We catch missed breaks, unpaid break premiums, and open heat items on the shop floor — then chase each one to a documented fix.
MicroForensics™ is built for fabricated-metal, plastics, and furniture shops, where runs don't stop, but a meal break must start before the fifth hour of work ends (Labor Code §512). A missed or short break is caught the pay period it happens and chased to a documented fix — and when a lawyer's letter demanding records arrives, your custodian of records, the person on your team authorized to produce them, answers it from one place. No app for your crews to learn.
Free · 30 minutes · by phone or video. We tell you whether the records diagnostic, a fixed-fee review of your timecard, break and safety records, is worth doing for you, and what it costs. If it is not, we say so.
What MicroForensics is
MicroForensics reads the payroll and time clocks you already run, and Floburn operates the loop every pay period.
MicroForensics ingests your hourly timecard data, payroll, and related HR documents to flag missed breaks, unpaid break premiums, wage order errors, and open safety items, then chases each one to a documented fix. It is built to work with the existing payroll and timekeeping you already run, and Floburn runs it for you every pay period.
What it does
Five things, every pay period.
- Workers confirm and attest to the accuracy of their hours and breaks, among other labor compliance attestations, via existing tools you have in place that we configure or via custom interfaces we build for you. No one's pay ever depends on it.
- Written rules flag exceptions, such as a missed meal period, a missing rest break, or hours past a limit you set.
- Every flag is answered on the record. The correction is entered next to the original entry.
- When a worker misses breaks repeatedly, they and/or their managers get routed to training.
- Everything goes into one dated record that your designated custodian of records can export to answer a lawyer's letter demanding records from one place.
Three reasons a shop floor's break record comes up short when a lawyer asks for it.
- 01
The line doesn't pause for a meal window.
Fixed production shifts make the §512 fifth-hour window predictable — and on a busy run, routinely crossed. A per-pay-period sign-off records what actually happened, in the employee's own words.
- 02
Job-shop wall clocks still round punches to the quarter hour.
Donohue v. AMN Services (Cal. 2021) holds that time records showing missed, short, or late meal periods raise a rebuttable presumption of violation. Attestation prompts fire on unrounded punch times; where the clock rounds, deployment turns the rounding off, and where unrounded punches can't be supplied, we say so rather than prompt off rounded data.
- 03
Indoor heat reached the shop floor.
Where Cal/OSHA's indoor heat standard (8 CCR §3396, effective July 23, 2024) applies, the shop owes a written plan, 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)). The record that goes missing is the correction.
What we build on, and what we add.
- Timekeeping
Wall clocks & time apps
uAttend or Lathem wall clocks, QuickBooks Time, or the timekeeping bolt-on inside ADP or Paychex. We read the punches and route the attestations out.
- Payroll
Payroll & wage statements
ADP, Paychex, QuickBooks Payroll, or Gusto. MicroForensics reconciles the §226 wage statement against the attestation record. The payroll run stays yours.
- Shop systems
Job costing & travelers
The traveler and routing sheet track setup and run time against the work order. MicroForensics leaves them alone and captures the compliance record the job clock was never built to hold: breaks, hours, and the employee's signature.
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.
Where piece rates run, as they can in furniture shops, Labor Code §226.2 requires rest and recovery periods paid separately at an average hourly rate, other nonproductive time paid at least at minimum wage, and both itemized on the wage statement. The same sign-off carries both alongside meal and rest breaks.
One production package — the export that answers the letter. 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 — produces one production package in hours, not weeks. Payroll, timekeeping, HR, and safety are reconciled into one record every pay period, so production is an export from one place rather than a search across several.
- 01The export runs in under a minute.Retrieval from one record, not assembly across systems.
- 02Your custodian of records reviews and validates it.
- 03Your lawyer, an owner, or both review it, if you want them to.
- 04Your side sends it to the lawyer who asked.
The hours in “hours, not weeks” are steps 02 and 03: people you choose, reading it before it goes out. Floburn never reviews, validates, sends, or holds it.
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.
What goes in the package, and how it is produced→Why it matters to a California employer
The window for the 15% PAGA cap closes when an employee or their lawyer asks for records, not when the lawsuit does.
The Private Attorneys General Act (Labor Code §2698 et seq.) lets an aggrieved employee — one who personally suffered each of the violations alleged (§2699(c)(1)) — sue for civil penalties on behalf of themselves and other current or former employees affected by the same violations. Penalties run per aggrieved employee, per pay period:
- $100 by default (§2699(f)(2)(A)). These penalties are separate from any wages and premiums owed.
Under the 2024 reform (AB 2288 and SB 92), Labor Code §2699(g) caps those civil penalties at 15 percent where the employer took all reasonable steps before the PAGA notice, or before a records request under §226, §432 or §1198.5, which usually comes first; §2699(h) caps them at 30 percent for remediation within 60 days after the PAGA notice. A court judges whether your steps were reasonable, looking at all the circumstances, including your size and resources. A court may also go above either cap if keeping to it would be unjust, arbitrary and oppressive, or confiscatory (§2699(e)(2)). No outcome is guaranteed; every matter turns on its facts.
The law rewards finding and fixing violations early, and being able to prove you did. The statute names four examples of reasonable steps (§2699(g)(2)):
- periodic payroll audits with action taken in response
- lawful written policies
- supervisor training on Labor Code and wage order compliance
- corrective action as to supervisors
MicroForensics keeps a dated, exportable record of all four. The audit, policy and training records speak to the cap. Worker sign-offs speak to whether breaks were taken.
How we work with you
A free call, a records diagnostic, and then only what you choose.
The call is free. The records diagnostic is a fixed fee, quoted on the call, and its report is yours whatever you decide next. Every paid step after it is written down in a document you sign before it starts.
- 01
Free 30-minute call, by phone or video
The screening pass: one question per exposure area, with you and whoever runs payroll. No records, nothing to prepare. If the records diagnostic is not worth doing for you, we say so.
- 02
Records diagnostic, a fixed fee, quoted on the call
A half- or full-day working session with your records open. Within fourteen calendar days of the working session, a written report: what your records show, item by item; a roadmap sorted into what you can fix yourself, what needs a process change and what needs a lawyer; and a practice records request answered from your own records. We walk you through it, directly or through your lawyer.
- 03
Implementation, only if you choose it, a separate agreement, signed and priced then
Two to four weeks to go-live, on the payroll and timekeeping you already run.
- 04
Ongoing service, every pay period
Floburn runs it: a weekly digest, a monthly report and a quarterly review. Billed monthly per active worker, on an annual term.
- 05
If you leave, at any time
Your record goes with you in a closing export, as structured files your lawyer or a successor vendor can use without us. It is yours throughout, and never held back over money.
Could you find these records today?
- Two weeks of time records exactly as the system exports them, unrounded if the system can do it
- One pay stub for someone who worked a normal week
- Whatever serves as the employee handbook, even if it is three years old
- The written heat illness plan and the injury and illness prevention program, whatever state they are in
Anything you cannot find is itself a finding.
Manufacturing questions, answered.
01Our wall clock rounds to the quarter hour. Is that actually a problem?
For meal punches, yes: The California Supreme Court barred rounding them in 2021. Whether that no-rounding logic reaches every system that captures exact minutes is the question pressed in Camp v. Home Depot, pending decision before the same court. The fix is not necessarily a new clock; it can be turning off the rounding setting, which we flag in the records diagnostic. The caps, and what a court decides, are set out above.
02Our ERP tracks every job to the minute. Doesn't that cover us?
Job costing tracks setup and run time against the traveler so the next quote is right — it is job time, not payroll time. It says nothing about whether a meal break was offered, taken on time, or cut short, and it produces no employee attestation. MicroForensics captures the break record from the wall clock and payroll data instead, with the crew's sign-off beside it.
03Our shop is climate-controlled. Does the indoor heat standard even apply to us?
Mostly no. §3396 triggers at 82°F indoors, with tighter duties at 87°F, so a floor that holds under the threshold rarely engages it — foundries, extrusion, and un-air-conditioned buildings in an Inland Empire summer are a different matter. Where it applies, California does not ask you to log every cool-down period. It asks you to show the heat plan, the training, and each hazard's correction: the same shape as the meal-and-rest record, kept in the same place.
04Can a per-pay-period sign-off run on a two-shift floor without stopping the line?
Yes. The sign-off runs once a pay period (the cadence is configurable), through SMS or a single short link, so second shift attests the same way first shift does. Each shift's missed or short breaks are caught the pay period they happen. Nothing about the line changes; the record accrues alongside it.
05We already have a lawyer’s letter or a PAGA notice. Can we still start?
Yes. Call your lawyer first: What the letter or notice means for you, and what to do about it, is for them to decide. Then book a free 30-minute call, and bring them if you like; tell us the date it arrived. With a matter open, your lawyer decides whether the records diagnostic runs through them or directly with Floburn, where its findings are discoverable. The sooner the record starts, the more pay periods it covers.
Free 30-minute call.
Tell us what you run and what prompted the call. The records diagnostic can run directly with Floburn or through your lawyer.
Free · 30 minutes · by phone or video. We tell you whether the records diagnostic, a fixed-fee review of your timecard, break and safety records, is worth doing for you, and what it costs. If it is not, we say so.
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.