H-2A Hours Offered Reporting in PickTrace

About this article: This guide explains how to set up and use PickTrace's H-2A Hours Offered feature — including creating contracts, assigning employees, configuring absence tracking jobs, and running the compliance report.

Overview

The H-2A Hours Offered feature helps employers comply with the U.S. Department of Labor's guaranteed-hours requirement for H-2A visa workers. PickTrace links workers to a contract, tracks hours worked and hours missed, and generates a report showing each employee's hours offered as a percentage of their contracted guarantee — broken down by day.

Hours Offered = Hours Worked + Hours Missed

Hours missed are captured by logging timecards under specific absence job categories (No Show, Sick, Vacation). Without those timecards, missed time will not appear in the report.

Setting Up H-2A Contracts

H-2A contracts are managed under the Employers tool in the web application. Each contract is tied to a specific employer.

Creating a Contract

1. Navigate to Employers > H-2A Contracts.
2. Click + Create H-2A Contract.
3. Complete the following fields:

Field	Description
Employer	The employer this contract belongs to
Contract Name	An internal reference name (e.g., "Harvest 2026 – Valley Farms")
Start Date	Contract start date
End Date	Contract end date
Guaranteed Hours Per Day	Daily minimum from the DOL contract — PickTrace calculates weekly totals automatically
Add Employees	Add employees to your H2A contract (see 'Assigning Employees to a Contract' section for tips on doing this efficiently)

4. Save the contract.

Note: The Guaranteed Hours Per Day value is used as the "contract stated hours" baseline in reporting. Set this accurately — it directly affects the fulfillment percentage shown in the report.

Editing a Contract and Viewing History

You can edit any contract detail at any time. All changes are logged in the Contract Edit History tab. Changes to individual employee contract assignments are also tracked in each employee's Edit History.

Assigning Employees to a Contract

Employees can be added to a contract in several ways. An employee can only belong to one active H-2A contract at a time.

Manually Within the Contract

From the contract record, click Add Employees and select from the list of active employees.

When Hiring an Individual Employee

During the employee creation flow, select the applicable contract in the H-2A Contract field. You can also update this at any time by editing an employee's Employment Info.

Via Bulk Create or Bulk Update Template (Recommended for large groups)

The bulk employee template includes an H-2A Contract column. Add the contract name for each employee in the spreadsheet and upload — this is the most efficient method when onboarding a large seasonal cohort.

1. Go to Employees page
2. Select the 'Upload Employees Data' icon (Arrow pointing up icon)
3. Filter and Export Your List
   1. Use filters (such as filtering by Crew) to narrow down and isolate the specific list of employees you want to update.
   2. Download the appropriate template:
      1. Bulk Create Template: If you are adding new employees to the system.
      2. Bulk Update Template: If the employees already exist in PickTrace (this is the easiest method).
4.  Update and Upload the File
   1. Open the downloaded file and assign the employees to the pre-created H2A contract.
5. Save and upload the completed file back into PickTrace to apply the changes.
6. Populate the H-2A Contract column by selecting it from the dropdown on the list. (The contract must first be created to appear as a dropdown option)
7. Upload the completed file.

Note: H-2A and non-H-2A workers can both be added to the same contract if your operational structure requires it.

Configuring Absence Tracking Jobs

For missed hours to appear in the H-2A Hours Offered Report, they must be logged as timecards under a job in one of three specific job categories. These categories must be used exactly as named.

Category	When to use
No Show	Employee did not appear for work
Sick	Employee was ill and unavailable
Vacation	Employee took scheduled time off

Creating an Absence Job

1. Go to Jobs and create a new job.
2. Set the Job Category to No Show, Sick, or Vacation.
3. Name the job clearly (e.g., "H-2A No Show", "Sick Leave").
4. Add the job to your Work Bundle so timecards can be created against it.

⚠️ Important: The job must be added to a Work Bundle before you can schedule or log timecards against it.

Note: Timecards under No Show, Sick, and Vacation categories are excluded from minimum wage and overtime calculations.

Logging Missed Hours

Once your absence jobs are set up, logging a no-show follows the same process as adding any other timecard.

1. Open the relevant Work Bundle and date.
2. Find the employee who was absent.
3. Add a timecard and select the No Show, Sick, or Vacation job.
   1. Depending on your current process, missed hours timecards can be added in the field or in the office
4. Enter the number of hours that were offered but not worked.
5. Save.

For partial days: If an employee worked part of a day but missed the rest, create two timecards:

• One for the hours actually worked (under their regular job)
• One for the missed portion (under the No Show, Sick, or Vacation job)

Running the H-2A Hours Offered Report

Accessing the Report

1. Go to Reports > PickTrace Reports.
2. Open the H-2A Hours Offered report.

Configuring the Report

1. Set the date range. The report shows a daily breakdown for each day in the range.
2. Filter by contract and/or employee (optional) to focus on a specific group.
3. Run the report.

Reading the Summary Section

The top of the report shows contract-level totals:

Column	What it shows
Contract	The H-2A contract name
# Employees	Employees on the contract with activity in the selected range
Hours Offered	Sum of hours worked + hours missed
Hours Worked	Hours employees were present and productive
Hours Missed	Hours from No Show, Sick, and Vacation timecards

Reading the Employee Detail Section

Each employee gets a day-by-day breakdown:

Column	What it shows
Date	Each day in the report range
Hours Offered / Worked / Missed	Daily totals for this employee
Contract Stated Hours (cumulative)	Total guaranteed hours from contract start through the report end date
Total Hours Offered (cumulative)	Total hours offered to this employee from contract start through the report end date
% of Contract Fulfilled	Hours offered ÷ contract stated hours
Absence Reason	The No Show, Sick, or Vacation job name associated with the missed timecard

Onboarding Groups (Add-on Feature)

If your account includes PickTrace's Onboarding module, you can assign H-2A employees to a contract as part of a group onboarding groups flow. Both H-2A and non-H-2A workers can be added to a contract during onboarding.

Want to learn more? See How to Hire Employees in Groups Using Onboarding Groups for a full walkthrough of the onboarding module. (Note: Onboarding Groups is an add-on and may not be included in your current plan. Contact your PickTrace rep for details.)