PunchWhat's new in Punch 3.4: commission, bonuses, travel pay, and reminders that respect privacy
Punch 3.4 is the pay release. Until now, Punch priced the hour: hourly rates, salaries, per-location visits, overtime. This release prices everything else your team earns — the sale they closed on site, the quarterly bonus, the drive between jobs — and folds it into payroll the honest way.
It also ships two kinds of reminders, built two very different ways on purpose. And five more countries, bringing the total to 25.
Commission, from the punch screen to the paycheck
Commission tracking usually lives in a spreadsheet next to the timesheet, reconciled by hand at the end of the period. Punch 3.4 moves the whole flow into the app.
An employee logs a sale with a tap, right where they punch. The sale waits in the approvals queue, next to pending shifts, until a manager or owner signs off — nobody can approve their own. When you mark the pay period paid, every approved sale prices out at that person's deal: a percent of the sale, or an amount per unit.
You set the deal once for the whole organization, and override it per person in Members for anyone who negotiated differently. The payout sheet shows the commission line before you confirm, so there are no surprises — for you or for them.
Bonuses on any cadence
Bonuses are owner-entered and flexible. Add a one-time bonus to any pay period, or run them on a schedule: per pay period, monthly, quarterly, or annual. Group members into teams under a manager and give each team its own cadence — your installers on quarterly, your office on annual.
Punch reminds you the night before a bonus interval closes, so the quarter never slips past you. Recipients see the bonus the moment the period is marked paid.
Overtime math that doesn't cheat
Here's the part most tools skip. In US payroll, commission and earned bonuses aren't just added on top of a paycheck — they raise the regular rate that overtime is computed on. Someone who worked 44 hours and earned commission is owed overtime at a higher rate than their base wage. California goes further, with its own rule for flat-sum bonuses.
Punch 3.4 does this math for you. Approved commission and bonuses you mark as counting toward overtime are folded into the rate; true discretionary bonuses stay out, exactly as they should. Outside the US, the same enriched rate flows through your country's overtime rules automatically. And every export — Excel, CSV, the payout sheet — carries the money, so your bookkeeper sees what you saw.
As always: Punch encodes the rules and shows its work, and it is not legal advice.
Paid travel time
The drive between job sites is work. Punch 3.4 records in-transit time as its own kind of shift, with an optional travel rate per person. A travel hour and a job-site hour each pay exactly what they should, and the overtime math blends the two rates instead of pretending they're the same.
Salaried employees' travel is covered by their salary, and it still shows on the timesheet — so the record is complete even when the math is simple.
Punch reminders, the private way
Arrive at a job site and your iPhone offers the punch-in. Drive off still punched in and it reminds you to punch out.
Most tools build this with continuous location monitoring. Punch deliberately doesn't. The reminders are local notifications that iOS itself schedules and renders — the app is never woken when you cross a boundary, and nothing is transmitted. Your location is never sent to Punch or your employer. There is no code path that could.
Three switches have to be on before a single reminder exists: the owner enables the feature for the organization, the employee turns it on for themselves (the org can't force it), and iOS asks its own permission. Any of them off, and nothing happens. That's reminders without surveillance.
Last call before payday
The night before a pay period closes, employees get a push to make sure their time is in and up to date. Managers and owners get a different one: final approvals are due, with the pending count right in the notification. Tap it and you land in the approvals queue.
Like every Punch notification, each type can be switched off individually.
Now in 25 countries
Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Portugal, and Poland join the roster. As always, pick your country at signup and your currency and overtime rules attach automatically — Norway's 40% supplement, Portugal's tiered overtime rates, Poland's 50% allowance, and the collective-agreement countries where Punch correctly stays out of the way.
That's the United States, Mexico, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Australia, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, Spain, South Africa, the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, Austria, Finland, Italy, France, Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Portugal, and Poland.
Also in this release
Reports now show commission and bonuses paid in the period, on screen and in the Excel and PowerPoint exports. Payroll CSVs gained commission and bonus columns. Pay periods only appear when there's something to pay — no more empty $0.00 periods. And a stack of smaller fixes across approvals, settings, and the inbox.
Getting started
Commission, bonuses, and travel are off by default — turn them on in Org Settings when you're ready, and Punch walks you through the deal. Every feature in this release is included on every plan, from Solo to Scale, like everything else in Punch.
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