5, Time Reports - General

Contents

1. General
2. Monthly Payroll
3. Bi-Weekly Payroll

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I. General

Duke University has a time reporting system for hourly-paid employees in order to pay according to the requirements of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), University Personnel Policies, and union contracts. Employees on the monthly payroll are not required to submit time reports to Corporate Payroll Services.

Department heads, supervisors and payroll representatives are responsible for:

• accuracy of the time data reported for each employee
• timely submission of all time reports and gross adjustments for each pay period
• compliance with University Personnel Policies, the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), and union contracts

Negligence regarding these responsibilities can cause delays in processing and errors in pay.

The following procedures describe how to correctly­ process biweekly payroll time reports. Use these procedures ­in conjunction with the Duke University Personnel Policy Manual and relevant union contracts.

II. Monthly Payroll

Employees on the monthly payroll are not required to submit time reports to the Payroll Office because they are exempt from the provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act. They are paid based on a set monthly salary­ and do not receive overtime for additional hours worked. To pay a monthly employee less than the regular monthly rate, departments should submit a Faculty/Staff Pay Exception form to the Payroll Office by the fifth day of the month involved.

Benefits for monthly-paid staff employees are explained in the Staff Benefits and Policy Handbook which is available in Benefits Administration. Vacation and sick leave for monthly employees must be taken in half or whole day increments, not hours. Vacation, sick leave, and holiday accruals for monthly-paid staff employees are not maintained by the Payroll Office. 

Individual departments must maintain records of the amount of vacation, sick, and holidays accrued and used by each monthly-paid staff em­ployee in the department.

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A. Vacation Leave Accrual

Regular staff members employed 40 hours per week on a 12-month basis accrue annual vacation leave based on the following chart.

Benefit Categories

Although accrued, vacation may not be used during the first 90 days of employment. A regular staff member working a regular schedule of less than forty hours accrues vacation on a pro rata basis (calculation: work schedule hours/40 hours x rate of accrual). Maximum accrued (earned but unused) vacation for a staff member may not exceed two times the rate of accrual­. Example: a staff member earning 4 weeks/year may accrue up to 8 weeks (40 days).

B. Sick Leave Accrual

Staff members employed 40 hours per week on a 12-month basis accrue one sick day per month. Regular staff members employed at least 20 hours but less than 40 hours a week accrue sick leave on a pro rata basis. The calculation for pro rata monthly accrual is: work schedule hours/40 hours x 1 day per month.

III. Biweekly Payroll

Hourly-paid employees are usually paid every other Friday, the second Friday following the end of the pay period. Any adjustments to pay days are noted on the annual schedule as well as memoranda to payroll representatives. Pay periods begin on Monday (at 12:01 A.M.) and end 14 days later on Sunday (at mid­night). Employees on the biweekly payroll must have a primary time report processed each pay period in order to be paid.

A. Time/Pay Reports

There are six color-coded reports used for reporting time and pay data for hourly-paid employees.

1. Primary Time Reports (White)

This is the main time report and is used to report:

• Hours worked in the employee's primary job
• Vacation/sick/holiday/funeral leave/jury duty/election leave hours
• Shift worked
• Weekend premium hours where necessary to report
• Holiday premium hours for union employees
• Emergency call back hours (worked and unworked)
• Standby hours unworked

2. Secondary Time Report (Buff)

This report is used to report hours worked in secondary positions. Refer to GAP 101.53.

3. Supplement REport (Green)

This report is used to report Standby pay, Working out of Position pay, and Other Supplemental pay.  Refer to GAP 101.522.

4. Special Shift Premium Report (Yellow)

This report is used to pay manually calculated shift premium amounts for authorized special shift premium rates. These amounts override the payroll system­ calculations. Refer to GAP 101.521.

5. Special Overtime Hours Report (Orange)

This report is used to report additional overtime hours for a pay period when:

• The hours calculated by the payroll system as overtime hours do not comply with the FLSA because of the way in which the hours are reported on the primary time report, or;
• A contractual agreement requires additional overtime hours to be recognized (e.g., 7th consecutive day worked hours according to the union contract).

Be careful not to pay overtime premium twice on the same hours. Refer to GAP 101.51 (calculation).

6. Direct Distribution Report (Blue)

This report does not affect the pay of an employee. It is used to redistribute funding to an account code other than the employee's primary account code distribution. Refer to GAP 101.523.

B. Processing Time REports

1. Hourly-paid employees should record hours daily in pencil on primary and secondary time reports. Time should be listed in hours and tenths of an hour for each day. The following table converts minutes to tenths of hour.
2. At the end of a pay period, the employee signs the time report in pen.
3. The payroll representative:
   • Collects all time reports for a pay period. The payroll representative should make sure he/she has received all time reports for the pay period by checking time reports against the time card listing provided at the beginning of the pay period by the Payroll Office.
   • Verifies that shift codes and reason codes for time off with pay are entered.
   • Verifies the addition on time reports.
   • Completes, if applicable, the premium hours section for each week.

4. The department head or an authorized representative reviews and signs each time report to verify that the information contained on the time report is an accu­rate representation of the employee's hours worked, time off with pay, and applicable premiums. The person signing the time report certifies that he or she has firsthand knowledge of all work performed by the employee and that the distribu­tion printed on the time report represents a reason­able estimate of the actual effort expended. The distribution on the time report is the latest distri­bution available at the time the primary and secondary time reports are prepared and sent to the departments. If a Staff Change form has been submitted subsequent to the distribution of the time report, and prior to the close of the pay period for which the time reports represent, write "Staff Change Form" across the distribution codes to indicate knowledge of the change that has been submitted.

   The time report must be signed in ink by the employee and their supervisor; the payroll representative is not authorized to approve time reports. No one on the biweekly payroll can be authorized to approve time reports, unless the person is a supervisor. Any deviation from this must have special written approval of the Corporate Controller.

5. The payroll representative keeps the yellow copy of the timecard and submits the original time report to Payroll. The copy is retained for two pur­poses:

   • The copy of the time report should be compared to the Gross Pay & Distribution report sent to the payroll representative with the payroll checks. This detects keying errors and reduces the possibility of someone falsifying the time report after it has been approved.
   • The copy is used should the employee need to review the submitted time report. The original in the Payroll office is not available for viewing by the employee. Time report copies do not need to be kept for more than a few pay periods.
6. Time Report Deadlines: All time reports should be submitted directly to the Payroll office or designated pick-up point (do not use campus mail) by the following deadlines:
   • Time reports for employees who are not scheduled to work on the last weekend of a pay period are due at pick-up points by 10:00 a.m. on the Friday preceding the end of the pay period.
   • Time reports for employees who are scheduled to work on the last weekend of a pay period are due at pick-up points by 10:00 a.m. on the Monday immediately following the end of the pay period.
   • Note: The time report for a deceased employee should be hand carried to the Payroll Office so the final payment can be paid to the employee's es­tate since this money is not subject to withhold­ing
   • If changes in the above deadlines are necessitated by holidays, the Payroll Office will specify those deadlines by memorandum.

Pick-up Points for Biweekly Time Cards

• Sands Build - Mailroom: "Broad Street Box"
• University Development Office - 2127 Campus Drive
• Payroll Office - 705 Broad Street, Room 202

C. Gross Adjustment

If the time listed on a time report already submitted to the Payroll office is incorrect in any way, the payroll representative should prepare a Gross Adjustment form (see GAP 101.524, Time Report - Biweekly Gross Adjustment Form) to correct the error. The Gross Adjustment form should be signed by an individ­ual who has a Signature Authorization card on file in the Payroll office, and it should be submitted to the Payroll office as soon as the error is detected.