The difference between Scheduled and Enforced Breaks

Updated April 18, 2025 17:06

When it comes to setting up employee breaks in 7shifts, it's important to understand the difference between Scheduled Breaks and Enforced Breaks. This helps ensure your break setup aligns with your team’s needs and any applicable labor rules.

Scheduled Breaks are added directly to a shift during scheduling. They act as visual cues but aren’t enforced. Employees can technically work through them unless you're using Time Clocking settings with Auto-breaks enabled.

Enforced Breaks, on the other hand, are part of 7punches and trigger automatically based on shift length. These are only possible when:

The employee is working a scheduled shift
The break is marked as Enforced in your break settings

If enforced, employees must take their break and won’t be able to punch back in early.

Scheduled Breaks	Enforced Breaks
Added to a shift manually by Admins or Managers during scheduling	Automatically applied based on rules set under Time Clocking > Breaks
Act as visual cues on the Schedule for when breaks should be taken	Require employees to take the break, with enforcement triggered by 7punches
Optional and flexible—employees can choose to skip them	Mandatory—employees cannot punch back in early if a break is enforced
Only deducted from labor costs if Auto-breaks are enabled	Automatically deducted from worked hours when break is enforced
Do not require the employee to be on a scheduled shift	Only apply if the employee is working a scheduled shift
Do not block punch actions	Will block early punch-ins if the break hasn’t been fully taken

Labor & Compliance Company Settings