Overtime limit can't be exceeded
Updated
by
Victor Jespersen
What this rule does
Overtime is expensive, and in most markets it is capped — by law, by a collective agreement, or by both. Going over the cap can mean real fines, and by the time payroll spots it the schedule has already run.
The Overtime limit can't be exceeded rule stops that happening. It counts the additional time and overtime hours an employee builds up over a period, and warns your schedulers the moment a change would push them past the limit you have set — while there is still time to schedule it differently.
Who this is for?
Schedulers and managers who plan for employees whose overtime is capped by law or by a union agreement.
How it works
The rule tracks the hours of additional time and overtime an employee earns across the period you configure. When the total goes over your configured limit, the rule flags a violation on the change that caused it.
Configuration
You configure the rule in Schedule Compliance > Rule set > Overtime limit can't be exceeded.
Setting | What it does |
Salary types | Defines which salary types count towards the limit. Only salary types related to additional time and overtime can be selected — no other salary types appear in this dropdown. |
Period | Defines the window over which hours are counted. Choose Monthly or Yearly. Both mean a full calendar period — the 1st to the last day of the month or year. |
Overtime threshold | The maximum overtime allowed in the period before the rule triggers, measured across the salary types you selected. Entered in hours. |
Period is a calendar period, not a rolling one. Monthly and Yearly both run to the calendar. A Yearly period is 1 January to 31 December; it does not roll forward from the employee's start date.
Severity
Select Warning, Hard stop (Non-overridable) or Silent depending on if you want the rule to warn, block, or not show up at all (see here for more details on the severity levels).
Which actions trigger the check
Creating or shifts, copying shifts, rolling out base schedules, shift offer requests, shift swaps, booking shifts (assigning an employee to an open shift), and unassignment-approval requests.
It does not currently trigger when deleting a shift, or when editing shifts inside a base schedule template.
Before you rely on the totals
To keep the system fast, Quinyx uses a hybrid calculation. Live only runs for shifts inside a window of 62 days in the past and 90 days in the future, relative to the shifts being edited — the same approach Time Tracker transactions use (this article about Time Trackers explains it more in depth).
Anything outside that window has to have been transferred to payroll (non-preliminary) for the rule to see it. If earlier months have not been transferred, those hours are not counted and the totals will be lower than reality.
Good to know
Why do I get a warning on a shift that generates no overtime at all?Because the employee is already over the limit. Once the configured threshold has been passed — through shifts — the rule flags further scheduling changes for that employee, including a shift made up entirely of ordinary hours.
This is deliberate, not a defect. Overtime is not a property of a single shift: it comes out of the whole collection of shifts in a period, and Quinyx cannot currently tell which individual shift did or did not contribute to the total. A shift that generates no overtime on its own can still be the reason a later shift generates it — so a rule that stayed quiet on those shifts could let the limit be passed with no warning at all. We chose the more restrictive behaviour deliberately,
One practical consequence worth planning for: where the rule's severity requires an override, a scheduler will need one for each affected change for as long as the employee stays over the limit.
Can the rule track any kind of salary type?No. It is designed to track overtime and additional time salary types only. If the need arises, we will look at whether other salary types can be supported — reach out to your support contact for input!
Can the rule keep tracking a salary type after it has been deactivated?Yes — as long as the salary type has been transferred to payroll (non-preliminary) and is still selected on the rule, it is tracked, even if it is inactive on the agreement template.
Does the rule account for salary type rules on a shift?Not in this first version. It is planned to follow shortly afterwards; we do not have a confirmed date yet and will communicate one when we do.
