How to Set Up Breaks (Paid & Unpaid)

Breaks are managed for your whole company in one place, in your Company Policies and applied to employees through policies, the same way pay rules and scheduling rules work. Two building blocks control everything:

The setup flow is: create a break rule, add it to a policy, then assign the policy to your employees.
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Break rules belong to the company, not to a single Time Clock. An employee’s assigned breaks apply across every Time Clock they punch into, so you set a break up once instead of repeating it per clock. If you need a rule to apply to certain clocks only, you can limit that rule to specific Time Clocks.
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You can set up two types of breaks based on your needs: Manual or Automatic. Below, you’ll learn how each type works for employees and how it appears in timesheets.

Important Note: There’s a difference between breaks set in the Schedule (Job Scheduler) and breaks configured in the Time Clock:

When you activate the Time Clock on a new account, two manual breaks are set up for you by default so your team can start tracking break time right away: a 30-minute unpaid break and a 10-minute paid break. You can keep these defaults, edit them, or add more break types to match how your business operates.

Paid break time is included in the Daily Total hours used for payroll calculations.

Unpaid break time is excluded from the Daily Total hours used for payroll calculations.

When you create a manual break, you can choose how its timing works:

For example, you can require that users working 6 hours or more take one 30-minute break, and users working 8 hours or more take two. Each tier must be at least one break length apart, and the hours must increase from one tier to the next.

Automatic breaks automatically deduct a set amount of time after a chosen number of worked hours. For example, you can deduct a 30-minute break after 5 hours of work. Automatic breaks are useful for compliance when you need to follow break laws or internal policies.

Automatic breaks are always unpaid, meaning the break time is subtracted from the employee’s Daily Total hours used for payroll.

Break rules are created in one central place and then assigned to your employees.

After you save a break rule, you are prompted to assign it to a policy. A break rule only affects timesheets once it belongs to a policy that is assigned to employees, or is assigned directly to a user.

Breaks are applied through a policy, but you can also manage breaks for one employee when they need an exception.

You can review a user’s break assignment history from the same section to see what applied and when.
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Break reminders help employees stay on track with their manual breaks. There are two reminders you can enable, both available from the Basic plan under the Operations Hub: a reminder to take a break, and a reminder to end a break.
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This reminder nudges employees to start their manual break.

This reminder lets employees know when they can end their break, which helps with accountability and reduces breaks that run long.

Admins can allow users to waive their break to help avoid penalty fees where applicable. When enabled, users can only waive breaks on shifts of up to 6 hours. For longer shifts with multiple breaks (up to 12 hours), users may only waive the second break if the first break has been taken.

This capability is most relevant for businesses operating in California, for example, where break rules are tightly regulated and certain waivers or exceptions may apply depending on shift length, timing, and compliance requirements.

To allow users to waive their break:

When users review their break issues (as shown in the previous section), they will be presented with the option I agree to waive this break. Note, that this option will only appear for missed breaks.

Once the user agrees to waive their break, they will see a summary of the handled break issue, including the date and time the waiver was recorded.

Admins can then acknowledge the waiver within the break issue modal.

Users can add break details directly within the “Add Shift” modal in Timesheets. When manual breaks are enabled, employees can enter all relevant break information while creating a shift, eliminating the need to add separate break entries afterward.

Any manual break times configured in Settings will populate automatically, and users can adjust them as needed to reflect what actually occurred during the shift. This simplifies manual break entry by allowing users to add breaks during shift creation, reducing steps, saving time, and improving data accuracy.

If a shift has already been recorded without breaks, adding a break afterward will automatically split the shift into multiple time entries based on the break duration and timing.

You can choose whether missed, late, or shortened breaks are flagged as issues in a user’s timesheet, helping you track these incidents and take action.

When enabled, admins will see an unresolved issue indicator in the user’s timesheet. Clicking “Review” opens the full issue details, where they can either mark it as Reviewed to resolve it or add or edit the break to make any necessary adjustments before saving it to the timesheet.

💡 Tip: You can message the user about a break issue directly from the break issues modal by selecting the chat icon in the top-right corner.

Users can resolve break issues themselves while reviewing their timesheets by clicking the red issue indicator.

In the “Resolve Break Issues” modal, users can view all missed manual breaks and indicate whether they took the break or were unable to take it. If they select that they couldn’t take the break, they’ll be required to provide a reason.

If the user was late to a break, they can either update the break times to reflect the correct timing or provide a reason for the delay. If the updated break still results in a violation, they will also be required to add a reason.

Missed, shortened, or late employee breaks can trigger mandatory compensation requirements in some jurisdictions. In California, for example, employers are required to pay “premium pay” when legally mandated meal or rest breaks are not properly provided, typically equal to one additional hour of wages per violation. While this rule is specific to California, similar break compliance penalties exist in various forms across different regions.