Student Employment

Working with Student Employees - Fixing Negative Hours

A student’s timesheet may include negative hours. Two examples of why a student may have negative hours are: the student incorrectly entered time, the hours were approved by mistake and the student fixed the error after the time was approved OR a student entered future time and did not work what was anticipated. Beyond fixing negative hours in MaineStreet, this type of error is important to address. First, students should never enter anticipated time worked; time should only be entered after the work is completed. Second, approvers should always check the detail on the time they are approving to see if the days and hours reported match when the student actually worked.

If you see negative hours in MaineStreet for a student they must be approved.

Approving negative hours is important because it achieves the following:

• Produces a current audit of the student’s report time
• Corrects any overpayment for time wrongly approved by deducting the negative time from the student’s next paycheck
• Corrects any charges to the Federal Work-Study or departmental account which were incorrectly made

Any time approver who sees negative hours to be approved and can not understand why it is on the timesheet should call the Payroll Office for clarification.

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