How does Time Tracking work?

How does Time Tracking work?

Time Tracking lets your employee log their hours each pay period and submit them to you for review before payroll runs. Employers can approve, adjust, or override whatever is submitted but the day-to-day entry can live with employees.

Time Tracking is optional and turned on per employee. Here's everything you need to know.

Turning Time Tracking on (and off)

Time Tracking is enabled by the employer, one employee at a time. If your employee has asked to submit their own hours, you'll need to turn the feature on for them.

Enabling from Settings

1. Go to Settings.
2. Choose Time Tracking.
3. Toggle Time Tracking on for the employee(s) you'd like to use it.

Enabling from an employee's page

1. Go to Employees.
2. Select the specific employee.
3. Toggle Time Tracking on.

Note: Your employee will get an email as soon as Time Tracking is turned on or off. They'll also see (or lose) the Time Tracking tab in their Poppins cubby.

What the employee sees

Once Time Tracking is on, your employee will have a new Time Tracking tab in their Poppins cubby. From there, each pay period, they can:

• Enter their hours by day. They enter a single total for each day. Regular, overtime, and additional hours are allocated by the employer later.
• Enter PTO or sick time hours, with their available balance shown alongside. PTO and sick time can only be entered if those policies have already been configured for them.
• Add a note to each week of the pay period if there's something they'd like the employer to know.
• Save their hours as they go and come back later to finish and submit.
• Edit and resubmit their hours right up until the submission cutoff.

Submission deadline: Timesheet hours are due by 11:59am MST on the Sunday before your next pay period begins. That's every Sunday for weekly pay, every other Sunday for biweekly. For semi-monthly, it will be the 7th and the 22nd. Monthly edits will be the 22nd.

What you see after your employee submits

Once the employee submits their hours, we'll email the employer letting you know they're ready for review. From the payroll page, you can:

• See exactly what they submitted, day-by-day, along with any note they left.
• Allocate their submitted hours across regular and overtime: this is always done by you, not by your employee.
• Accept the hours as-is.
• Adjust the hours before accepting.
• Use different hours entirely (based on your own records).
• Share a note back to your employee if you made adjustments so they know what changed and why.

Review deadline: You have until Monday at 11:59am MST to review and approve for weekly and biweekly payroll. For semi-monthly, you have until the 8th and 23rd at 11:59am MST. For monthly payroll, you have until the 23rd at 11:59am MST.

Time Tracking statuses

As hours move through the pay period, you'll see one of these statuses:

• Open — The pay period is active and your employee can still enter and submit hours.
• Review hours — Your employee has submitted their hours and they're waiting for your review.
• Approved — You've reviewed the hours (either as-is or with adjustments) and they've been sent to payroll.
• Overridden — You chose to use different hours than what your employee submitted. Payroll runs on the hours you entered.
• Not Approved — You chose not to review or approve the submitted hours and payroll ran on the default pay settings.
• Not Submitted — Your employee didn't submit hours before the Sunday 11:59am MST cutoff for weekly and biweekly payroll. Payroll will run on their default pay settings unless you make edits by Monday at 11:59am MST.

What happens if hours aren't approved?

If you don't approve your employee's submitted hours by the cutoff, payroll will run on whatever you've already configured, that means either edits you made to that pay period, or the employee's default pay settings if you didn't touch it. Nothing gets stuck, and your employee will still be paid.

Notifications you and your employee will get

Poppins sends emails throughout the pay period so nothing slips through the cracks.

Your employee gets an email when:

• You turn Time Tracking on or off for them.
• A new pay period opens and it's time to log hours.
• The submission deadline is 24 hours away and they haven't submitted.
• The submission deadline is 3 hours away.
• The submission window closes without them submitting.
• You approve their hours (as-is, with adjustments, or with different hours).

You get an email when:

• Your employee submits their hours for review.
• Your employee doesn't submit hours before the cutoff.

Where you can use Time Tracking

Time Tracking works everywhere Poppins does — desktop, mobile web, and the Poppins mobile app. You and your employee can review or enter hours from whichever works best.

Common questions

Can I turn Time Tracking on for some employees but not others?

Yes. Time Tracking is enabled one employee at a time, so you can use it for whoever it makes sense for.

What if my employee forgets to submit their hours?

Payroll will still run on their default pay settings, so they won't miss a paycheck. You'll have until Monday at 11:59am MST to make any edits to their payroll before it processes for weekly or biweekly payroll. For semi-monthly, you have until the 8th and 23rd at 11:59am MST. For monthly payroll, you have until the 23rd at 11:59am MST.

Can my employee split their hours into regular and overtime themselves?

No — your employee just enters a single total for each day. Splitting hours across regular, overtime, and additional stays with you in the payroll review.

Can my employee enter PTO and sick time?

Yes, as long as you've already set up PTO or sick time policies for them. Their available balance is shown right alongside the entry field.

What if I need to change something after I've approved?

You can still edit payroll after approval, up until the Monday at 11:59am MST cutoff, same as any other weekly or biweekly pay period. For semi-monthly, you still have until the 8th and 23rd at 11:59am MST. For monthly payroll, you still have until the 23rd at 11:59am MST.

Have a question we didn't cover? Reply to any Poppins email or give us a call at (855) 420-1919.