Overtime approval software your finance team will trust
Pre-approve overtime instead of arguing about it next pay run. CrewBase captures every session — date, start, end, total hours — with the manager's signature attached, so payroll, audits, and after-the-fact disputes all read the same record.
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Overtime goes wrong in the same three places
It's almost never the hours themselves. It's how they get recorded, when, and by whom.
Logged after the fact
An employee works late on Tuesday, mentions it on Thursday. By Friday the manager doesn't remember the exact time, payroll guesses, the budget creeps. Pre-approval flips this.
No standard form
Some hours are in Slack DMs, some on a paper timesheet, some only in the employee's head. There's no single place to ask 'how much overtime did Engineering log in October?'
Manager unavailable
The crew works overtime Saturday; the manager is on vacation. Without a backup approver path, the work happens but the OT goes uncodified — a compliance liability if the labor regulator asks.
Per-session entry
One row per shift — date, start, end, computed hours
The form is built around how overtime actually happens. Each session is a date plus a start and end time; CrewBase calculates total hours including overnight shifts (end-before-start = crosses midnight, +24h). Add multiple sessions for a single request — a Saturday and a Sunday, two extra hours Tuesday — and the totals update live.
- Multi-session per request: one Saturday + one Sunday = one approval
- Overnight shifts handled (end before start = crosses midnight)
- Live total hours so the requester sees what they're asking for
- Mobile-first: card-per-session layout with explicit Date/Start/End labels
Two-step approval
Manager confirms, finance verifies, audit logged
The default workflow for overtime is two-step: direct manager approves first (they know whether the work was authorized) then admin or finance approves the spend (they know whether it fits this month's budget). Either step can return the request for more info. Every step is audit-logged with timestamp + actor.
- Manager-then-admin two-step workflow ships out of the box
- Append-only audit log — no retroactive 'I didn't approve that'
- Required notes field on rejection — communicated back automatically
- Optional reassignment when the original approver is out
Reporting
Export to payroll, monthly or weekly
At month-end the admin pulls a CSV: every approved OT session with employee, date, hours, and rate-multiplier hint. Drop it into your payroll provider's import format. Or filter by department — finance can answer 'who's tracking the most OT in Operations this quarter?' before it becomes a budget problem.
- CSV export with employee + date + hours + reason
- Filter by department, status, date range, employee
- Weekly export rhythm if you run weekly payroll
- Audit log export for compliance reviews
Visibility
Dashboards finance + ops both look at
Operations sees who's overworking; finance sees the trend line. The same data answers both questions because both teams pull from the same underlying record.
- Manager dashboard: approved/pending OT for direct reports
- Department-rollup view for ops leadership
- Per-employee monthly + YTD OT totals
- Audit trail anyone with the right role can pull
Common questions about overtime approval software
Do you handle overnight shifts where end is before start?
Yes. The OT form treats an end-before-start time as crossing midnight automatically (adds 24 hours). For example, a session 22:00 → 02:00 records as 4 hours. Sessions over 24 hours are blocked at submit time so a typo doesn't end up in payroll.
Can one request cover multiple sessions across different days?
Yes. A single overtime request can include any number of sessions. The form sums the hours and lets the approver see each line. This matches how OT actually happens — a manager pre-approves 'Saturday + Sunday on the prod migration' as one decision, not two.
What about holiday or weekend rate multipliers?
We capture the raw hours; the rate is a payroll system concern. Most customers tag the request with a category (regular OT, holiday, weekend) using a custom request type field, then apply the multiplier in payroll. We don't try to be a payroll engine — we'd rather feed yours clean data than approximate the multipliers and drift.
Who approves overtime by default?
The default workflow is two-step: direct manager → admin/owner. Direct manager confirms the work was authorized; admin confirms the spend fits the budget. Either step can return the request for more info. You can configure single-step or department-manager-only workflows from the admin UI.
Can I disable overtime for some employees (e.g. salaried)?
Yes. Request-type visibility rules let admins hide a request type from specific roles, departments, or named employees. Salaried employees who shouldn't be filing OT requests simply don't see the form.
Does this integrate with our timesheet system?
Not yet. Today the workflow is: pre-approve OT in CrewBase → record actual hours in your timesheet (we don't replace timekeeping) → reconcile via export. A direct integration is on the roadmap for popular providers (Gusto, ADP, Rippling). Until then, the CSV export is clean enough to feed any of them.
Pre-approve overtime instead of arguing about it
Free 14-day trial. No credit card. Built for small businesses with under 150 employees.
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