In this article, you will find a general presentation of Overtime Counters within the Beam platform.

Now, let's examine in detail the functioning of Overtime Counters.

Remember, by Overtime Counters we mean tracking and managing 2 types of overtime working time:

  1. Time worked above normal working time on a Daily or Weekly basis
  2. Time worked on Bank Holidays or Sundays, or both

OVERVIEW OF OVERTIME COUNTERS

From the weekly view of the schedule, below the employee's name, you will find 4 elements:

  • Cont. = working hours for this employee this week.
  • Plan = total scheduled hours this week.
  • Wok. = total hours actually worked by the employee this week.
  • Bal = Overtime Counters Balance.

If you click on this last element or if you click on the menu with the 3 dots located to the right of the employee's name, then select the "Overtime Counters" option, you will access the employee's profile and the "Overtime Counters" tab:

From this view, you will see horizontally, for each year, the totals and details of the different Overtime Counters assigned to the employee through one or more employment contracts for each contractual period.

The first line displays the total of all the employee's Overtime Counters, week by week. This total corresponds to the one displayed in the "Sol" section of the weekly view under the employee's name.

There's also a small graph that illustrates the weekly evolution of the total Overtime Counters, week after week.

Then, you will find the details of each Overtime Counter.

If a contract change leads to different Overtime Counters, or if a new Overtime Counter is added to the contract type, a block of Overtime Counters will appear for each corresponding contract period.

NOTE:

When an employee has a change of contract type, especially when changing the weekly working hours, it's important to ensure that the new contract has the same Overtime Counters if you wish to maintain their continuity.

The Beam platform allows for maintaining this continuity of Overtime Counters when there are contract changes, provided that the same type of counter is present in the contract configuration.

Otherwise, you will see a change in the Overtime Counters, and continuity cannot be ensured, as illustrated in the screenshot below with the change in week 26:

NOTE: Currently, the system can only account for contract changes applied on Mondays. If a contract change occurs midweek, the system considers the Hour Counters of the contract in effect on the Sunday of the week of the change.

It is planned for the Beam system to be able to account for contract changes applied during the week, thus applying the corresponding Overtime Counters to each contractual period within the same week.

REPORTS OVERVIEW

As Overtime Counters are calculated on a weekly basis in terms of accumulation and compensation, and complete weeks don't always align with natural monthly periods, the Beam platform assigns weeks to months of the year. These weeks are visible in the Overtime Counters view, and the corresponding month numbers will be included in the monthly report of the corresponding month.

For example:

An employee accumulates additional hours over weeks as follows:

  • 8 additional hours during week 25, from Monday 19/06/2023 to Sunday 25/06/2023
  • 4 additional hours during week 26, from Monday 26/06/2023 to Sunday 02/07/2023

The system determines that week 25 belongs to the month of June, and week 26 belongs to the month of July. Thus, 8 additional hours will be displayed for this employee in the monthly report of June, and 4 hours for the monthly report of July, regardless of the fact that the employee actually accumulated these additional hours at the end of June.

The number of weeks included in each monthly report is clearly indicated on the right side of the monthly reports for data coming from Overtime Counters.

In cases where monthly reports are based on complete weeks, this attribution is done directly, so that the calculation periods of the counters correspond exactly to the periods of the monthly reports.

NOTE: This Overtime Counters system is newer than the previous system that required manually adding the number of overtime hours or Bank Holidays/Sundays hours in the shifts.

However, the previous system remains valid, where the number of bank holiday or overtime hours to be paid is manually indicated in the shifts and appears in columns labeled "SCHEDULE INFORMATION," clearly distinguishing them from data coming from Overtime Counters to present Variable Pay Elements.

CONFIGURATION OPTIONS

Here are the different sections to configure when creating or editing an Overtime Counter:

  • Counter Type
  • Vigilance Periods
  • Multiplication Factor
  • Compensation Method

You can refer to the help article detailing all the Overtime Counters configuration options.

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN CONTRACTUAL WORKING DAYS AND STORE/ESTABLISHMENT WORKING DAYS:

In certain cases, it is necessary to define the usual working days of the store or establishment. To understand the impact this can have on the calculations of the working days of Overtime Counters, please refer to this help article.