California labor compliance

Build the record before you need it.

Crewhour gives California employers minute-by-minute meal-and-break compliance and an immutable audit trail — every punch captured as it happens, nothing edited after the fact. When a question comes, you're holding the record, not rebuilding it.

GM
Geoffrey Mululu
MECHANIC · TURLOCK
Tue, May 5
2026
Approved
07:02 AM Clock in Kiosk · Yard
11:47 AM Lunch start Mobile
12:20 PM Lunch end Mobile
03:50 PM Clock out Kiosk · Yard
8.25
Hours
8.0
Regular
0.25
Overtime
0
Violations
Break & timecard attestation signed at 3:51 PM
Built for
Fleet & logistics Field service Manufacturing Hospitality

Most time tracking was built for scheduling. Yours needs to survive an audit.

01

Meal & break premiums are class-action gold

California's meal and rest break rules generate more wage-and-hour litigation than any other category. A single missed attestation can mean one hour of premium pay per day, per employee, going back years.

02

Generic time apps don't model your workforce

Drivers run on weekly 40-hour OT. Mechanics and office staff run on daily 8/12-hour OT. Off-the-shelf clocks treat them the same — and your payroll quietly bleeds.

03

Editable punches are the exposure you didn't see coming

If a manager can edit yesterday's clock-in, so can an attorney's hypothetical. Most legacy systems mutate records in place. You can't prove what you can't preserve.

Built from the labor code backwards.

01 / Compliance

California rules, native to the engine

Meal premiums, 5th & 10th-hour thresholds, rest-break attestations, daily & weekly OT — modeled, calculated, and recorded the way the labor code reads. Not bolted on as an afterthought.

02 / Surface

Kiosk, mobile, web — one timecard

Field workers punch from the truck. Office staff punch from the browser. Yard kiosks handle the rest. Device-level restrictions enforce policy — lunch from mobile only, clock-in from the yard kiosk. One source of truth.

03 / Audit

Append-only by design

Original punches never change. Every adjustment is a new event with the manager, the timestamp, the reason, and the approval chain attached. When the demand letter arrives, you hand over the log.

How a compliant day gets proven, step by step.

This is the actual flow a field worker and their manager walk every day — each step leaves a hash-chained record behind it.

Step 1 · Punch

Clock in at the kiosk or phone

PIN at the shared yard kiosk — with an evidence photo captured at the punch — or the mobile app behind the device biometric.

07:02 AM · PIN accepted
photo captured · hash-chained
Step 2 · Warn

Reminder before the violation

The worker's phone reminds them before the 5th hour so the meal break actually happens — the cheapest violation is the one that doesn't.

11:32 AM · meal reminder shown
on-device · 28 min to threshold
Step 3 · Attest

End-of-day attestation

The worker certifies breaks and hours using the verbatim statutory text — versioned and hashed, so the exact words they agreed to are provable later.

03:51 PM · attested v3
text hash recorded
Step 4 · Attribute

Premium with a cause

A missed meal asks who caused it. Company-caused books the §226.7 hour at that day's regular rate; a documented employee choice is captured as evidence, not silently zeroed.

04:22 PM · §226.7 booked 1.0 hr
cause: company · rate frozen
Step 5 · Prove

Close gate, then the receipts

Pay-period close is blocked until the wage-statement checks pass. One click exports the records, the chain proof, and a prefilled custodian declaration.

period closed · §226 checks green
export bundle ready
SHA-256 hash chain per record Append-only at the database schema level Daily write-once anchor (S3 Object Lock) Regulator export with chain proof How the evidence layer works →
Status that everyone reads the same way

Four colors. One shared vocabulary.

Every day, every employee, every timecard reduces to one of four states. Managers, payroll, HR, and the employee themselves see the same color at the same time.

  • Green — approved and clean.
  • Yellow — pending approval.
  • Red — needs correction.
  • Blue — approved with meal violation, premium owed.
Green Approved & compliant 142 days
Yellow Pending manager approval 8 days
Red Needs correction 3 days
Blue Approved · meal premium owed 2 days
Multi-source by default

Where the work happens — that's where the punch happens.

Your workforce isn't sitting at desks. Crewhour meets them on the kiosk in the yard, the phone in their pocket, the browser at the front desk. Device and punch-source restrictions keep policy enforced without slowing anyone down.

  • Kiosk with PIN auth and photo capture for shared-device workflows.
  • Mobile punch-in for field crews, gated behind the device biometric.
  • Web for admin punches, adjustments, and approvals.
  • Source rules per punch type and per device — enforced at the clock, recorded as evidence.
Kiosk 64%
Mobile 28%
Web 8%
California meal & rest breaks

The break rules, enforced at the clock.

California's meal-and-rest rules drive more wage-and-hour exposure than any other category. Crewhour catches the problems the moment they happen — at punch time, on the worker's phone — not weeks later in a payroll review.

  • A late lunch can't slip through — a meal started after the 5th hour is held until the worker records why, so nothing goes unattested.
  • Short lunches get caught — a sub-30-minute meal triggers an on-the-spot attestation, not a payroll surprise.
  • 5th, 10th & 15th-hour thresholds modeled by hours actually worked.
  • The §226.7 premium is recorded, not guessed — booked at the regular rate in effect that day once a manager confirms the cause.
  • On-duty meal agreements (§512(a)) paid and counted as hours worked, with digital assent and revoke.
12:14 PM Lunch start · mobile · 5h 12m into shift
12:14 PM Late-meal attestation required · punch held
12:15 PM Worker attested · "Out on a service call"
04:22 PM §226.7 premium booked · 1.0 hr · company-caused
Audit grade, not just audit-able

The receipts are the system.

Every punch is an event. Adjustments are new events. Approvals are new events. Nothing gets edited; everything gets appended. The full chain — who, when, where, why — sits one query away from any investigator, attorney, or curious employee.

  • Tamper-evident records — every event is cryptographically hash-chained, so any edit to history is detectable.
  • Immutable event log per employee, per day.
  • Same-day adjustment window with manager + HR approval routing.
  • HR-locked fields for meal violation reasons — managers can't paper over them.
  • One-click regulator export — a DOL / CA-DLSE record bundle (PDF or CSV): the records, the hash-chain proof, and a prefilled custodian declaration ready for signature.
07:02 AM Clock-in recorded · kiosk #4 · device verified
12:14 PM Lunch start · mobile
03:32 PM Clock-out recorded · kiosk #4
03:48 PM Adjustment submitted by employee · +6 min
04:22 PM Approved by M. Lopez (Supervisor)
04:22 PM Status projected to GREEN

The labor code, operationalized.

The full list of California-specific rules and workflows Crewhour models out of the box. Not features — table stakes.

Meal

30-minute meal break enforcement

Tracks duration, blocks early returns, flags shortfall as violation.

Meal

5th, 10th & 15th-hour thresholds

Second and third meal break requirements modeled by daily hours worked.

Premium

Meal violation premium pay

One hour §226.7 premium, recorded at the regular rate in effect that day once a manager confirms the cause.

Meal

On-duty meal agreements

Paid, on-duty meals under a signed agreement — captured and counted as hours worked, not deducted. Digital assent or recorded paper, with revoke.

Rest

Rest break attestation

End-of-shift confirmation flow with verbatim statutory language.

Attest

Daily timecard attestation

Employee certifies the day's record using the legally required text.

OT

Driver OT — weekly 40 hours

Correct overtime model for DOT-regulated drivers, separate from non-drivers.

OT

Non-driver OT — daily 8 & 12

1.5× after 8 hours daily, 2× after 12, plus the standard weekly 40 rule.

Notice

30-minute meal violation warning

On-device reminder on the worker's phone before a violation would occur. Most preventable failure mode.

Short

Sub-4-hour shift flagging

Reporting-time pay scenarios surfaced before they hit payroll.

§226

Wage-statement readiness check

Flags missing itemized wage-statement items before a pay period closes — the penalty §226 multiplies per employee, per period.

Put a number on the exposure.

Meal-break claims are priced by statute: one hour of premium pay per employee, per violation day, with a multi-year lookback — plus PAGA penalties stacked per pay period. Adjust the sliders to your crew.

8% of shifts — many employers can't prove the real number, which is the problem
§226.7 premium exposure per year
1 hr × regular rate × violation days
$—
Three-year class lookback
the number a demand letter opens with
$—
PAGA layer, up to
$100 per employee per pay period, 1-yr period
$—
Same PAGA layer, capped at 15%
when you can prove "all reasonable steps" — that proof is what defensible records buy
$—

Illustrative estimate, not legal advice. Assumes ~250 workdays/year and biweekly pay periods; actual exposure depends on facts, defenses, waivers, and court discretion. Statutory basis: Cal. Lab. Code §226.7 (meal/rest premium), §2699 as amended 2024 (PAGA penalties; 15% cap for employers who took all reasonable steps toward compliance before receiving a notice). Wage-statement penalties (§226) and attorney's fees come on top.

Early access
opens Q3 2026.

We're working closely with our first cohort of California employers across fleet, manufacturing, and field service. Reserve your spot.

Cohort spots are limited. We'll be in touch.