Calculate regular pay, overtime pay, total earnings, and annual projections — instantly.
The federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) sets the baseline overtime rules that apply to most private-sector employers in the United States. Getting overtime wrong — in either direction — is expensive: over-paying erodes your margins, and under-paying exposes you to back-wage liability, penalties, and lawsuits.
Under federal law, non-exempt employees must be paid at least 1.5 times their regular rate of pay for every hour worked beyond 40 in a single workweek. Overtime is calculated on a workweek basis — not by pay period, not by day. Your workweek is any fixed, recurring 168-hour period (seven consecutive 24-hour days) that you define.
The regular rate is not simply the hourly wage on the job offer. Under the FLSA, it can include:
Purely discretionary bonuses and gifts, vacation pay, and overtime premiums themselves are excluded from the regular rate calculation. When in doubt, consult a payroll attorney — the FLSA rules on regular rate are detailed and the DOL actively audits service businesses.
Not every employee is entitled to overtime. The FLSA defines several exemptions — most importantly the "white collar" exemptions for executive, administrative, and professional employees. To qualify for an exemption, employees must meet both a salary-level test and a duties test:
| Exemption | Minimum Salary (2024) | Duties Test (simplified) |
|---|---|---|
| Executive | $684 / week ($35,568/yr) | Manages 2+ full-time employees; authority to hire/fire |
| Administrative | $684 / week ($35,568/yr) | Office/non-manual work directly related to management; exercises discretion |
| Professional | $684 / week ($35,568/yr) | Advanced knowledge in a field of science or learning; degree typically required |
| Highly Compensated | $107,432 / year | Performs at least one exempt duty; receives total annual compensation above threshold |
| Computer professionals | $684/wk or $27.63/hr | Systems analysts, programmers, software engineers in qualifying roles |
Several states impose overtime rules that are more generous than FLSA — and when state law is stricter, the employer must follow state law:
| State | Rule Beyond Federal FLSA |
|---|---|
| California | Daily OT after 8 hrs/day; double-time after 12 hrs/day or 8 hrs on 7th consecutive day in a workweek |
| Alaska | Daily OT after 8 hrs/day in addition to weekly threshold |
| Nevada | Daily OT after 8 hrs/day if employee earns less than 1.5× state minimum wage |
| Colorado | Daily OT after 12 hrs/day or 12 consecutive hours across a shift |
| All others | Federal 40-hour weekly threshold applies; confirm your state labor department for updates |
Always verify current thresholds with your state labor department — rates and salary thresholds are updated periodically.
The break-even point depends on the new employee's rate, your overtime premium, and employer overhead. A useful rule of thumb: if you regularly need more than 8–10 extra hours per week from a single employee at 1.5×, it is often cheaper to hire a part-time worker — even after accounting for employer taxes (roughly 10–15% on top of gross wages for a part-time worker with no benefits).
The comparison tool above uses a 1.25× total cost multiplier on the new-hire wage to approximate employer payroll taxes (FICA, FUTA, SUTA). For a full picture, use it alongside the Employee Cost Calculator.
Most overtime surprises happen because managers don’t know how many hours employees have accumulated mid-week. A real-time time-and-attendance system shows current-week totals at a glance, so you can adjust scheduling before hours cross the 40-hour threshold.
Buddy punching — where one employee clocks in for another — artificially inflates recorded hours and can push employees past the 40-hour threshold even when they weren’t actually working. Biometric verification (fingerprint 1:N) eliminates this entirely. KwickOS supports fingerprint authentication as a standard feature; Toast does not.
Overtime most commonly occurs when a business understaffs a predictable rush. Using your POS sales history, you can identify peak windows by day-part and day-of-week, then build precise schedules that match staff to demand — without relying on existing employees to cover gaps at 1.5× cost.
When a single person is irreplaceable for a specific role, overtime is unavoidable every time that person is needed. Cross-training creates a larger pool of available workers for any given task, giving you scheduling flexibility that reduces reliance on any one employee’s overtime hours.
KwickOS includes built-in labor management tools designed for multi-location restaurant, retail, and beauty operators — fingerprint time clock, role-based access, automated commission tracking, and real-time labor reporting across all locations. T. Jin China Diner runs 15 stores and 75 terminals from a single dashboard. Explore KwickOS features ›
Federal FLSA overtime is calculated on a workweek basis only — hours over 40 in the week, regardless of how many hours were worked in any single day. However, California, Alaska, Nevada, and Colorado all require daily overtime calculations as well. If you operate in those states, you must pay overtime for daily hours over the threshold even if the employee works fewer than 40 hours total that week.
No. Under FLSA, each workweek stands alone. You cannot average a 50-hour week with a 30-hour week and call it 40/40. If an employee works 50 hours in week one and 30 hours in week two, they are owed 10 hours of overtime for week one — period.
It depends on whether they qualify for an exemption. Salaried employees who do not meet both the salary threshold and duties test for an FLSA exemption must receive overtime. Simply paying someone a salary does not make them exempt.
Yes. The overtime premium for tipped employees is based on the full minimum wage, not the reduced cash wage. Specifically, the overtime rate must be 1.5× the applicable minimum wage, minus the tip credit. This is a common compliance error in restaurant payroll.
The DOL can require payment of back wages for up to two years (three years for willful violations), plus an equal amount in liquidated damages, plus civil money penalties up to $2,374 per violation for repeat or willful offenders. Private lawsuits by employees can result in similar awards plus attorney’s fees.