Why extra-duty pay is hard to keep straight
A regular paycheck arrives on a schedule with a stub that explains it. Extra-duty and detail pay does not. One job pays through the department, another by check from a business, another weeks later through a coordinator. By the end of the year it is easy to lose track of what you earned, what is still owed and how many hours you actually worked. A pay tracker answers those three questions at any time.
Pay on each job
In Centurion Blue every job carries its own rate. Enter the shift start and end and the app fills in the hours and shows the pay before you save. Each job also has a type, because the type decides how the money is treated later:
| Job type | How pay is figured |
|---|---|
| 1099 | Hours times the rate you enter. Contractor pay. |
| Check Only (Non 1099) | Hours times the rate you enter. Paid by check with no 1099 issued, tracked separately. |
| Direct Employer | Hours times the rate you enter. Wages on a W-2 from another employer. |
| Department Paid Overtime, Double Time, Call Back, Court Time | Figured from your own hourly rate and the multipliers in Settings. |
Hours against a weekly cap
Most departments cap the off-duty hours an officer may work in a week. In Settings you enter your own Weekly Secondary Employment Hours Cap. The Home tab then shows Hours This Week against that number. If a job you are adding would push a week over the cap, the app shows a warning with the projected total and asks whether to save it anyway. The phone apps can also send an alert as you get close to the cap. The app does not know your department's policy. The cap is the number you give it, so check your own rules.
Unpaid jobs
Each outside job is marked paid or unpaid. The Home tab keeps an Unpaid list showing who still owes you and the total outstanding, and you tap Mark Paid once you collect. The phone apps can remind you about unpaid jobs. Department overtime arrives in your regular paycheck, so those jobs have nothing to collect and stay out of the list.
Overtime
In the nationwide edition you set your hourly rate in Settings and change it whenever you get a raise. You also set your overtime and double-time multipliers, which start at 1.5 and 2.0. Department overtime jobs are then priced from those numbers. If you take overtime as comp time instead of cash, tick the comp time box on the job and the hours are banked instead of paid. Department overtime keeps its own job types, so it stays separate from outside work in your totals and reports.
Seeing the totals
Home shows this week and this month. The Dashboard breaks the year down, the Calendar shows hours and pay on each day worked, and the Log is the full list of every job, which you can edit, duplicate or export to CSV. On the phone apps, home screen widgets can show your week, your month, your unpaid total or the hours left under your cap.
What it means at tax time
Because every job has a type, the app can keep contractor income apart from wages. The Tax Center gives an estimate of what to set aside from off-duty income, and Year End Tax Reports produces a summary with a quarterly breakdown to hand to your tax preparer. For background, read how off-duty income is reported and the mileage log guide. You can also try a single job in the off-duty job calculator.
This page is general information and record keeping, not tax or legal advice. Rules vary with your situation. Ask a tax professional what applies to you.