Navigating the complexities of labor laws can be daunting (especially when the word “audit” is involved), but a break compliance audit doesn’t have to be difficult. All it takes is the right tools, a little preparation, and some time.

Keep reading for a checklist that can help simplify your US break law compliance audit process.

7 key steps in a meal and rest break audit checklist

US businesses need to comply with the Federal Labor Standards Act (FLSA) as well as any applicable state and local laws, which include giving employees mandated breaks for meals and other basic needs. A break compliance audit is a reliable way to determine whether your business is following these laws.

This checklist helps simplify the audit process and gives actionable guidelines to keep your business and its employees compliant with meal and rest break laws. Depending on your business, the steps to complete this checklist may vary.

1. Make sure you know the most recent laws

Identifying and understanding the most up-to-date labor laws isn’t always straightforward because the Department of Labor (DOL) doesn’t have an audit checklist of official standards for rest and meal breaks. In fact, no federal laws mandate meal or rest breaks for US workers. Instead, the DOL lets each state decide regulations regarding breaks — presenting a challenge for businesses with locations in more than one state.

What you can do is maintain a handy list of meal and rest break laws by state to refer to and regularly check the official websites of state labor departments for updates. The DOL also has free interactive tools for small businesses called elaws Advisors that provide customized, step-by-step guidance on DOL laws and regulations. Using this tool can help you determine the labor regulations you need to comply with.

Staying on top of these rules will help keep you in compliance between audits — and make conducting your regular audits easier.

2. Review your policies and compare them to current laws

Once you have all your legal information in place, compare current laws to your employment policies. These policies should include:

Meal and rest break schedules
Payroll policies (pay cycle, payday, etc.)
Overtime procedures

Throughout the audit, if you identify any areas of non-compliance, take steps to correct them. It’s wise to bring in an employment lawyer or HR professional to advise you. You should also look for trends in what led to non-compliance, such as poor record-keeping about when employees begin and end meal breaks or inadequate communication of rest break laws to new employees.

3. Review timekeeping records

Now it’s time to review your timekeeping records, which are any and all records of each employee’s work — meaning every minute, hour, day, week, and month they worked. Review each employee’s record and ensure they’ve had all the breaks they are entitled to under the laws of the state where they work.

Depending on the size of your business, this can seem like an impossible task, especially during an audit. This is why keeping your timekeeping records organized, accurate, and up to date is crucial during daily operations.

Upon review, if something seems wrong, talk to the employee or their manager to ascertain what’s happening. The confusion could just be a result of human error and easily corrected, or it could be caused by poor management and needs to be addressed once the audit is complete.

4. Identify gaps

Once you’ve collected and confirmed the information, identify any disparities between the schedule and what’s actually occurring. As you review the information, ask:

Are all employees taking the breaks they are entitled to regularly? If they aren’t, do you know why?
Are there any locations that struggle with scheduling or taking breaks more than others?
Do the timekeeping records accurately reflect what’s happening in that location?

You can also use this time as an opportunity to identify subtler problems that don’t directly affect break compliance, such as:

Are employees getting the hours they want?
Do you have a stable procedure in place for call-ins, or are the same employees covering and working more than they should?

5. Address discrepancies with employees at all levels

If you find disparities between regulations and real life, you must address them as soon as possible. This may require various strategies, such as:

Reminding all employees of the proper clock-in and clock-out procedures
Stressing the importance of accurate timekeeping to employees at all levels
Speaking to managers about why these meal and rest break compliance gaps are occurring
Hiring more people for locations where breaks have been skipped due to workload
Teaching managers how to incorporate breaks into work schedules more effectively

6. Ensure continual monitoring is taking place

While it isn’t technically part of the audit process, continual monitoring will make everything easier. Continual monitoring means spending time reviewing policies and timekeeping records during daily operations, not just when it’s time for an audit.

The right tool can make continuous monitoring easy by alerting you or individual managers about any potential problems with break scheduling, such as an employee missing their breaks consistently. You can also communicate with managers about how they follow scheduling procedures.

7. Schedule regular audit follow-ups

Break compliance audits need to happen regularly. Depending on your business, they may need to occur more than once a year. You should decide the frequency of internal audits to ensure constant compliance.

You can then make things easier by scheduling audits during slower periods, allowing ample time for a thorough review without the pressure of falling behind.

How to pick the right break compliance audit tools for your business

Compliance with the FLSA and state break laws is a serious matter. It’s vital that you use the right tools to monitor your compliance so you can catch problems as quickly as possible. But how do you know which tools are best for your business and its specific needs?

Consider these questions as you assess a tool or system that can help you with break compliance auditing:

Is it reliable? Does the tool have good reviews? Does it base its information on official sources? (For example, Deputy’s pay rule library is built on official government resources.) Is the customer service team set up to provide personalized service?
Is it scalable? If you plan to scale your business, is the audit tool able to grow with you? It’s frustrating to learn how software works and integrate it into your processes, only to have to switch to a new one.
Does it suit your industry’s unique needs? If your business runs on shift workers, that’s very different from salaried workers. You need tools that will help you schedule multiple employees while considering different skill sets and roles, minimizing overtime, and ensuring coverage in the case of last-minute call-outs.
Can it handle more than one location? Doing a compliance audit can be difficult if you have multiple locations, so is the tool going to make it easier? You want a tool that lets you handle multiple locations in one system.
Can it manage compliance laws for multiple states? Will it be able to adapt to each state’s compliance laws, or will you have to adjust it manually?
Is there any automation? Having automated tasks can make daily operations and scheduling easier. Options like automated break reminders can save you a lot of time and help every employee stay compliant with local laws.

Compliance audits don’t have to be exhausting

While there’s a lot of information to compile and organize, break compliance audits can be streamlined with enough preparation and the right tools.

Learn more about how Deputy can help you stay compliant during and between your break compliance audits.

Meal and Rest Break Compliance Audit Guide