Timecard Exception Agent — Shadow Mode
An agent reviews a synthetic two-week pay period's timecard exceptions — missed punches, late punches, unapproved overtime, a missed meal break, a daily-overtime day, a PTO request — and proposes a correction or approval for each. It never auto-executes: every proposal names the payroll-cycle control that authorizes it, the FLSA/state wage-and-hour rule it checked, and the role required to sign off. Toggle any proposal below to see how the agreement rate moves. 100% synthetic data: an invented six-person roster and pay period, not connected to any real UKG tenant.
Proposals this window
8
Aug 17–28, 2026 (Pay Period 18)
Auto-approvable
3
no dollar or hours impact beyond neutral rounding
Payroll Manager sign-off
5
statutory premium, missing data, or policy exception
Agreement rate
87.5%
1 of 8 overridden
Why this is the proof point, not a black box
This mirrors Tioga's shadow-mode delivery standard: before any agent action is authorized to execute live, it runs for a defined window against real activity, proposing only — never executing — and cutover to live execution is gated on measured agreement between what the agent proposed and what a human reviewer actually decided during that window, not a calendar date. Below is that window's actual, logged outcome; toggle any card to see how the rate changes if a decision had gone the other way.
Exception
Late punch (6 min)
Proposed action
Apply standard rounding: treat the 8:06am punch as an 8:00am start.
Authorization basis
PC-2: Punch Rounding Rule (Payroll Cycle Control)
Reviewing role required
Auto-approvable — rounding within the ±7-minute grace window, no pay impact.
Statutory check (illustrative, not legal advice)
29 CFR § 785.48(b) — rounding practice must average out and not consistently favor the employer; a 6-minute round is within the policy's ±7-minute grace window.
Exception
Missed punch (no clock-out)
Proposed action
Flag for manager review to confirm the actual clock-out time before the timecard is finalized.
Authorization basis
PC-3: Missed Punch Resolution (Payroll Cycle Control)
Reviewing role required
Requires Payroll Manager sign-off — reconstructing missing hours is never auto-approvable.
Statutory check (illustrative, not legal advice)
29 CFR § 516.2 — employers must maintain an accurate record of hours worked; a missing punch can't be reconstructed by the agent alone.
Exception
Unapproved overtime (9.75h, no pre-approval on file)
Proposed action
Approve and pay the full 9.75 hours as worked, including 1.75h overtime; separately flag the missing pre-approval for manager follow-up.
Authorization basis
PC-4: Unauthorized Overtime Review (Payroll Cycle Control)
Reviewing role required
Requires Payroll Manager sign-off — pay-and-flag decisions on unauthorized OT are never auto-approvable.
Statutory check (illustrative, not legal advice)
29 U.S.C. § 207(a) (FLSA overtime) — overtime for hours actually worked over 40/week must be paid regardless of whether it was pre-authorized; lack of authorization is a policy matter, not a basis to withhold pay.
Exception
Missed meal break (CA, 6.2h shift, no break logged before hour 5)
Proposed action
Apply a one-hour meal-break premium at the employee's regular rate.
Authorization basis
PC-5: California Meal-Break Premium Assessment (Payroll Cycle Control)
Reviewing role required
Requires Payroll Manager sign-off — premium pay is always reviewed, never auto-approved.
Statutory check (illustrative, not legal advice)
Cal. Lab. Code § 226.7 / IWC Wage Order 4-2001 §11 — a missed, short, or late meal period on a shift over 5 hours triggers one additional hour of pay at the regular rate.
Exception
PTO request (8h, submitted before pay-period lock)
Proposed action
Approve the PTO request as-is; accrued balance covers the request.
Authorization basis
PC-6: PTO Balance Verification (Payroll Cycle Control)
Reviewing role required
Auto-approvable — balance sufficient, request submitted before the pay-period lock.
Statutory check (illustrative, not legal advice)
No FLSA or state wage-and-hour statute governs PTO accrual or usage — this is an internal accrual-balance check against company policy, not a statutory check.
Exception
California daily overtime (9.5h in one day)
Proposed action
Apply CA daily overtime premium (1.5x) to the 1.5 hours worked beyond the 8-hour daily threshold.
Authorization basis
PC-7: Daily Overtime Threshold Check (Payroll Cycle Control)
Reviewing role required
Requires Payroll Manager sign-off — statutory premium-pay calculations are always reviewed.
Statutory check (illustrative, not legal advice)
Cal. Lab. Code § 510 — California requires 1.5x pay for hours worked beyond 8 in a single day, independent of the 40-hour weekly FLSA threshold.
Exception
Duplicate punch (two clock-ins, 7:58am and 8:01am)
Proposed action
Correct to a single entry (7:58am), then apply standard rounding to 8:00am start.
Authorization basis
PC-8: Duplicate Punch Correction (Payroll Cycle Control)
Reviewing role required
Auto-approvable — no hours change, mechanical correction only.
Statutory check (illustrative, not legal advice)
29 CFR § 785.48(b) — same neutral-rounding standard as any other punch; no hours are added or removed by deduplicating.
Exception
Late punch beyond grace window (22 min, no advance notice on file)
Proposed action
Flag for manager review against the attendance policy rather than apply standard rounding.
Authorization basis
PC-9: Attendance Policy Escalation (Payroll Cycle Control)
Reviewing role required
Requires Payroll Manager sign-off — outside the auto-approvable rounding window.
Statutory check (illustrative, not legal advice)
Not a wage-and-hour statute — a 22-minute punch is outside the ±7-minute neutral-rounding window in PC-2, so this is an internal attendance-policy matter, not a rounding decision.
Reviewer override: Payroll Manager overrode the agent's escalation: the employee had texted a shift lead in advance about a delayed commute train (documented outside the timecard system). Manager approved standard rounding instead of an attendance-policy flag — a documented-notice exception the agent didn't have visibility into.
Underlying synthetic punch data
Invented roster and punches for 6 employees across 10 shift-days in Aug 17–28, 2026 (Pay Period 18). Every name, punch, and exception is synthetic and does not represent any real person or any real UKG tenant. Rows with a highlighted exception feed a proposal above.
| Employee | State | Date | Clock in | Clock out | Hours | Exception |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sarah Kim (E-101) | CA | 2026-08-18 | 08:06 | 16:00 | 7.9h | Late punch (6 min) |
| Sarah Kim (E-101) | CA | 2026-08-26 | 07:58 | 16:00 | 8h | Duplicate punch (two clock-ins, 7:58am and 8:01am) |
| Tom Reyes (E-102) | TX | 2026-08-19 | 08:00 | 16:00 | 8h | Missed punch (no clock-out) |
| Tom Reyes (E-102) | TX | 2026-08-27 | 08:22 | 16:00 | 7.6h | Late punch beyond grace window (22 min, no advance notice on file) |
| Angela Brooks (E-103) | CA | 2026-08-20 | 08:00 | 17:45 | 9.75h | Unapproved overtime (9.75h, no pre-approval on file) |
| Marcus Webb (E-104) | CA | 2026-08-21 | 08:00 | 14:12 | 6.2h | Missed meal break (CA, 6.2h shift, no break logged before hour 5) |
| Devon Price (E-105) | TX | 2026-08-24 | 08:00 | 16:00 | 8h | PTO request (8h, submitted before pay-period lock) |
| Linda Ostrowski (E-106) | CA | 2026-08-25 | 08:00 | 17:30 | 9.5h | California daily overtime (9.5h in one day) |
Shadow mode means exactly this: the agent proposes, it never executes, and every proposal is scored against what a human reviewer actually decided. The FLSA/state wage-and-hour rules cited above are real statutes and regulations, cited illustratively to show the class of check a timecard-exception agent should run against — this is not legal advice and not a substitute for counsel on any real pay decision. Everything on this page runs in your browser; nothing is sent to a server. 100% synthetic data — invented for this demo, not sourced from or connected to any real UKG tenant, sandbox, or export.
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