Pay Elements

You can set the pay elements for various staff types under Dashboard > Pay > Pay Settings.

Here, you can select “Create Pay Element" from the “Actions” menu to set up the pay elements and details.

Pay Element Details

• Pay Element Title - Give the pay element a recognisable title.
• Hidden? - Checking the box will hide these pay element details from most screens. This is perfect for hiding holiday pay rates.
• Pay Type - This is either Hourly Rate (e.g. staff are paid by the minute) or pay item (staff are paid the rate for each item they have sold/completed).
• Hourly Amount - Determine the hourly amount for this pay element.
• Account Optional: Select the appropriate Account (see Pay Element Accounts for more information).

Holiday Pay

• Holiday Pay Element: Select whether the Holiday Pay Element is disabled or which pay element is appropriate for the pay element from the existing pay element list.
• Holiday Pay %: If you have selected a Holiday Pay Element, you can choose the percentage of that pay element that will be given to the staff member when they take a holiday. This is entered as a percentage.
• Event Triggers: Here, you can enable automatic changes to payroll for employees who meet a certain age or have worked for the company for a certain amount of time.

You can edit or delete existing Pay Elements from the main list.

Scheduled Rate Changes

When editing an hourly rate, the system will ask if it is a correction or a scheduled change. A correction will change the current hourly rate and any unprocessed hourly rates to match the new rate.

The New Rate option creates a new hourly rate, which you can apply instantly or at a set date or time.

The system will also record all changes to the hourly rates and correctly select the right hourly rate historically for any time entry added in the past or the future.

Age-Based Rate Changes

This allows you to automatically change a staff member’s hourly rate once they turn specific ages.

The first step is to ensure we have a date of birth for each staff member.

This means that any age-related rules, such as increases in pay, are applied as soon as the DOB is provided in the system. 

A DOB is required for the age trigger to work on a staff account. 

To set up a change based on age, simply edit the pay element rates and set an age trigger. Choose the next pay element that the site should change the staff member’s pay to.

On the day the staff member changes to be the set age, the site will automatically select all skills for which they are paid the normal rate and will set a bespoke rate to the selected pay element.

Length of Service

Pay Elements can now have Length of Service adjustments within them allowing the system to automatically change staff between pay elements depending on their length of service.

This can be changed via Pay > Pay Settings. In the actions menu go to, ‘Create a New Pay Element’. Under rate of pay, Pay Type should be set to ‘Paid Per Item’. This allows for Length of Service Adjustments.

This is where you set what will trigger an automatic change to pay when a length of service has been met. This can be set to days, weeks, months or years.

Time Specific Changes

Note - Time Specific changes will no longer be available from the end of 2023. Replace any Time Specific Change settings with a contract manipulation rule. 

This allows you to change the hourly rate of any staff working past a fixed time. For example, paying staff more once they work past 3am.

To set this up, choose the time of day and choose the rate of pay that the time entry should be changed to.

When a staff member is clocked in at this specific time of day, the system will stop the current time entry with the existing hourly rate and create a new time entry with the new hourly rate.

When managing the time entries afterwards, you will see two-time entries for any staff clocked in at the set time. This is expected. The time entries represent the two different rates of pay for a single shift.

If you edit the midpoint of the shift, e.g. the time the rates change then both time entries will be updated to ensure the staff member is paid in a continuous run from the moment they clock in to the moment they clock out.

The breaks system understands that the two different time entries are connected and will correctly calculate breaks already worked and those owed.

Using Hourly Pay Rates

Hourly pay rates are associated with time entries; a period of time that a staff member was working for you. During this time they are paid the associated hourly rate.

By default, the hourly rate used is the one set on the skill/role that the staff member is working at. You can also override this on each staff member's account (See Staff Skills).

To add time entries, you can use the clock-in screens or manually add the entries via pages such as the Weekly Timesheet and Unprocessed Pay.

Using Pay Items

Pay Items allow you to pay staff for a unit rather than an hour of work. You can specify each of your pay items and how much each item is worth in currency.

You can then assign the pay items to each of the skills/roles that can be rewarded via that pay item to quickly pay staff their commission or bonuses.

Once created, you can either manually add the pay items via Unprocessed Pay or by assigning the pay item rates to skills and using the quick ‘Add Pay Items’ page.

For the Unprocessed Pay method, click Actions > Add Unlisted Pay Item. Choose who to assign the item to and the total number of items to add.

For the Add Pay Items method, you need to assign the pay items to skills so the system knows which ones apply to different staff in your business.To go Staff > Staff Settings > Manage Skills. Click Edit next to the skill you want to change.

Under the Pay tab, you will see the default hourly rate plus the option to add Pay Per Item Rates. Select all of the pay item rates you wish to offer to those staff.

Once saved, you can now add pay items to the skill. Go to Pay > Add Pay Items.

You will be asked to select a skill to use.

You’ll then see a grid with all of your staff listed on the left and all of the pay items across the top. Simply use the boxes to enter how many pay items you want each staff member to receive.

The system will calculate the total value for you and inform you of any previously assigned pay items that have not yet been paid. This will help to prevent duplication.

Once added, pay items will be included in wage sheets as per hourly rates and exported to your payroll system as simple units per rate.

You are also able to exclude certain pay elements from wage sheets.
This is perfect for salaried or volunteer hours. Simply enable it under the Pay Element’s details page.

Pay Rate History

Pay elements now have a history of rates so that you can see history and remove any incorrect entries
Useful for checking (or correcting) changes in pay amounts and keeping track of what has been changed. This option will only appear once changes have been made to the hourly rate.

This can be found under the ‘Rate History’ button to view the history of that pay element.