Attendance rules and setup

Your attendance rules say how your organisation works: which days and hours make a normal day, what kind of break it has, when overtime starts, when your leave year starts, and how timesheets are approved. Agoo asks for them when you start, keeps a checklist on Home until each one is confirmed, and keeps every earlier version, so a change never rewrites months already worked. The rules are on every plan, in Console → Attendance → Settings.

Setting up staff timeCopy Anchor Link

When you set up your organisation, the setup wizard asks Will you keep staff time in Agoo? after your first site. Only Owners and Admins see it.

• Yes opens one screen with six things, each filled in with Ghana's defaults: your working week and day, the kind of day, when overtime starts (after your standard day, at least 8 hours, and 40 hours a week) and whether it needs approval, your leave year, annual leave and what happens to annual leave nobody took, who approves leave, and the timesheet period, who approves timesheets, whether staff confirm their own and your payroll day. It also asks Do you roster shifts? and, on Growth and above, how swaps and open shifts work. Change what's different and save.
• Not now skips it. Home asks again later.
• We don't keep staff time tells Agoo you don't use attendance, and Home stops asking. You can still set the rules whenever you like.

The checklist on HomeCopy Anchor Link

Until every setting is confirmed, Home shows Set up staff time to people who manage attendance for the whole organisation or its settings. Each line opens the setting, and you confirm it by saving or by choosing Looks right. Agoo records who confirmed it and when.

Line managers, Start dates and Employee numbers tick themselves once nobody is missing, or when you choose Looks right. Your first roster ticks itself when you publish a roster at any site, or when you answer No to Do you roster shifts?, which the setup wizard's Staff time step asks too. See Rosters. Swaps and open shifts ticks itself when you save the roster's swaps and open shifts settings or choose Looks right; the wizard's Staff time step asks it too. Items your plan doesn't include show which plan adds them and don't count. Pay codes and the export layout ticks itself when you save the pay codes or a layout on Attendance → Payroll, or choose Looks right; like leave and timesheets, it's for HR, Owners and Admins. See Pay codes. The card goes once everything is confirmed, and comes back if an upgrade adds an item.

Each confirmation is recorded in the audit trail as Confirmed attendance settings, and your answer to the wizard's question as Answered whether to keep staff time in Agoo.

The rulesCopy Anchor Link

Open Console → Attendance → Settings. Each section says what it's for, shows Ghana's default, and has Looks right if it's already right for you.

Working timeCopy Anchor Link

BreaksCopy Anchor Link

The Labour Act has two kinds of working day, and the kind decides whether the break is paid.

How Agoo counts it, every day:

• A paid break is never taken off. It's inside the hours worked, as the Act says, and the timesheet shows it beside the day: "30 min paid".
• An unpaid break comes off automatically on a finished day once its work reaches the threshold: an 08:00 to 17:00 day counts 8 hours, shown as "1 h unpaid, automatic". A day still running, or with a missing clock-out, keeps its paired time until it's finished; Agoo never guesses.
• Clocking out for lunch is the break. If someone clocks out and back in during the day, that time was never counted, so nothing more comes off ("42 min unpaid, clocked out"), whichever kind of day you run.
• A punched break replaces the automatic one, where you've switched on break punches. On a day in two parts, what they punched comes off instead of the scheduled break ("42 min unpaid, punched"); on a continuous day, a punched break is recorded inside the hours worked and nothing comes off ("35 min paid, punched").
• A shift can have its own break, paid, unpaid or none, which it keeps whatever the standard day says: a night ward with a paid half hour on a hospital that runs split days, for example. Set it on the shift's template, with when the break usually starts, and change it on a single roster shift if that day is different.
• The nursing hour is paid (Labour Act, s.57). HR switches it on for a nursing mother for up to a year, from Nursing hour in her attendance; it's never taken off. Agoo keeps only the dates, nothing about a pregnancy or a birth.

Break punchesCopy Anchor Link

Off by default. In Console → Attendance → Settings → Break punches, switch them on for your organisation, and keep them on or off at any site. The setup wizard and Home's checklist ask too. With them on:

• The kiosk (the app and the browser kiosk) and Agoo Workspace offer Start break to someone who's clocked in and End break to someone on a break, first, with the same ways of clocking in and the same evidence. Offline, the apps keep them like any punch.
• Someone on a break is still on site. Today shows On break, 12 min, and a roll call and the evacuation list count them.
• A break that wasn't ended before they clocked out is closed by the clock-out and flagged Break not ended in Needs review; the scheduled break stands in until you add the End break they missed.
• A long break (more than 15 minutes over the scheduled one) and a short unpaid break are flagged for you; what was punched still counts. No break recorded flags a day of 6 hours or more with no break, from the day you switch break punches on (you can turn that flag off).
• The nursing hour is a break of its own for people HR has switched it on for: Nursing break, paid and never taken off.

Two rules in Breaks decide how punched breaks count:

"Take off at least the scheduled break" is off by default because time someone works through part of their break is still time worked: Agoo takes off what they punched and shows you the short break, so you can talk to them, rather than quietly counting less than they worked.

Which kind should you choose? Agoo suggests a day in two parts with an unpaid lunch hour when your standard day is 9 hours or longer (08:00 to 17:00 less the hour is the Act's 8 hours, s.33), and one stretch with a paid 30 minutes otherwise. Settings, the setup wizard and Home's checklist show the suggestion with Use this; nothing changes until you choose. A change applies from the day you pick, so earlier days keep the break they had.

Lateness and absence (Growth and above, with shifts)Copy Anchor Link

OvertimeCopy Anchor Link

On every plan. How Agoo uses these is on Shifts and overtime.

Overtime starts after the hours your rules fix (Labour Act s.35(1)), and nobody may be required to work it unless you've fixed your overtime rates (s.35(2)). The law sets no rate, so Agoo counts the hours and your payroll pays them.

People with different hours, such as guards on 12-hour shifts, can follow a work-rule set of their own instead of these. Overtime approval stays the same for everyone.

LeaveCopy Anchor Link

The annual days here are your Annual leave type's allowance, and the carry-over is that type's. Your other leave types, such as maternity, sick and paternity leave, are set in Attendance → Leave → Types. See Leave.

Capping or ending carry-over is your choice, but forfeiting annual leave is legally uncertain in Ghana, and an agreement to give up annual leave is void (Labour Act s.31). Agoo warns you before you save.

Who approves leaveCopy Anchor Link

Kinds of leave that are simply recorded, such as sick leave, never wait for anyone. Someone with no manager goes to HR, and nobody decides their own request. Unlike the rest of the rules, it has no versions: a change applies to requests made from then on, and requests already waiting keep their steps. Saving or choosing Looks right ticks Who approves leave on Home's card, and each change is recorded in the audit trail as Changed who approves requests. See Leave.

Public holidaysCopy Anchor Link

Public holidays is on by default. Agoo keeps Ghana's list current for you, including the days declared each year, such as Eid al-Fitr, Shaqq Day (the day after it) and Eid al-Adha, and any day the government moves or adds, usually the day it's announced. A public holiday on a working day is paid (Labour Act s.72), and one inside someone's leave doesn't use their annual leave (s.22).

Turn it off only if your organisation doesn't follow Ghana's public holidays, such as some embassies and international schools.

When a public holiday is added, moved or taken off the list, Agoo works out your staff time again within minutes and emails your Owners and HR to say what changed, with a link to that month's timesheet.

TimesheetsCopy Anchor Link

A new period, or a new first Monday for fortnights, takes effect from the next period, never in the middle of one. Saving Who approves timesheets changes the timesheets still to come; those already waiting keep their steps. See Timesheets and payroll.

Pay codes (Pro and above)Copy Anchor Link

Payroll files put each kind of time under a pay code: regular hours, daily and weekly overtime, rest-day work, public-holiday work, night time, absences, leave paid out on leaving and each leave type. Agoo starts from its own codes, such as REG, OT and PHW, with time and a half for overtime and double time for public-holiday work as common practice; the Labour Act sets no rate. Rename them, change the multipliers, or leave a kind of time out, on Attendance → Payroll. Pay codes aren't versioned like the rules: each payroll file keeps the codes it was made with. See Pay codes.

Changing the rulesCopy Anchor Link

Saving makes a new version of your rules. Choose when it starts:

• Today, the usual choice.
• An earlier date, up to 31 days back, to correct a recent mistake. It can't start before the version already in force.
• A later date, up to a year ahead, for a change you've agreed in advance, such as a new working week from 1 January. It shows as upcoming until then.

Days before the new version keep the rules they had. Each version lists when it started, who saved it and what changed, and each save is recorded in the audit trail as Changed the attendance rules.

Who can change them: anyone who manages attendance for the whole organisation: Owners, Admins, and HR or Site admins whose role covers every site. The leave and timesheet settings, and the pay codes and payroll layouts, also need the payroll permission, which only Owners, Admins and HR have. Everyone who can see attendance can read the rules.