Use appropriate employment, duty and scheduling records together with evidence of the legal employers and their relationship. Explain what each record shows.
Avoid double counting
If the same hours appear in different internal systems, explain the duplication rather than adding them as separate service. Preserve actual dates and work arrangements. A summary should reconcile genuine records, not manufacture a qualifying total.
Start from custody. Payroll sits with one department, timesheets with another, and the contract of employment with a third; a divided week means each of those exists twice, in two organisations that may not reconcile them the same way. Ask each custodian for the record itself rather than a summary of it, then have one person, named in advance, reconcile the two sets and write down where they disagree.
Hypothetical example: a horticultural wholesaler's scheduling system and its affiliate's payroll both record a Wednesday, because the applicant genuinely split that day, and the reconciliation should show one day worked across two employers rather than two days. Where a record is missing altogether, identify which custodian no longer holds it and why, since an acknowledged gap is easier for an adjudicator to weigh than a total that quietly assumes the missing period. Preserve the original dates as issued: a reconciliation explains records, it does not replace them.