Patent ID: 7233919

Claim:
A method of automatically calculating an employee's compensation, comprising, in a processor: associating sets of attributes with pay categories; associating a compensation qualifier with each pay category; collecting information corresponding to identified transactions, the identified transactions including punch information; forming one or more completed shifts, responsive to the identified transactions and the employee's schedule, each of the completed shifts corresponding to at least one scheduled period of work; splitting the employee's shifts into a plurality of sub-shifts, responsive to work parameters, each of the plurality of sub-shifts corresponding to at least one scheduled sub-period of work, wherein the punch information includes information relating to actual times when at least one of the completed shifts begins and finishes, actual times when each sub-shift within the at least one completed shift begins and finishes, and actual times when the employee changes work assignments during the at least one completed shift, each work assignment corresponding to at least one respective sub-shift within the at least one completed shift; and for each sub-shift, determining a set of attributes for the sub-shift, determining a pay category with which the set of attributes is associated, assigning the pay category to the sub-shift, and determining compensation for the employee for the sub-shift, responsive to the assigned pay category, the employee's base pay and a compensation qualifier associated with the pay category, thereby allowing compensation to be determined for the employee who begins and finishes work at different times during the at least one completed shift, and who has different work assignments during different sub-shifts within the at least one completed shift.