Managing Qualified Overtime (W-2 Box 12 Code TT)

Purpose

Under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, employers report each employee's qualified overtime in Box 12 of the W-2 under Code TT, starting with Tax Year 2025 W-2s. Qualified overtime is the federal FLSA overtime premium: the extra half-time pay on hours worked beyond 40 in a workweek, not the full overtime wage. UZIO calculates this amount automatically for every payroll processed on the platform. The Manage Qualified Overtime screen is where you review those amounts and import amounts for periods UZIO did not process.

When to use this screen: only if you switched to UZIO mid-year and your previous provider paid overtime, or if overtime was tracked outside the system for some periods. If every payroll for the tax year ran through UZIO, the premium is calculated for you. There is nothing to enter, and your only task is a year-end review before W-2s are generated.

Who can do this: Any user whose role includes the Payroll permission. This is usually the Employer Admin, but other admin roles can be granted the same access.

How UZIO calculates qualified overtime automatically

For every Regular and Special payroll processed on UZIO:

• The engine identifies the FLSA workweeks in the pay period and computes the overtime premium at half-time (0.5x) the regular rate on qualifying overtime hours. Only the premium half counts.
• Only federal weekly overtime (over 40 hours in a workweek) qualifies. State daily overtime (California and similar) does not.
• The amount appears on the payroll grid in a Qualified Overtime column. The matching system earning is named Qualified OT Premium. It appears on the earnings grid, on the earnings import template, and in uploads. See Payroll Grid Tools.
• Amounts are published when the payroll is approved. They are reversed if UZIO voids the payroll at your request, and retracted if the run is cancelled. The tax-year total on this screen therefore reflects approved payrolls only.

The earning's W-2 Box 12 label, TT (Qualified Overtime), is selectable on the earning W-2 Box 12 label dropdown, alongside TP (Qualified Tips). See Setting Up Company Level Earnings. For the tips-side counterpart (Treasury Tipped Occupation Codes), see Understanding and Finding SOC Codes.

The Manage Qualified Overtime screen

Go to Payroll > Manage Qualified Overtime. The screen opens with a Things to note summary and a grid of every qualified-overtime record for the selected tax year, one row per employee per pay period.

• Columns: Employee ID, Employee Name, Employee Status (Active or Terminated), Period Start Date, Period End Date, Pay Date, QOT Premium (masked when your role's compensation masking applies), Source (Payroll for a processed run, Import for an upload), Uploaded By, and Uploaded Time (in your time zone). Every column is sortable.
• Filters: Tax Year, Employee Status, and Source, plus a name search.
• Download Report exports the grid. The file is named <TaxYear>_QOTPremium_<timestamp>. Export keeps working for tax years where import is locked.

[Screenshot: Manage Qualified Overtime grid with the Source and QOT Premium columns; use demo data]

Importing prior-period qualified overtime

Use the Qualified OT Data Import button on the grid toolbar. In the Import Qualified Overtime modal:

1. Select the Tax Year.
2. Download the Qualified OT Template for that year. UZIO pre-fills all employees, active and terminated. You enter the amounts, with Period Start Date, Period End Date, and Pay Date per row when reporting specific prior periods.
3. Browse to the completed file (.xls or .xlsx only) and click Upload.

The modal states the two ground rules: "Importing again replaces the amounts you previously imported for these employees. System-calculated amounts are never overwritten." In practice: Import rows can be re-uploaded as often as you need; Payroll rows never change through an upload. Imported amounts are added to what UZIO already calculated, so never enter a period the platform processed.

If any row fails validation, the upload is rejected with "File upload failed due to data errors" and an error log listing each failing row. The rules in summary:

• Identity. Employee ID must be present and belong to your company. Rows are matched on Employee, Period Start, Period End, and Pay Date, and that combination cannot appear twice in one file.
• Dates. The three dates must be provided together or all left blank, in valid formats, with Period End on or after Period Start, Pay Date on or after Period Start, and Pay Date inside the selected tax year.
• Amounts. Total QOT Premium must be a valid number with at most two decimals, and an employee's tax-year total can never go negative.
• Eligibility. Overtime-exempt employees are rejected: "Employee '{name}' is marked overtime-exempt and is not eligible for qualified overtime."

The rules that surprise people most are in Common problems.

Import lockout after W-2 generation

Once W-2s have been generated for a tax year, the import modal for that year shows only a lock notice:

Complete mid-year-switch imports before you generate W-2s in Year-End W-2s and Tax Documents. Viewing and exporting the year's data remain available after the lock.

Common problems

Why was my row rejected as "already calculated by a processed payroll"?

The period you are importing was processed on UZIO, so the platform already owns that amount. If the calculated amount looks wrong, the fix goes through payroll (a correction run), not this import.

Why does it say the employee's total would go negative?

Negative amounts are allowed per row, to correct an earlier import. The employee's tax-year total, imported plus payroll-calculated, must stay at or above zero. Reduce the negative adjustment and re-upload.

Why are my period dates rejected against the "first processed payroll"?

Prior-period import covers time before the employee's payroll history on UZIO began. Anything on or after their first processed payroll is calculated automatically, so importing it would double-count.

Why can't I import for this tax year at all?

W-2s were generated for that year. The modal shows the lock notice and hides the upload. If a W-2 correction genuinely requires changing qualified overtime after generation, contact UZIO Support (see below). The import stays closed.

The upload says my file is not the standard template

Re-download the template from the import modal for the same tax year you are uploading to. Do not add, remove, or rename columns. Templates are year-specific.

Expected outcome

• Every approved UZIO payroll's FLSA overtime premium accumulates automatically under the Qualified OT Premium earning, visible per period on this screen with Source Payroll.
• Prior-provider and outside-system overtime premium is imported per employee per period with Source Import, re-uploadable until W-2s are generated.
• Each employee's W-2 reports the combined tax-year total in Box 12, Code TT.

Still stuck?

If a qualified-overtime amount must change after W-2s have been generated, please reach out to us at support@uzio.com or call +1-571-601-1752. Include the tax year, the employee ID, the period dates, the amount currently shown, and the amount it should be.

Related articles

• Year-End W-2s and Tax Documents
• Setting Up Company Level Earnings: the Qualified OT Premium earning and the W-2 Box 12 label dropdown
• Payroll Grid Tools: the Qualified Overtime column on the earnings import template
• Overtime Rules Setup and Compliance Controls: how overtime hours are determined in Time Tracking
• Understanding and Finding SOC Codes: Treasury Tipped Occupation Codes (the qualified-tips counterpart, Code TP)