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What's the Difference Between Late Threshold, Overage Flag, and Maximum Shift Length?

Late threshold, Overage flag threshold, and Maximum shift length sit together in Company Settings, but they do different jobs. Learn which one flags a late clock-in, which one flags a long day, and which one actually ends a shift.

The Thresholds section on Company Settings > Timekeeping has three duration settings that look similar. They are not interchangeable. One decides when someone counts as late, one flags an unusually long day so you can review it, and one is the longest a single check-in is allowed to run before Clean Smarts ends it.

Applies to: Account administrators with the Manage Account module. These settings are company-wide and are configured in the web portal only. Managers reviewing time will see the results on Time Detail, Approve Timesheets, and Timesheet Exceptions.

Before You Start

  • Open Company Settings from your profile in the bottom-left corner of the sidebar, then choose Timekeeping.
  • Changes apply to the whole account after you click Save Changes.
  • These thresholds do not replace overtime pay rules, geofence auto clock-out, or a scheduled shift’s expected length. They sit next to those policies.

How the Three Settings Differ

Ask yourself which question you are answering:

  • When do we consider someone late? Use Late threshold.
  • When should we flag a day that looks too long to be right? Use Overage flag threshold.
  • What’s the longest we let one check-in keep running? Use Maximum shift length.

In short:

  • Late threshold compares a punch to the schedule (start time and expected length). It flags variance. It does not change the recorded hours.
  • Overage flag threshold compares a person’s total hours that day to a company-wide cap. It flags the day for review. It does not clock anyone out.
  • Maximum shift length is a safety limit on one open punch. When that duration is reached, Clean Smarts ends the check-in.

A common mix-up: a cleaner is assigned five hours at a building, then you see twelve hours on that day. Overage flag threshold is what marks that as “this day looks too long.” Maximum shift length is what would have stopped the timer if they forgot to clock out and stayed on the clock past your allowed maximum.

Late Threshold

Late threshold is the grace period before Clean Smarts treats a scheduled punch as late.

If a shift starts at 8:00 a.m. and Late threshold is 15 minutes, an 8:10 a.m. clock-in is still on time. An 8:20 a.m. clock-in is late.

The same grace window is used when a completed punch is far enough from the scheduled length to count as short or over. That is a schedule-variance flag, not payroll overtime. Payroll overtime still comes from your overtime rules and pay codes.

You will see the effect in:

  • Timesheet Exceptions under Time Tracking, in the Late (and related short / over-schedule) filters
  • Schedule and check-in status on location and coverage views
  • Late / no-show notifications, when your account sends them for missed or late starts

Late threshold does not:

  • Clock the employee out
  • Cap or round their hours
  • Decide overtime pay

How to choose a value: Match the lateness you actually want to act on. Many accounts use 10–15 minutes. A very small value flags almost every slightly late punch. A large value hides real late arrivals.

Overage Flag Threshold

Overage flag threshold is the daily hour limit that should make you look twice.

Example: a cleaner is assigned five hours at a building, but their punches that day add up to twelve hours. If your overage flag is 12 hours (or less), Clean Smarts flags that day so a supervisor can confirm whether the hours are real or a missed clock-out.

You will see the flag as:

  • Exceeds daily limit on Time Detail rows for that person and day
  • Days Exceeding Hour Limit in the issue scan on Approve Timesheets

Overage flag threshold does not:

  • End the shift or change the clock-out time
  • Block the employee from working
  • Calculate overtime pay (orange/red overtime on timesheets is a separate overtime policy)

It is a review signal. Someone still has to open the timesheet and fix or approve the hours.

How to choose a value: Set it above a normal full day, so forgotten clock-outs and stacked jobs stand out, without flagging every legitimate long day. Many accounts use something in the 10–12 hour range. If cleaners regularly work more than that across several sites, raise the flag so payroll review stays useful.

Maximum Shift Length

Maximum shift length is the longest one check-in is allowed to stay open.

If someone forgets to clock out, Clean Smarts ends that punch when this duration is reached. On Time Detail, the Out Method for that entry is Auto Clock Out. That is different from a geofence clock-out (Left Geofence), which happens because the phone detected that they left the site.

This setting is also a cap: a later clock-out cannot make a single check-in longer than the lesser of Maximum shift length and 24 hours.

A related switch on the same Timekeeping page, Set check-in to expected shift length when employee forgets to clock out, changes what time is recorded after the maximum is reached:

  • Off: the punch is closed at the maximum shift length (for example, 12 hours after clock-in).
  • On: the punch is closed at the scheduled shift length instead, as long as that length is not longer than the maximum. A four-hour scheduled shift that was left open is stored as four hours, not twelve.

Maximum shift length does not:

  • Mean “flag this day for review” (that is the overage flag)
  • Mean “this person is late” (that is the late threshold)
  • Replace geofence auto clock-out

How to choose a value: Set it longer than the longest shift you actually run, including unusually long coverage days. If it is too short, people still on site get clocked out early. Support often sees accounts use 12 or 24 hours. Do not set this to a typical shift length (for example five hours) unless you truly want every longer punch cut off.

How to Change These Settings

  1. Sign in to the Clean Smarts web portal.
  2. Click your profile in the bottom-left corner and choose Company Settings.
  3. Open Timekeeping.
  4. In the Thresholds card, set:
    • Late threshold
    • Overage flag threshold
    • Maximum shift length
  5. Review the related clock-out option Set check-in to expected shift length when employee forgets to clock out if you use automatic clock-out.
  6. Click Save Changes.

Each field is hours and minutes. 15 minutes is 00:15. 12 hours is 12:00.

Tips

  • Use overage to review; use maximum to stop the timer. If you only want a warning that Fran worked 12 hours, raise the overage flag. If you want the timer to stop, set Maximum shift length.
  • Keep maximum longer than overage when you want a chance to review first. An 8-hour maximum will close a forgotten punch before a 12-hour daily overage flag can appear on that single open entry. Multiple shorter punches in one day can still trip the daily overage flag.
  • Check Out Method before you edit a long punch. Auto Clock Out means the maximum-shift rule ended it. Left Geofence means the phone’s geofence rule ended it.
  • Late threshold is about the schedule, not a daily hour cap. A person can clock in on time, work a normal shift, and still hit the overage flag later that day at another site.

Troubleshooting

People are clocked out in the middle of a real shift.
Maximum shift length is shorter than that shift. Increase it so it is longer than your longest scheduled or coverage shift. Then correct the affected time entries.

We wanted a warning, not an automatic clock-out.
The warning is Overage flag threshold. Maximum shift length ends the punch. Raise the maximum (many teams use 12 or 24 hours) and use the overage flag for payroll review.

Approve Timesheets shows Days Exceeding Hour Limit, but nobody was clocked out.
That is expected. The overage flag only highlights the day. Open the timesheet, confirm the hours, and fix a missed clock-out if needed.

Someone looks late even though they were only a few minutes after start.
Lowering Late threshold makes more punches count as late. Raising it gives a larger grace period. Timesheet Exceptions Late uses this threshold against the scheduled start.

The punch ended at the scheduled shift length, not at our maximum.
Set check-in to expected shift length when employee forgets to clock out is on. Turn it off if you want auto clock-out to record time up to the maximum instead of the expected length.

Geofence is on, but they stayed clocked in until the maximum.
Geofence auto clock-out and Maximum shift length are separate. If the phone could not report that they left the site, the maximum-shift rule is the fallback. See Geofencing for mobile timekeeping and Why was I clocked out automatically?.

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