Break Types let you define all the ways your crew takes breaks - meals, walk-aways, standard breaks, and meal penalties - and apply them directly to your schedules. This gives you more accurate client billing and crew labor cost calculations, whether you're building a quote or adjusting a schedule after the fact.
Navigate to Break Types
Click on the Administration tab located at the top of your LASSO site. Select Company Settings, then choose the "Break Types" tab.
Break Types may need to be enabled for your account. If you don't see the tab, reach out to LASSO Support or your Customer Success Manager to get Break Rules turned on.
Default Type
The Default Type is an account-wide rule that automatically adds a break based on hours scheduled - for example, "Add a 1 hour break for every 10 hours scheduled." The "Bill for Breaks" toggle controls whether that automatic break time is billed to your client or deducted.
⚠️ Important: If you previously had a break rule configured in Company Settings under the General tab, you will need to zero that out before adding new break types. Leaving both in place can cause your roster hours and costs to calculate incorrectly.
Creating Custom Break Types
Click the yellow + button
to create a new break type. You'll fill in:
Name - what appears in the shift selector and on quotes (e.g., "1Hr Walkaway", "30min break", "Meal Penalty").
Description - internal notes about when to use this break type.
Category - Meal, Break, or Penalty (see below).
Duration - the length of the break in minutes.
Defaults - "Pay to Crew" and "Bill to Client" toggles set whether the break time is paid to the crew member and billed to your client by default.
Break Type Categories
The category determines how the break affects your hours and costs:
Break - a standard break. Reduces billable time when unpaid/unbilled.
Meal - a meal break. Works the same way as a Break - it reduces billable time when unpaid/unbilled.
Penalty - a charge added when a required break is missed (e.g., a meal penalty). Unlike Breaks and Meals, a Penalty increases billable time.
💡 Tip: Choose the category carefully when you create a break type. Changing the category on an existing break type won't update the calculation behind it - if you need a different category, delete the break type and create a new one.
Applying Break Types to a Schedule
Break types are applied to shifts in Schedule+. In the shift selector dropdown, you'll see the different shift types, such as an All Day Shift or Travel shift. Select "Break" from this menu.
You'll then see your break types listed - select one to add that break to the shift.
You can add multiple breaks to a single shift - for example, two unpaid 30-minute breaks on an 8-hour shift will correctly reduce the roster to 7 hours.
use the "Add Shift to this Position" option to add an additional shift line to a singular position.
Enter start and end times for each break when you can. A break applied without times can display oddly on the Event Overview and Schedules pages.
Breaks are preserved when you copy positions or copy a schedule to another event - the break types and their cost impact carry over.
How Breaks Affect Costs and Billing
Unpaid and unbilled Breaks and Meals are deducted from the shift's hours - so an 8-hour shift with an unpaid 30-minute meal calculates as 7.5 hours on the roster and quote. Because breaks can be set to pay and bill independently, you can, for example, pay your crew through a break while not billing the client for it (or vice versa).
Meal penalties are applied automatically to hourly shifts that exceed your penalty threshold without a qualifying meal break - and the penalty hours are added to the position's cost.
Showing Breaks on Quotes
You control how breaks appear on client-facing quotes from the Labor section of a Quote Block configuration. There are three checkboxes:
Show Meal Break Penalties (on by default) - any position that incurs a meal penalty shows the number of penalty hours charged as a child line under the position, so clients can see exactly how the charge was calculated.
Depending on the way your Labor is organized on your Quote, the options you may see will differ. Try changing how the labor information is organized by (event days vs groups vs position name vs event position)
Show Breaks and Show Meals (off by default) - when your quote is organized by event days, breaks and meals display as child lines under the position with their scheduled times, including walk-aways and other scheduled gaps.
These display settings can be saved in your quote configuration templates, so your preferred setup applies automatically to new quotes.
Good to Know
Breaks that cross midnight are not deducted. A break spanning overnight (for example, 4 AM-5 AM within an overnight shift) won't reduce roster hours. Schedule breaks within a single calendar day.
Break Types vs. LASSO Time: Break Types control scheduled breaks for quoting, billing, and labor cost estimates. Breaks punched on time cards in LASSO Time are recorded separately.
With Break Types set up, your schedules, rosters, and quotes will reflect the true cost of labor - breaks, meals, and penalties included. If you have any questions or need further assistance, feel free to reach out to our support team.