The Timesheet Discrepancy Checker automatically reviews your payroll data for discrepancies and shows them to you and your drivers.
Who is this for?
This feature is primarily for HR Managers who are responsible for payroll accuracy. It is also used by Drivers, who receive notifications to correct their own time cards.
What does success look like?
When working correctly, this feature will significantly reduce the time you spend manually reviewing time cards (by up to 90%). It will automatically identify issues, notify drivers, and you will see a high rate of drivers successfully correcting their own time card discrepancies.
How to find and access it
You can access this feature by navigating to the Human Resources tab in the main menu and then clicking on Timesheets.
Step-by-step usage instructions
Navigate to the Human Resources > Timesheets page.
The main dashboard will show an overview of estimated savings, the number of resolved discrepancies, and the number of outstanding discrepancies for the current pay period.
Discrepancies will appear on this page, grouped by driver and date.
To review a specific issue, click on it to see the relevant data, such as clock-out times and shift length.
To take action on discrepancies, select one or more using the checkboxes. A menu will appear at the bottom of the screen with the following options:
Approve: This sends a notification to the driver, informing them of the discrepancy and asking them to fix it. Note: this button is only visible if you do not have enabled the setting to automatically notify drivers of their discrepancies.
Require Correction: This sends a notification to the driver that cannot be dismissed. The driver must acknowledge the issue and submit a time card change request in their payroll system.
To configure the feature, click the Timesheet Settings button in the top right corner. From here, you can:
Adjust your payroll cycle information.
Configure notification and reminder schedules.
Enable or disable specific discrepancy detection rules (e.g., "Missing clock-in," "Shift length compliance").
Prerequisites
Your account must be set up with Cortex. For the feature to connect to your payroll provider, you must have active API credentials for ADP, Paycom, or Uzio.
Default configurations
This is important: when first enabled, the auto-approve discrepancy notifications setting is turned off by default. This allows you to review the discrepancies the system finds before any notifications are sent to your drivers. It is recommended to leave this off for the first few days to ensure the rules are configured correctly. Once they are, enable the setting to automatically notify drivers of their discrepancies.
Common errors and troubleshooting
Too many notifications overwhelm drivers: Be careful not to set every rule to "notify immediately." Use the scheduled notification time to bundle alerts.
Expired discrepancies: Discrepancies from a past payroll period expire after your payroll processing day and time. Once expired, drivers can no longer act on them, and they will be marked "unresolved." Ensure your payroll period settings are configured correctly to avoid this.
Usage limits or restrictions
The system detects discrepancies in time cards by syncing with your payroll provider. This sync is not immediate.
ADP: Syncs approximately every 5 minutes.
Paycom: Syncs approximately every 10 minutes.
Cortex Route Progress: Syncs approximately every 10 minutes.
How it connects to other features
This feature relies on data from Cortex to compare against your official payroll provider (e.g., ADP, Paycom) records. It identifies mismatches between what Cortex recorded and what is on the time card.
What the feature doesn't do
It does not automatically fix time cards. The system only identifies discrepancies and notifies drivers to make the corrections themselves in their payroll system.
It does not resolve discrepancies based on a pending approval. If a driver submits a time card change that requires manager approval, the discrepancy will only be marked as resolved after the manager approves the change and it is reflected on the official time card.
It does not allow for "close enough" matching. The system requires an exact match to resolve a discrepancy. For example, if a lunch break is off by one minute between Cortex and ADP, it will be flagged, and the driver's correction must match the times exactly.