FLSA & Bonuses

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Mary Porter
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    Would like to get an idea of what other organizations do with regards to bonuses for FLSA. We were advised by a labor attorney to include signon, relocation, performance/profit sharing, and max pay bonuses in flsa calculations but I get the general impression that this is not what other organizations do. If anyone is willing to share how you have your bonuses setup we would appreciate it.
    Shelley C
    Basic Member
    Posts: 5
    Basic Member
      Generally if the bonus is discretionary you can exclude it from the weighted rate calculation. These would be bonuses that are actually at discretion and not paid because of a promise made, nor due to objective criteria, bonuses that are not routine.

      If the bonus is non-discretionary (such as it sounds like those mentioned above), payments that are part of an agreement, part of their compensation package, routine or based on objective criteria, you would need to include these payments in the FLSA calculations for non-exempt employees.

      I am not giving you legal advise of course, but I would trust your labor attorney.
      Art Cutler
      Basic Member
      Posts: 4
      Basic Member
        The bonus payments should be applied to the period in which it was earned. For instance if this is a quarterly bonus, you need to take the bonus and divide it evenly across the pay periods in the quarter. Lawson will then recalculate any overtime earned and include the overtime as part of the rate of pay when PR132 is run.
        Mary Porter
        Veteran Member
        Posts: 337
        Veteran Member
          We are splitting up the bonus over the prior year now but we notice on the employee paystub that the OT is showing up as multiple lines - one for each pay period that it calculated
          FLSA OT. Any ideas on how to force it to total into one line?
          Kelly H
          Veteran Member
          Posts: 167
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            Have any of you figured out to prorate the bonuses out over multiple weeks without manually figuring out and dividing it out?
            aphillips
            Advanced Member
            Posts: 25
            Advanced Member
              I would like to know the same thing. It is odd that they system wouldn't do that calculation. We haven't figured it out though.