Clockwise Timesheets
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Work Schedule Defaults

These company-wide settings control how timesheets are grouped, how pay periods are calculated, and the minimum hours employees must submit. You'll find them under Settings > Company > Work Schedule Defaults.

Settings Overview

Timesheet Period (Pay Period)

This determines how often timesheets are grouped and submitted. It directly controls the date range you see on each timesheet.

  • Weekly — A new timesheet every 7 days, starting on your configured "Week Starts On" day.
  • Bi-weekly — A new timesheet every 14 days. You must also pick an anchor (see below).
  • Semi-monthly — Two timesheets per month, split on two fixed days (e.g., the 1st and the 15th).
  • Monthly — One timesheet per calendar month.

    • Bi-weekly Anchor

    When using a bi-weekly period, Clockwise needs to know *which* two-week cycle you're on. You can anchor it one of two ways:

  • Day of week — Pick a day (e.g., Friday). Clockwise will align every period to *start* on that weekday.
  • Specific start date — Pick an exact date that one of your pay periods started on. Clockwise counts forward in 14-day intervals from that date.

    • Semi-monthly Period Start Days

    When using a semi-monthly period, you pick the two days of the month (1–28) that each timesheet starts on — these are timesheet boundaries, not payroll dates. For example, day 1 and day 16 means timesheets cover the 1st–15th and the 16th through the end of the month. The two days must be different, or the month won't split into two timesheets.

    Start the first period on the 1st. The second period always runs to the end of the month, so a first day later than the 1st leaves the days before it outside every timesheet — nobody can record time on them.

    Default Daily Hours

    The standard number of hours in a workday (typically 8). This is used as a reference for full-day calculations and helps identify days where hours look unusually high or low.

    Minimum Hours per Timesheet

    Optional. When set, an employee cannot submit a timesheet whose total hours fall below this value (e.g. 40). Leave it blank to enforce no minimum. It applies to all employees regardless of role (including owners and admins); only 1099 contractors and subcontractors are exempt, since they bill actual hours worked.

    Enter the figure for a full period. Employees who were only employed for part of a period — a mid-period hire, or someone whose last day falls inside it — owe a prorated share instead, based on how many of the period's weekdays they were employed for. Time can't be recorded before a hire date or after a termination date, so charging them the full minimum would leave them unable to submit at all. A 40-hour weekly minimum becomes 24 hours for someone hired on a Wednesday.

    Unpaid leave and part-time schedules are *not* accounted for: an employee on leave for part of the period still owes the full minimum. If that's common at your organization, leave this setting blank.

    Whatever this is set to, an employee can never submit a timesheet with no hours at all. The same two exempt groups can: a 1099 contractor or subcontractor with no tasking in a period submits the empty timesheet to record zero, which distinguishes it from a period they haven't filed yet and stops the weekly unsubmitted-timesheet reminder for it. They can only do so once the period has started.

    Week Starts On

    The first day of the work week (e.g., Monday or Sunday). This affects:

  • How weekly timesheets are aligned. (Bi-weekly periods align to their own anchor instead — this setting doesn't affect them.)
  • How the calendar and week-based views are displayed.

    • How They Work Together

  • Week Starts On sets the foundation — it defines what a "week" means everywhere in the app.
  • Timesheet Period builds on top of that to determine the date range of each timesheet.
  • Default Daily Hours × days in period gives the expected hours for a timesheet, so you can see at a glance if someone is over or under.
  • Minimum Hours per Timesheet, when set, is a hard gate at submit time — an employee whose total is below it can't submit until they add more. It's prorated for anyone employed only part of the period.
    • Example: If your period is bi-weekly anchored to Friday and your minimum is 80 hours — then each timesheet starts on a Friday and runs the fourteen days through the second Thursday, and an employee must log at least 80 hours across the period before they can submit.