This article applies to Motivity Practice Management. It walks you through setting up Custom Overtime, from preparing your locations to assigning overtime rules. You will learn how to turn the feature on, choose your pay frequency and workweek, create overtime rules, and assign those rules to your locations. With Custom Overtime, your payroll report reflects the overtime rules your organization actually follows.
Why This Matters
Before Custom Overtime, the payroll report applied the same California-based overtime rules to every organization: daily overtime after 8 hours, weekly overtime after 40 hours, a bi-weekly pay period, and a Sunday through Saturday workweek. Custom Overtime lets you set your own pay frequency, workweek, and named overtime rules, so your report reflects your organization's policies. That means fewer manual adjustments and better support for organizations that operate in more than one state.
Before You Begin
Important: Please enable Custom Overtime only when you can finish setup before your next payroll export. Once it is on, your payroll report uses your overtime rules right away.
A few helpful things to know:
Motivity is payroll-aware, but it is not a payroll system. It calculates overtime hours based on the rules you configure and does not replace your payroll software. It does not calculate pay rates or dollar amounts, and your organization is responsible for confirming that its configuration follows its own policies and applicable labor laws.
Custom Overtime currently supports standard overtime (Overtime 1) only. Double time, meal and rest break premiums, alternative workweek schedules such as 4x10, and blended regular rates are not supported.
Changes apply going forward only. Payroll exports you have already generated are not recalculated.
Who Can Set Up Custom Overtime
Administrators with the right access levels can set up Custom Overtime. SuperAdmin has full access by default.
Access Level | What It Allows |
View Payroll Settings | Read-only access to Payroll Settings. |
View/Edit Payroll Settings | Everything in View, plus adding, editing, activating, inactivating, and deleting overtime rules, within the rules described below. |
Payroll Settings Timeline (View) | Access to the Payroll Settings Timeline. This is granted separately from the levels above. |
Assign Rules (View, Add, Edit) | Access to the Assign Rules screen. Users with View access see the table with all controls turned off. |
Provider-level payroll access levels are covered in the article on managing provider overtime eligibility and overrides.
Setup at a Glance
Setting up in this order helps make sure no location or provider is left without a rule.
Assign primary locations to your providers.
Plan your setup.
Turn on Custom Payroll Settings.
Choose your pay frequency and workweek.
Add your overtime rules.
Assign rules to your locations.
Add provider overrides, if needed.
Turn off overtime eligibility for providers who are not eligible.
The sections below explain each step.
Step 1: Assign Primary Locations
Providers automatically inherit the overtime rule from their primary location, so assigning primary locations first saves you setup time later.
Run the Providers Locations Report from the Reports module.
Look at the Primary column. Providers showing FALSE do not have a primary location.
Assign a primary location to as many providers as you can. For steps, see the Employment Info article.
Helpful tip: A provider with no primary location does not inherit a rule. You can still cover that provider with an override in Step 7.
Step 2: Plan Your Setup
A little planning makes the rest of setup go smoothly. Before turning the feature on, decide:
Which overtime rule each location will use.
Which providers need a different rule than their location.
Which providers are not eligible for overtime.
Step 3: Turn On Custom Payroll Settings
Go to Admin Settings > Payroll Settings > Global Settings.
Turn on Custom Payroll Settings.
Confirm when prompted.
This toggle is off by default and controls the whole feature. While it is off, payroll exports use Motivity's default overtime rules. While it is on, Pay Frequency, Workweek, and overtime rules can be configured, and exports use your organization's rules. Turning it on or off always asks for confirmation.
Please turn it on only after Steps 1 and 2 are done, since the payroll report uses your rules right away.
Step 4: Choose Your Pay Frequency and Workweek
Both settings are in Global Settings. Nothing is preselected, so you will need to choose each one.
Under Pay Frequency, choose Weekly, Bi-Weekly, or Semi-Monthly.
If you choose Semi-Monthly, enter the start and end days for each of the two pay periods. The end day can be "Last Day of the Month." Days cannot overlap within or across the two pay periods.
Under Workweek, choose the 7-day span your organization uses. You can choose any of the seven spans, from Sunday through Saturday to Saturday through Friday.
Review the warnings, confirm them, and select Save.
What these settings do
Workweek sets the 7-day period Motivity uses to calculate overtime. Overtime is always calculated by workweek, regardless of your pay period or the dates you export.
Weekly or Bi-Weekly pay frequency: No lookback is needed.
Semi-Monthly pay frequency: When a workweek spans two pay periods, Motivity flags the split week so your payroll team can make any overtime adjustments.
Pay frequency does not limit the dates you can export. We recommend exporting by your pay frequency, except when you are auditing.
Note: You can change your Workweek after your initial configuration is saved, unless a provider overtime override with an existing effective date has been added.
Step 5: Add Overtime Rules
Overtime rules define when hours count as overtime. You can create as many named rules as you need, such as one for each state.
Before you start: Rules cannot be created until Custom Payroll Settings is on and both Pay Frequency and Workweek have been saved.
Go to Admin Settings > Payroll Settings > Overtime Rules.
Select Add Overtime Rule.
Enter a unique Rule Name.
Enter the overtime criteria and thresholds. You can use any combination of these four:
Daily: hours in a day above the threshold.
Weekly: hours in a workweek above the threshold.
Consecutive Hours: hours in one unbroken work period after the threshold, including work that crosses midnight.
Consecutive Days: hours on a set consecutive day of the workweek, such as the 7th day, after a threshold you choose. A threshold of 0 makes every hour on that day overtime.
Optionally, add a Code and a Description. Using the Description to note which state or location the rule is for can be very helpful later.
Review the message that appears before you save, then select Save. New rules save as Active.
To see how these thresholds work together in a payroll export, see the article on how overtime is calculated.
The Overtime Rules Table
The table shows each rule's name and code, description, overtime thresholds, the number of locations and providers using it, status, and available actions. Only Active rules appear by default. Turn on Include Inactive to see the rest. Hover over the Locations or Providers count to see an A to Z list.
Good to Know About Rules
Rule names must be unique. Different rules can share the same thresholds, as long as their names are different.
You can edit a rule's Name, Code, and Description at any time.
Thresholds lock permanently once a rule is assigned to a location, even if the rule is later inactivated. If you need different thresholds, create a new rule and reassign the locations.
A rule assigned to active locations cannot be deleted.
Please review your thresholds carefully before saving. The message before saving reminds you that they lock once the rule is assigned.
Inactivating a rule is permanent. An inactive rule cannot be reactivated. If the rule is assigned to locations or providers, you will be asked to confirm, and the message shows how many locations and providers will be affected. When you confirm:
The rule stops applying to all of them at once.
Their assignments show as Inactive.
The rule stays visible under Include Inactive for audit purposes.
No replacement rule is assigned for you. To recover, assign the locations to another active rule or create a new one.
Helpful tip: Whenever possible, create a new rule instead of changing or inactivating an existing one.
Step 6: Assign Rules to Locations
Once your rules exist, assign them to locations on the Assign Rules screen. It shows which locations are covered, which still need a rule, and which are using a rule that has since been inactivated.
Go to Admin Settings > Payroll Settings > Assign Rules.
Review the table. It shows the State, Location, City, and Overtime Rule for each Active location.
Assign rules using one of the two methods below.
To assign rules in bulk
Select Assign Overtime Rule.
Choose the rule.
Optionally, filter by State. This is a quick way to assign a rule to every location in one state.
Select the locations and confirm. Only locations without a rule are listed.
To assign or change a single location
Find the location in the table.
Use the dropdown in its Overtime Rule column.
The change saves right away.
Reading the Table
Row Appearance | What It Means |
White row | An active rule is assigned. |
Light red row, with Add Rule in red | No rule is assigned. |
Light red row, with the rule name and a red Inactive label | The location is assigned to an inactive rule. |
Finding Locations That Need Attention
The Needs Attention indicator shows how many active locations have no rule or an inactive rule. Select it to filter the table to those locations. It disappears when every location is covered.
You can also use the Show Unassigned Only and Show Assigned to Inactive Rule Only filters, or the multi-select filters for State, Location, and Overtime Rule.
Filters stay in place for your session. Select Clear to reset them. You can also sort by any column.
Good to Know About Assignments
Each location has one rule. Selecting a different rule replaces the current one.
Assignment is always manual. A new location does not inherit a rule from its state or from other locations, and locations in the same state can use different rules.
Only Active rules can be selected.
A new active location appears in the table automatically with no rule assigned. Because no rules were assigned before this feature, every active location starts as unassigned until you assign a rule.
If a location's state changes in its profile, it moves to the new state in the table, but its rule stays the same until you reassign it.
If a location becomes inactive or terminated, it no longer appears in Assign Rules. Its last rule stays visible, read-only, in its Location Profile for audit purposes.
Assignments take effect immediately and apply going forward only. Exports that were already generated are not recalculated.
When Custom Payroll Settings is turned off, the Assign Rules screen cannot be changed.
There is no hard block on generating an export for locations without a valid rule, so please resolve these before running payroll.
Where You Will See Assignments
Location Profile: A read-only Overtime Rule Assignment field shows the current rule and its status.
Office Location list: An Overtime Rule column, between Since and Status, shows the rule name, or Not Assigned in red.
Assignments can only be changed in Assign Rules. The Location Profile and the Office Location list are for viewing only, and Location Profile edit access does not grant permission to assign rules.
Helpful tip: After setup, open Assign Rules first and work through Needs Attention. If you later inactivate a rule, reassign its locations right away so payroll does not run with an inactive rule.
Step 7: Add Provider Overrides (As Needed)
Most providers will use the rule from their primary location. If a provider needs a different rule, or has no primary location, an administrator can set an Override Overtime Rule in the provider's profile under Payroll Settings. Use overrides for genuine exceptions, since a location-level rule is easier to maintain.
For full steps, see the article on managing provider overtime eligibility and overrides.
Step 8: Turn Off Overtime for Providers Who Are Not Eligible
Overtime eligibility is on by default for every provider. Use the Provider Eligibility screen in Admin Settings > Payroll Settings to find providers who should not be eligible, then turn eligibility off in each provider's profile.
For full steps, see the article on managing provider overtime eligibility and overrides.
Reviewing Changes with the Timeline
The Payroll Settings Timeline is a read-only record of configuration changes. It shows the section, change category, description, user, date and time, and the previous and new values where they apply. You can filter it by change category.
Rule changes, location assignments, location lifecycle events, and rule inactivations are all recorded. No one can edit or delete Timeline entries, including SuperAdmin. Access to the Timeline is granted separately from Payroll Settings access.
After Setup
Compare a sample pay period against your payroll records and adjust your configuration if needed. Your overtime hours may differ from earlier reports, because the report now follows your rules instead of the California-based defaults.
Before running payroll, check the Alerts column on the payroll export Summary tab. It flags providers who may need review.
If something doesn't look the way you expected, see the Custom Overtime FAQ and Troubleshooting article.
Last Updated: 11/13/26 by Tatum Winslow