New: Time Card Adjustments Update
We’re excited to introduce a major enhancement to how time card adjustments are handled in Empeon, making the process more intuitive, transparent, and payroll-ready. Previously, correcting a closed time card often meant voiding out the original set of punches in order to re-enter the correct set of punches. Now, users can simply reopen a closed time card and make the necessary adjustments just as they would on a current time card, with a new Reopen button available when viewing the card.
Selecting this option prompts the user to choose either Exclude from payroll or Send changes to payroll.
Upon reopening, the system requires a reason for the edit and issues a warning that current allocation data will be applied, overwriting historical allocations. To preserve history, we recommend downloading the time card before making edits. If needed, allocations can still be manually overridden so adjustments are paid to a different cost center or department.
All edits are tracked in a new Adjustments tab under View Details, labeled either Ready to send to payroll or Excluded from payroll depending on the selection made during reopening. Hovering over the tag reveals the reason that was provided. Once they are sent to payroll, they will now be labeled Sent to Payroll.
To finalize changes and make them eligible for payroll submission, users must Save Timecard and Close Timecard in order to send the adjustment to payroll. Once closed, the time card becomes read-only, and a new Reopen button will appear.
Please note that Company Admins and above have access to this feature. For Custom Roles, the "Adjust closed timecard" Role permission must be enabled.
Lastly, with this update, voiding punches will no longer be an option, as all corrections should now flow through this improved adjustment process ensuring cleaner records, better audit trails, and a direct flow of approved adjustments into payroll.
Processing Adjustments in Payroll
When adjustments are sent to payroll, they will be included in the regular payroll batch. During payroll processing, a new step called Timecard Adj. will appear as the third step within the payroll batch workflow. This step allows you to review and choose which time card adjustments to apply to the payroll currently being processed.
Since time card adjustments can include negative amounts, it is important to ensure that the affected employee will still have a positive net check to offset any negative adjustments being applied. If the negative adjustments would result in a zero or negative check, we recommend holding those adjustments and applying them in the next payroll when the employee is being paid.
Any adjustments not applied before the payroll batch is closed will automatically carry forward to the next payroll cycle. If adjustments are available but have not been applied, the system will display a warning message when verifying and closing the batch, giving you the opportunity to return to the Timecard Adj. step and decide whether to include them before finalizing the payroll.
New: Bonus Request & Approval
We’re thrilled to announce a major enhancement that gives managers a simple, built-in way to request employee bonuses directly within Empeon Time & Attendance. Until now, bonus payments had to be managed outside of the timecard workflow, creating manual work and extra steps for both managers and payroll teams. With this release, bonus requests can be submitted directly from an employee’s timecard, reviewed and approved through Requests Dashboard, and then automatically reflected back on the timecard for inclusion in payroll.
Bonus Request Setup
When this request type is enabled within Empeon's Request & Approvals feature, configuration focuses on selecting which bonus categories can be requested. Several predefined categories are available such as Pickup, Referral, Sign-On, Incentive and Attendance, each of which must be linked to an earning code if activated. As part of the request for any category, Administrators can also require an attachment, such as a signed approval form, to be submitted when making a Bonus request. In addition to the predefined options, Custom bonus types can also be created with a unique name, earning code, and attachment setting as well. For convenience, an Enable all bonus types toggle is available to activate every category at once.
Once categories are set, the workflow follows the standard Requests & Approvals setup, where an assignee is designated to review and approve submitted requests.
Requesting a Bonus
Users with access to this new feature can now submit a bonus request directly from the employee's time card. The existing "Time Off Request" button is now a "Request" dropdown, where users can select from either Time-Off Request or Bonus Request.
By selecting "Bonus", a window will appear prompting for the user to enter details surrounding the bonus request such as the Bonus Type, Date, Amount and Comment. Supporting documentation can also be uploaded if required as well.
Requests can only be submitted for dates within the active timecard period, and once submitted, the timecard will display a notice that “Changes are pending approval” for the day the bonus was requested.
Approving a Bonus Request
For users established as the assignee for these requests, details surrounding the bonus can be viewed from the Requests Dashboard. Select the "View request details" button to view insights surrounding the bonus request. Assignees can approve or deny requests and add comments as needed.
Additional Considerations
System Behavior & Payroll Integration
Once approved, the bonus is automatically added to the employee’s timecard and displayed within the Show details section of the time card. A column for "Comment" can be added using the Column Chooser in order to confirm the bonus type that was applied.
Once a bonus is approved, it cannot be edited. It can be deleted if needed, and deleted requests remain visible in the Approved Requests history for audit tracking. If a request is approved after a pay period is closed, the bonus automatically carries forward and is applied to the next open period.
Additional Role Permissions
While all company admins and higher will always have the ability to request and approve bonus requests, users with custom roles must have the Request Bonus permission enabled to submit a request, and the Approve Bonus permission enabled to review and approve bonus requests.
Notifications
The system also includes automated email notifications to keep everyone informed. Approvers receive an email when a new bonus request is submitted, including employee details, bonus type, comments, and a link to the request. Requesters are notified when their request is approved (with bonus type and comments included) or denied.
Automatic Clock Sync for Rehired Employees
We’re excited to announce a major improvement that eliminates one of the biggest pain points for clients having to call Empeon Support every time an employee was rehired. Until now, when an employee was terminated, the system correctly removed them from the time clock to block future punches. But if that employee was later rehired, the platform did not automatically add them back. This created delays, missed punches, and required support intervention to resolve.
With this release, Empeon now automatically syncs rehires back to the clock, saving time and ensuring a seamless experience. If an employee is rehired with a rehire date of today or earlier, they are immediately sent back to the clock. If their rehire date is in the future, the system will automatically sync them at midnight on the effective date. And if a future-dated rehire is cancelled before the effective date, the system ensures the employee is not re-added.
This enhancement removes the need for support calls, prevents missed punches, and ensures employees are always ready to clock in on their first day back, completely hassle-free.
Please note that employees who were placed in a Rehire status prior to this release (9/1) will still need to be manually resynced. Employees place into a Rehire status after 9/1 will automatically be resynced with the time clock.
To manually resync an employee, simply navigate to their Employee Profile, go their the Attendance section and then within the Clock Settings Card, edit and save with no changes. This will refresh the time clock accordingly. For any additional questions, please contact Empeon Customer Support.
Extended Access to Historical Timecards
We’ve expanded the visibility of historical employee timecards to give clients broader access to past records. Previously, timecards could only be reviewed for up to one year, which limited the ability to reference older data when researching past payrolls, audits, or employee history.
With this update, clients can now view timecards beyond the one-year limit, providing a more complete record of employee work history and simplifying long-term reporting and compliance needs. This enhancement delivers greater flexibility, reduces reliance on support requests for older data, and ensures that key information is always just a few clicks away.
New: Direct Care Classification for Positions
A new Direct Care toggle has been added to Positions within Job Info offering a way to classify whether the position is direct care staff or not. This classification allows organizations to separate direct care roles from other positions, creating a foundation for more precise reporting, filtering, and scheduling.
The immediate impact of this new feature is with regard to Position Groups in Empeon’s Advanced Scheduling module. There is now a Direct Care toggle within the settings of a Position Group, serving as a filter for the positions that can be assigned to it. When toggled on, only positions that have been marked as Direct Care can be assigned to the Position Group.
Additionally, both schedule views now include a Position filter that allows filtering by All Positions, Direct Care, or Non-Direct Care. This filter is only applicable when viewing the entire schedule rather than within a specific Position Group tab.
When viewing all positions, a dropdown becomes available to choose specific positions to apply as filters within the schedule. Selecting Direct care or Non-direct care instead, filters the schedule by position based on whether it is a Direct Care position or not.
This new classification of Positions as direct care or non-direct care is an exciting feature that will begin to serve as a key filter across other areas of the system.
Advanced Scheduling Enhancements
Replace Shift Enhancement
Previously, when replacing an assigned shift, the system would display all available shifts as options for replacement, regardless of the Position Group. With this enhancement, the Replace Shift option now only shows shifts that are applicable for the employee based on their assigned Position Group.
If no applicable shifts are available for the selected position, the system will display a message indicating “No available shifts for this position.” This improvement aligns shift replacement behavior with the same process for how a shift is manually assigned, making it easier for schedulers to replace shifts efficiently and accurately.
Improved Employee Visibility in Daily View
When searching for an employee in Daily View, the schedule now clearly indicates which shifts the employee is actually assigned to. With this enhancement, shifts that the employee is assigned will appear more focused and with their name listed. Shifts that are not assigned will appear slightly greyed out.
When there are multiple employees that populate, they will be displayed separated by comma, ordered by best match and then alphabetically. The number of results found is displayed above the shift table, and the employee’s avatar is highlighted to make it easier to quickly identify their assignments. This behavior applies consistently in both single-day and multi-day views, improving clarity and usability when managing schedules in Daily View.
Daily Schedule Report – New Display Options
The Daily Schedule report has been enhanced with new configuration options. Users can now choose to display Quick Notes and Work Categories directly on the report.
When enabled, these settings add dedicated columns for Quick Notes and Work Categories, improving visibility of additional scheduling details.
Shift Category Filter in Employee View
The Employee View now includes a functional Shift Category filter, allowing users to focus on specific shift types such as day, evening, or night. When a category is selected, the schedule displays only employees who have shifts assigned in that shift type, along with the corresponding open shifts for the selected category.
Existing filters, including Floor, Position, and Department, continue to apply consistently to both the employee and open shift tables. This enhancement makes it easier to quickly see which employees are scheduled for a particular shift type and manage staffing more efficiently.
Show Shift Code and Description
Schedulers now have the option to display Shift Codes and Shift Descriptions directly on shift cards, making it easier to distinguish between shifts that share the same time and position parameters. These options are available in the “Customize View” settings for both Employee View and Daily View.
When enabled, the Shift Code and/or Shift Description will appear on open shifts in the available shifts bar as well as on shifts already assigned to employees. Long descriptions will wrap to multiple lines as needed. This enhancement is particularly useful in cases where multiple positions within a group share the same schedule, ensuring that each shift is clearly identifiable.
New: Shift Grace Window for Clock-Ins and Clock-Outs
To give clients more flexibility and accuracy in managing employee shifts, we’ve added a new Shift Grace Window setting to Time & Attendance. This feature allows admins to define a grace period for early clock-ins or late clock-outs so that small variances around a shift start or end are still counted toward the intended workday.
This new setting works in conjunction with what has been defined as the "New Day Start" time set up within the system.
In this example, the New Day Start time is set to 7:00 AM for the current day. If nothing was entered within the Shift Grace Window, then any punch made before 7:00 AM would be recorded for the previous day since it occurred before the New Day Start time.
However, now with this addition of the Shift Grace Window, we can establish a grace period for how punches made before the New Day Start time should be applied on the time card. For example, if the Shift Grace Window is set to 15 minutes, an employee clocking in at 6:45 AM for a 7:00 AM shift will have that punch counted as part of the current day (not the previous day). Similarly, if an employee clocks out at 7:15 AM after a shift ending at 7:00 AM, the time will still count toward the previous day rather than the current one.
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This enhancement helps avoid unnecessary splits in time cards, reduces manual corrections, and ensures payroll and attendance data more closely reflects the reality of employee work schedules.
AI-Powered Document Reader Enhancements
In our June 2025 release, we introduced a major enhancement that leveraged AI to scan uploaded licenses and certificates, extract key information, and automatically populate it in Empeon Workforce. This same AI-powered document reader technology has now been added to additional areas of the system:
Reimbursement Receipts
For ESS reimbursement requests that require the upload of a receipt, the process for employees now begins with uploading the receipt, allowing the AI document reader to scan it. The scan identifies two key details: the Amount and the Date Incurred, and automatically populates these fields in the request. The employee then only needs to add a comment before submitting the request.
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This enhancement currently supports only receipts. Mileage logs submitted with Mileage requests are not yet compatible with the AI document reader and must still be completed manually.
Employee Onboarding - Driver's License Upload
Onboarding templates now include fields to require new hires to upload a copy of their driver’s license. Employers can designate whether a front and back image is needed, and employees can either upload files or capture photos directly from a mobile device.
Upon upload, the system uses AI recognition to prefill key license details, including license class, issuing state, issue date, expiration date, and license number, reducing manual data entry. Uploaded documents are tied to the Driver’s License card in the employee profile and remain accessible after the onboarding process is approved.
E-Verify Dashboard - Duplicate Case Management Update
Last month we introduced a new E-Verify Dashboard designed to simplify case management and visibility. This update builds on that release by improving how duplicate cases are handled. When a duplicate case is detected, users can now review details of those cases directly in Empeon, close them with a valid closure reason, and then provide a “duplicate continue” reason to move forward with the current case. These improvements streamline E-Verify workflows and reduce the risk of errors or delays when duplicate cases are found.
Approve Payroll Audits Permission
A new permission is available to control which users can approve payroll audits. This permission, Approve Audits, appears under Roles > Actions > Payroll, between Access Payroll and Submit Payroll. It is automatically enabled for any role that already has Access Payroll turned on.
When Approve Audits is disabled, users with that role can review payroll audits but the Approve button is unavailable. Company Admins and higher-level roles continue to have full access to approve audits regardless of this setting. This update gives organizations more flexibility when assigning payroll responsibilities to users with custom roles.
HR Reviews Update
Previously, HR reviews displayed in ascending order, with the oldest review at the top and the most recent review at the bottom of the list. This made it harder for users to quickly access the latest activity. The update reverses the order so the newest review appears first, improving usability and making recent reviews easier to find.
Year-End ACA Enhancement
In Org Portal > Year-End > ACA Processing > Preview & Verify, the Filing Form column has been removed to simplify the view and reduce confusion for clients.
Bug Fixes
- Fixed: There were reported instances where the Address 1 & 2 field did not populate during the preview of a digitized document with this field applied. This has now been fixed.
- Fixed: There were reported cases within Employee View where the budget would display incorrectly when filtered to HPPD. This has now been fixed.
- Fixed: Previously, in the Daily View of the schedule, if an employee was terminated, all schedules before their termination date displayed as "No Access." This has now been fixed.
- Fixed: There were some reported cases where the Schedule Clock Lockout feature did not work as intended, causing employees to be blocked from clocking in or out at the correct times. This has now been fixed.
- Fixed: At times, the Address field would not auto-populate when adding a new employee. This has now been fixed.
- Fixed: Previously, documents attached to a Rate Change Request were only viewable by company admins or higher. This has now been fixed so that all users with permission to Review Rate Change requests can see submitted documents.
- Fixed: There were some reported cases where the Viewed/Acknowledge window would not load for an active ESS Announcement. This has now been fixed.
- Fixed: For users accessing the ESS app on Android devices, there were reports of the app interface covering the device toolbar. This issue has now been fixed.
- Fixed: Previously, the Managed By section of the employee profile would appear blank if the assigned manager was placed on leave. This issue has now been fixed to display the assigned manager even if they are on leave or have been terminated.
- Fixed: There were reported cases where employee notes were unable to be viewed or created in payroll. This has now been fixed.
- Fixed: There were instances where General Ledger Configuration would error out if a tax code is referenced multiple times within its setup. This has now been fixed.
- Fixed: There were some instances when editing a Shift Schedule Pattern where the correct start and end dates were not applied to the old and new records. This has now been fixed.