The crew sheet shows the hours picked. Not the missed meal, and not the fix.
MicroForensics, built for California growers and the farm labor contractors who issue the harvest crew's W-2s. Crew-based fieldwork under Wage Order 14 carries the most literal fifth-hour mechanics in the state — and the day's record often lives on a paper crew sheet. The law already requires that record, the §226.2 piece-rate lines, and a documented heat plan; what it also requires is the fix entered beside the issue it corrects. A crew boss is alerted to a short break and gets it taken while the shift is still open — and when a lawyer's letter demanding records arrives, your own authorized custodian of records answers it from one place, the §3395 heat plan and the bilingual sign-offs with it. Runs on PickTrace, FieldClock, Datatech, or the sheets themselves. Bilingual by default.
Free · 30 minutes · a fit conversation, not a sales call. If the diagnostic isn’t worth doing, we’ll tell you.
This page shows how it works in your industry. For the full walkthrough — the statute text, how we close a missed break, what the record actually contains — see MicroForensics.
Three structural reasons the harvest crew's record goes quiet.
- 01
The fifth hour lands mid-row.
Harvest crews start before light, and under Wage Order 14 the meal period must land before the end of the fifth hour — mid-row, wherever the crew happens to be. Under Donohue v. AMN Services, noncompliant time records raise a rebuttable presumption of violation — and paper crew sheets with rounded punches are exactly what the presumption bites. The record goes silent where the claims live.
- 02
Piece-rate and heat are records you already owe.
§226.2 requires rest and recovery time on piece-rate work to be paid separately and itemized on the wage statement — a line item, not a courtesy. §3395's outdoor heat rules, in effect since 2005 and amended in 2015, require a written prevention plan, shade and cool-down access, and training; the IIPP requires that training to be documented (8 CCR 3203(b)(2)) and each hazard found to be recorded with the correction made (3203(b)(1)). A crew sheet that shows buckets picked is silent on every one of them.
- 03
January 1, 2025 changed the harvest-day math.
AB 1066's overtime phase-in finished: daily overtime after eight hours now reaches the smallest ag employers, so every long harvest day carries two record events at once — the overtime line and the fifth-hour meal. The workforce is predominantly Spanish-primary (NAWS), so bilingual attestation validity approaches a threshold requirement rather than a feature.
What we build on, and what we add.
- Field timekeeping
Crew & piece tracking
PickTrace, FieldClock, QR-badge scans — or the paper crew sheet the mayordomo still carries. Where an API or export exists, we integrate as a read-only consumer; where the sheet is paper, structured entry flows into the same audit trail. Crews and crew bosses see no new software.
- Payroll
Ag payroll & grower billing
Datatech, Famous, or Gusto at the small end. MicroForensics reconciles the §226 wage statement — including the separately itemized rest-and-recovery lines §226.2 requires on piece-rate — against the per-period attestation. Grower billing and the payroll run stay yours; we read, we don't replace.
- Compliance overlays
Heat, piece-rate & who issues the W-2
§3395 heat-plan and training acknowledgment, §226.2 rest-and-recovery acknowledgment, the fifth-hour meal and rest flow, and per-cycle wage-statement acknowledgment — bilingual (ES/EN) by default. In grower–FLC arrangements we scope to whoever issues the W-2, starting from DIR's public FLC license registry.
We build the connector for your stack — by API where one exists, by export, SFTP, or structured manual entry where one doesn’t — scoped and priced in the records diagnostic.
The overlay pattern runs deepest in the field. A §3395 cool-down and §226.2 rest-and-recovery time often describe the same minutes in the row, but they are different obligations: §3395 requires shade, access, and a written plan the crew has been trained on, while §226.2 makes those minutes separately paid and separately itemized on the piece-rate wage statement. California does not ask you to log each cool-down; it asks you to show the plan, show the training, and show what you did when the plan didn't hold. One per-period surface carries both, in the language the crew actually reads.
One production package. Hours, not weeks.
A lawyer’s letter demanding records usually arrives before any lawsuit does, and a §2699 PAGA notice after it. When the letter lands, the authorized custodian of records on your team — not Floburn — exports one production package in hours, not weeks, and authenticates it as the person who has held it all along.
An alert reaches the foreman or dispatcher while the shift is still open, carrying what to do and what to enter — so the break gets taken rather than a premium owed. Entries are captured as the shift happens — timestamped, signature-captured, tamper-evident — not assembled after a claim lands. Payroll, timekeeping, HR, and safety are reconciled into one record, so production is an export from one place rather than a search across several: the payroll records, the timecards with each short break and the premium paid beside it, the written policy your crews acknowledged and each dated per-period sign-off — on a cadence of its own, decoupled from the payroll run — the training completions, and the hazard, heat, and incident records. The records that can go into the package are inventoried with you in the records diagnostic.
The package exists before the letter does — the timeline is a property of how the record is kept, not a promise about your matter. No outcome is guaranteed; every matter turns on its facts.
How production works→What employers in your industry ask us first.
01We still run paper crew sheets. Do the crews have to move to an app first?
No. Paper is a first-class path: the mayordomo keeps the sheet, and structured entry flows into the same audit trail with the same chain-of-custody integrity. Where PickTrace or FieldClock already runs, we read the export instead. What Donohue punishes isn't paper — it's silence: rounded time with no contemporaneous employee affirmation that breaks were taken and hours are right, and no record of what was paid or fixed when they weren't. Timing matters more than format. Labor Code §2699(g) caps PAGA civil penalties at 15 percent where the employer took all reasonable steps before a notice arrives, §2699(h) at 30 percent for remediation within 60 days after — and the window closes when a records request under section 226, 432, or 1198.5 arrives, not when the lawsuit does. The records request usually comes first. The court decides whether the steps were enough.
02Our harvest crews are on piece-rate. Does the attestation cover §226.2 rest-and-recovery pay?
Yes. §226.2 requires rest and recovery time on piece-rate work to be paid separately and itemized on the wage statement. The per-pay-period attestation captures the employee's affirmation that those periods were taken, and MicroForensics reconciles it against the itemized §226.2 lines on the wage statement — so the piece-rate record and the break record stop contradicting each other.
03We're an FLC and the grower sets the schedule. Whose record is this?
The record follows the W-2. Whoever issues it holds the wage-and-hour relationship, so the attestation flow runs under the FLC when the FLC is the employer of record — and the records diagnostic maps joint grower–FLC arrangements before anything is built. Pricing is per active worker, which moves with seasonal headcount the way FLC grower billing already does.
04Most of the crew is Spanish-primary, and not everyone carries a smartphone. How does the attestation actually reach them?
Bilingual is the default, not an add-on: attestations go out in Spanish and English, because an attestation the worker couldn't read invites exactly the challenge the record exists to answer. Delivery flexes to the crew — SMS, a short link the mayordomo shares, a kiosk, or paper for crews without phones. Every path lands in the same timestamped record.
Free 30-minute discovery call.
Tell us about your timekeeping and payroll stack, your headcount, and what’s prompting the conversation. We’ll tell you whether the records diagnostic makes sense, which way to run it — standard, or through your lawyer — and what to expect if you proceed.
Free · 30 minutes · a fit conversation, not a sales call. If the diagnostic isn’t worth doing, we’ll tell you.
Floburn Inc. is not a law firm and does not provide legal advice. Counsel advises Floburn on system design and does not represent your company; retain your own counsel for advice specific to your situation.