How to set up a work contract in Clockey in five steps

In Clockey, a work contract is the set of rules the system uses to turn an employee's clock-ins and clock-outs into hours: the standard day, when overtime starts and at what rate, how much is deducted for breaks, and what happens on Shabbat, holidays and sick days. Without a contract the system records attendance but doesn't know how many hours to pay. You set the contract up once, and from then on payroll hours are calculated by it every month.

Before you start

Standard hours or shifts

There are two ways to build a contract, and it helps to choose before you open the wizard:

• A contract without shifts (standard hours) suits office staff and flexible hours. You set a daily, weekly or monthly standard, and overtime is calculated from it.
• A shift contract suits work by schedule, such as morning, evening and night shifts with fixed hours. Breaks, the standard and the rates are set inside each shift.

As soon as you add shifts in the "Shifts" step, four steps disappear from the wizard's progress bar: "Breaks", "Weekly/monthly standard", "Overtime" and "Weekends and holidays". Their settings move into the shifts.

Who the contract applies to

In the "Scope type" field you choose whether the contract applies to the whole company, to a department or to a specific employee. A personal contract takes priority over a department contract, and a department contract over the company contract. Most businesses need one company contract, department contracts for groups with different terms such as shift workers, and personal contracts only for exceptions.

Five steps to your first contract

1. Open a new contract

In the "Operations" menu, go to "Work contracts" and click "New contract". In the "Template details" step, give the contract a name such as "Full-time employee", add a short description, choose the "Scope type" and set the "Effective date". For your first contract, choose "Company".

Tip: the scope type can't be changed after you save, so decide on it now.

2. Define the hours

In a standard-hours contract, go through the "Breaks", "Weekly/monthly standard", "Overtime" and "Weekends and holidays" steps. The wizard opens with values that suit most employers in Israel, so a basic contract needs almost no changes:

• A standard of 8.6 hours a day, 43 hours a week and 182 hours a month.
• Overtime at 125% for the first two hours and 150% after that, up to 80 overtime hours a month.
• An automatic 30-minute break after 6 hours of work.
• 5-minute rounding on clock-in and clock-out, with 10 minutes of grace.
• 150% on Shabbat and holidays, with weekly rest pay turned on.
• 8 hours for a sick day, a vacation day and a reserve duty day.
• Missing hours made up from the highest rate.

In a shift contract, you work on the weekly grid in the "Shifts" step: click a day to add a shift, drag a shift from one day to another and duplicate it to other days. For each shift you set the "Shift type" (by hours, by standard or manual), the standard hours, breaks, rounding and rate tiers.

Tip: since 2018 the regular work week in most of the Israeli economy has been 42 hours. If that is your arrangement, change the weekly standard to 42 before you save.

3. Set reporting blocks and absences

In the "Reporting block" step you can set days and time windows in which employees can't report attendance from the app, such as nights or weekends. This step is optional. In the "Absences and exceptions" step you decide how many hours count for a sick day, a vacation day and a reserve duty day, and how missing hours are made up. Then click "Save contract".

Tip: in the "Missing reports" field you choose what happens when an employee forgets to report: the day is marked as an absence or a vacation day, or the clock-in and clock-out are filled in from the standard at the end of the day.

4. Assign the contract to employees

Company and department contracts apply automatically to the employees in their scope. A personal contract is assigned from the employee card: under "Employees", open the employee for editing and pick the contract, version and start date in the "Contract template" field. The card also shows the "Current contract", the one that applies to the employee today.

Tip: you can schedule a contract for a future date, for example for an employee who moves to another department at the start of next month, and cancel the schedule if plans change.

5. Check the hours report

Open the "Employee hours report" for the current month and check that paid hours, overtime by tier, breaks and missing hours come out as you expected. If something is off, edit the contract. Each edit saves a new version from the date you choose, and months that were already calculated stay as they are.

Tip: a month locked in the month close screen isn't recalculated even if the contract changes, so check the report before you lock it.

Three examples

Scenario	How to set it up
Office, five days a week, monthly salary	A company contract without shifts, with the defaults: 8.6 hours a day, 182 a month, 125% and 150%, a 30-minute break after 6 hours. Weekend days: Friday and Saturday.
Shifts in a factory or a restaurant	A department contract with "by hours" shifts: morning 06:00-14:00, evening 14:00-22:00 and night 22:00-06:00 with "ends next day". Each shift has 8 standard hours, an automatic break, rounding to the shift limits when hours run over, and rate tiers.
An hourly worker who doesn't clock in	A personal contract with a "manual" shift. The manager enters the hours, and the system doesn't calculate them from clock-ins. It suits freelancers and field workers.

Keep in mind

• To change the scope type of an existing contract, create a new contract with the right scope.
• Before you delete a template, move the employees assigned to it to another contract.
• An employee has one active contract at a time. Close the current one before assigning a new one, or schedule the new one for a future date.
• Each department has one active contract. When terms change, edit it and set the date the new version takes effect.
• In rate tiers, make sure the ranges don't overlap and that every tier except the last has an "up to hour" value.

You can see the contract wizard in a short demo with our team. Book a demo