A caregiver schedule approval is the moment a family and a caregiver agree on when the work happens, and it is recorded so both sides can point to it later. For a nanny, au pair or in-home caregiver, that means agreed days and times, a clear way to request changes, and a record of the hours actually worked. This guide shows how to set that up, what to put in the agreement, and how to handle changes without confusion.
TL;DR
- Approval means both sides agree to the job terms, write them down, and each keep a copy.
- Put workdays, start and end times, pay rate, breaks, and the process for changes and cancellations in the agreement.
- Approved hours are not the same as worked hours. The U.S. Department of Labor expects the record to show the exact hours actually worked.
- Request changes in writing and confirm or decline them in writing, so nobody relies on memory.
- A shared app that handles requests, approvals and hours in one place keeps all of this simple.
Table of Contents
- What schedule approval means in a private household
- What to include in the agreed schedule
- How caregivers request schedule changes and families respond
- Approved hours versus hours actually worked
- Which U.S. rules touch an agreed schedule
- A worked example
- Common mistakes with schedule approvals
- Our perspective
- Choosing a tool for approvals and hours
- Where we can help you as the employer
- FAQ
- Sources
What schedule approval means in a private household
In an agency, approval often means a coordinator signs off. In a private home, you are the employer and the caregiver is your employee, so approval is a conversation between two people. Hand in Hand, a national organization for household employers, describes the process as discussing and agreeing on the terms of the job, recording them in a work agreement, and each keeping a copy.
TrustLine, California's nanny background-check program, treats the agreement as a communication tool as well as a legal document. Both sides should review the details together and revisit them as the family's needs change. That is a useful way to think about approvals: they are not a hurdle, they are a shared understanding.
There are really two kinds of approval:
- The standing schedule. The regular days and hours you agree on when the job starts.
- Individual requests. A one-time swap, a late night, a day off, or extra hours that falls outside the standing schedule.
Most confusion comes from the second kind. Families assume a text message is enough, caregivers assume a verbal yes counts, and weeks later the two remember different things.
What to include in the agreed schedule
The U.S. Department of Labor publishes a sample employment agreement for nannies. It covers the details a schedule should settle:
- Workdays
- Start and end times
- Daily and weekly hours
- Duties
- Pay rate
- Breaks
- Transportation
- Emergency contacts
- Processes for cancellations, schedule changes and emergencies
TrustLine's guide adds a few more items to think about: benefits, guaranteed hours, policies, and how either side ends the arrangement. Guaranteed hours matter more than many families expect. If you cancel a day on short notice, does the caregiver still get paid? Decide before it happens.
Routines belong in the schedule too
A schedule is more than clock times. Hand in Hand's childcare agreement also covers family priorities and rules, meals, naps, sleep, food restrictions, cultural practices, screen and phone rules, and care for sick children or medication as directed. A daily schedule can add a daily log, allergies or accommodations, and emergency contacts.
For in-home adult care the list changes, but the idea is the same: medications, emergency contacts, meal timing and the daily activities the person relies on. Keeping that information next to the schedule means a substitute or a second caregiver can step in without a long phone call. If you want to build this, our guide to setting up a digital care binder walks through it.
How caregivers request schedule changes and families respond
There is no single legal procedure for this in a private home. What works is a simple, repeatable habit. Whatever tool you use, the request and the answer should both be written down and both visible to each person.
A simple request-and-approval routine
- The caregiver submits the request. It states the date, the start and end times, and the reason if relevant. Examples: a doctor's appointment, a swap with a day off, or extra hours the family asked for.
- The family confirms or declines. A clear yes or no, ideally within an agreed window such as 48 hours. If the answer is no, a short reason helps.
- The result is recorded. The calendar updates and both people can see it. Hand in Hand recommends that later changes be made in writing and signed by both parties.
- The hours worked are logged afterward. The approved plan is the starting point. The actual time is what counts for pay.
The same routine works for time-off and reimbursement requests. A caregiver who buys diapers or pays for a bus fare should be able to submit the expense and have it approved the same way.
Handling disagreements
Most disagreements are about one of three things: a change that was never confirmed, hours that ran over, or a cancellation. Your agreement should say in advance how each is treated. When a dispute still comes up, a written record of the request and the answer settles most of it quickly, because nobody has to argue about what was said.
Approved hours versus hours actually worked
This is the part many families miss. An approved schedule says what you expected. A time record says what happened. The law cares about the second.
The Department of Labor's Fact Sheet #79C on domestic service recordkeeping explains that, except for live-in workers, an employer may use the normal daily and weekly schedule and mark it as worked. If more or fewer hours are worked, though, the record should show the exact hours.
In practice that means:
- If the caregiver works the approved schedule exactly, a note that the schedule was worked can be enough.
- If the caregiver stays 45 minutes late, the record needs to show 45 extra minutes.
- If a day is cancelled, the record should not show it as worked.
The Department's Home Care Guide says an accurate method can be a calendar recording start, stop and meal times, a timesheet, or another method that tracks time worked each day. It also says a family that hires directly normally keeps the records, although an agency may keep them if the family can access them.
Live-in arrangements
Live-in care is different. The same guide says a live-in agreement may exclude bona fide sleep, meal and off-duty periods, but the employer must still track all hours actually worked. It also says the agreement should be updated when significant differences arise between the unpaid periods in the agreement and the worker's actual schedule. If you have a live-in caregiver, review the schedule regularly against what really happens.
Which U.S. rules touch an agreed schedule
A schedule is not only a convenience. It feeds directly into pay, overtime and records. These are the federal basics, and your state may add more.
| Topic | What the Department of Labor or IRS says |
|---|---|
| Minimum wage | Covered workers must receive at least the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour, subject to higher state or local rates |
| Overtime | Covered workers must receive at least one and one-half times their regular rate for hours over 40 in a workweek |
| Records kept | Hours worked each day and week, weekly cash wages, board or lodging amounts claimed, and overtime pay, along with the worker's name, Social Security number and address |
| Retention | At least three years for records, and two years for records used to compute pay |
| Who counts as a household employee | A nanny, babysitter, health aide or private nurse may be a household employee when the family controls what work is done and how |
IRS Publication 926 adds that employee status can apply whether the worker is full-time or part-time, paid hourly, daily, weekly or by the job, and even when hired through an agency or association list. So a caregiver who works a few hours a week may still be your employee.
The practical point: every approved schedule change can change a paycheck. A swap that moves hours from one week to another can push a week over 40 hours. Approving schedule changes without watching weekly totals is how overtime gets missed. Our guide to caregiver time tracking for DOL and IRS rules goes into the steps, and our piece on how long household employers keep records explains why the retention question is more involved than one number.
State pay periods and overtime rules vary, so check your state labor department for the rules that apply to you.
A worked example
Say you hire a nanny for Monday to Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., with a one-hour unpaid lunch. Your agreement lists those hours, her rate, how breaks work and how to request changes.
- Week one. She works the plan. The record shows the normal schedule, marked as worked.
- Week two. On Wednesday you ask her to stay until 6:30 p.m. She accepts in the app or in writing. The record shows 9.5 hours that day (8:00 to 6:30 with a one-hour lunch is 9.5 hours), not 8.
- Week three. She asks to leave at noon on Friday for a medical appointment. You approve it. The record shows four hours, not eight, unless you agreed to pay for the full day, in which case that is written down too.
Nothing here is complicated. The only requirement is that each change was asked for, answered, and recorded, and that the final record reflects reality.
Common mistakes with schedule approvals
- Relying on text threads. Messages get buried. A request and answer should live in one place.
- Treating the schedule as the timesheet. If hours differ, the record must too.
- Never revisiting the agreement. Children grow, school schedules change and care needs shift. TrustLine's advice is to revisit the agreement as needs evolve.
- Skipping the cancellation rule. Decide up front whether a cancelled shift is paid.
- Forgetting about weekly totals. Approving one extra evening is easy. Noticing that it created overtime is harder.
- Paying in cash without records. If the caregiver is paid in cash, a clean time and pay record matters even more. See our guide on tracking hours and receipts when paying a nanny cash.
Our perspective
We built CareTracker for the caregiver first, and it is free for caregivers. We think schedule approvals fail because the caregiver and the family are using different tools: one keeps a calendar, the other keeps texts, and nobody has a single record of hours.
Our approach is to put the whole loop in one place. The caregiver receives schedule requests and approves them, sees all of their jobs in one calendar, and tracks weekly hours accurately. Key care details such as allergies, medications, emergency contacts, nap schedules, nursing schedules and daily activities are available right where the schedule is. Families can also create care recipient profiles and manage more than one caregiver.
What we hope this gives you is transparency and peace of mind. You know who is working when. The caregiver knows their hours are written down and will not be disputed. And when a change comes up, the answer is a tap, not a negotiation.
If your caregiver also works for other families, a unified calendar helps them avoid double-booking, which protects your schedule too. We cover that in more depth in our guides to caregiver scheduling for nannies and family calendar apps.
— mercedes
Choosing a tool for approvals and hours
You can run approvals on paper, in a spreadsheet, or in an app. The Department of Labor does not require a particular format, only that the record accurately shows time worked each day. Choose based on a few simple questions:
- Can the caregiver submit a request in under a minute?
- Can you confirm or decline it just as quickly?
- Do approved changes show up on a shared calendar?
- Do weekly hours add up automatically, so you can spot overtime before payday?
- Can you pull a report later if you need one?
If you also employ someone in a medical or in-home care role, our guide to home health aide scheduling software covers what to look for in that setting.
Where we can help you as the employer
Our nanny time tracking app is where caregivers log hours and handle schedule requests. For families, the harder part is often payroll and compliance: whether past hours were reported properly, how overtime applies, or how to set things up correctly going forward.
For that we offer a Standard Payroll Consultation package at $150, one-off. If your records from earlier years are incomplete, our Prior Wage Reporting and Household Payroll Cleanup Services are there to help you sort them out. Our consultations are for household employers who want a clear plan, and the app stays free for your caregiver.
FAQ
Do I need a written schedule for my nanny or caregiver?
There is no single rule that makes one universal, but it is strongly recommended. The Department of Labor publishes sample agreements for both nannies and home care workers, and both cover schedules, hours and how changes are handled. A written schedule gives both sides something to point to.
Should I record the approved schedule or the hours actually worked?
Record the hours actually worked. For a worker on a fixed schedule who is not live-in, the Department of Labor says you may use the normal schedule and mark it as worked. If the hours differ, the record should show the exact hours.
How should a caregiver ask for a schedule change?
The request should be in writing, with the date, times and reason, and the family should answer in writing. Hand in Hand recommends that changes to the original terms be in writing and signed by both sides. An app that stores requests and answers does this automatically.
How long should I keep schedule and time records?
For households covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Department of Labor says records must be kept at least three years, and records used to compute pay should be kept two years. Your state may have longer rules, so check with your state labor department.
Sources
- Developing a Work Agreement with a Childcare Provider, Hand in Hand
- Agreements, Contracts, and Expectations, TrustLine
- Employment Sample Agreement for Nannies, U.S. Department of Labor
- Paying Minimum Wage and Overtime to Home Care Workers, U.S. Department of Labor
- Fact Sheet #79C: Recordkeeping Requirements for Domestic Service, U.S. Department of Labor
- Minimum wage, overtime pay and recordkeeping requirements, U.S. Department of Labor
- Publication 926, Household Employer's Tax Guide, IRS