Timed Rates & Fixed Hours

Created by Martin Parkinson, Modified on Wed, 10 Apr at 11:09 PM by Graeme Orchard

After version 1.00.19.007 a new feature has been added to allow users to specify Times against a client at which certain rates will apply. After 1.00.19.160 the feature has been extended to allow Fixed Hours
You can find out more about Fixed Hours by looking here.

Example:

You might have a client where the basic and overtime rates vary across the week, according to the pattern below.

Mon-Fri: Basic Rate = 09:00-18:00, O/Time = 18:00-09:00
Sat : Basic Rate = 09:00-16:00, O/Time=16:00-09:00
Bank Hol: Basic Rate = 10:00-14:30, O/Time=14:30-10:00

Contents (Click an Item to Jump to that section)

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Timed Rates
System Setup (Usually performed by Influence / Your system Consultant)
Defining Times
Setting Up Timed Rate Change at Midnight.
Timed Rates on a Shift-by-Shift Basis

TIMED RATES - USAGE (How to Use the Feature)
Fixed Hours
Overtime on Set Hours

Timed Rates

System Setup (Usually performed by Influence / Your system Consultant)

Below are the parameters that affect the way that the Timed Rates feature works. Whilst these can be adjusted by you (provided your UserID has high priority levels/permissions) they are usually set and configured by your Influence consultant during setup.

Parameters

Description

PAYROLLB - Flag 47
Timed Rates

Enables this option.

PAYROLLB - Flag 48
Break Calc Y=Seq,N=Reverse,L=Largest,E=End

is used to define the sequence that is used to remove breaks from the times.

PAYROLLB - Flag 49
Time Rate-Change day after midnight

is used determine if items which go over into the following day are treated as such (or not.).

NB:After Version 1.00.20.077 this midnight switch-over can be controlled by SITE.

e.g. If you work from 22:30 on Friday to 02:45 Saturday is the whole shift treated as "Friday" or is some of it treated as "Saturday". (1.5Hrs Friday, 2.45Hrs Saturday)

OPTIONAL Parameters related to this feature

Parameter	Description
Payroll, Flag(56) Auto BH dates for EngWales/Scot/NI	Set this to lookup (automatically) bank holiday dates for the chosen country
PAYROLL, FLAG(59) Add BH parameter dates to Auto BH dates	Set this to Y if you want to define additional dates to those found automatically. Additional dates are held in Payroll Date (1-10) - see below.
PAYROLL, DATE (1-10) List of Additional bank Holiday dates.	Use these to define any additional dates to be treated as Bank Holidays with regard to Pay.
TEMPS, FLAG(44) Check Parent Client for Rate Times.	If there are no Rate Times setup on the client itself, the system will inherit times from the Parent Organsisation.

Defining Times

Go to the [Rates] page of a client record and click the [Rate Times] button at the bottom of the page.

Once the Booking Rates page opens, you can then begin to specify the Days/times when particular rates will apply AT THIS CLIENT. (Or Fixed Hours)

In the example above you can see that the following Day/time combinations apply.

Mon-Fri Basic	08:00-17:00
Mon-Fri Overtime	17:00-23:00 (<< NB: This is not a Good setup) It leaves some hours un-allocated (23:00-08:00)
Saturday Basic	09:00-18:00
Sunday Basic	07:00-21:00
Saturday Overtime	18:00-09:00
Sunday Overtime	21:00-07:00
Bank Holiday Basic	10:00-16:00
Bank Holiday Overtime	16:00-10:00

These times apply to ANY Shift (You can specify different times for different shifts using the Shift [ ] drop-down at the bottom left.

Use the Start/End columns to set the times applicable to that rate, and use the Days columns (Mon/Tue Wed etc) to specify which days the rate applies to.
The BH column indicates the rate applies to Bank Holidays - which could be any day.

NOTE: In the example above the Mon-Fri rates do not cover the full 24Hr period. This is poor practice. Any hours falling outside of those specified will be allocated against the "Basic" Rate, so if someone's worked from 20:00 - 01:00 they would accrue 3Hrs of Overtime and 2Hrs of Basic for the hours between 23:00 -> 01:00)

IMPORTANT:
The Sequence column at the right hand end is important. It should be used to specify the order in which the system should try to allocate/check the times. It is usually best to set this to that the most infrequent rates (e.g. Bank Holiday / Sun / Sat ) are checked first.
The sequence is also used to determine from which rate any BREAK should be removed (in conjunction with parameter PAYROLLB - Flag 48 as mentioned above.

NOTE: For Bank Holidays you need to let influence know which days are the Bank Holidays,.
If Payroll Flag(56) is set to E it will lookup the English bank holiday dates on the internet and use those.
You can also set this to S for Scotland or N for Northern Ireland

Additinoally you can set your on 'bank holiday' dates using Payroll, Date(s) (1-10)
Select the[Date]tab and enter the dates of the bank holidays

Setting Up Timed Rate Change at Midnight.

When using the Timed Rates feature, it was possible to specify if the Timed Rate Day changes after midnight or not [Parameter PayrollB, Flag(49)].

After version 1.00.20.077 this feature has now been enhanced so that it is possible to control this Site-by-Site rather than overall. From release 1.00.21.176 it is possible to set this on a SHIFT-by-SHIFT basis for each site.

On the [Accounts] tab of the site, user can choose how timed rates are applied, with choices for Yes, No or 'As Main Branch'

The effect of splitting at Midnight can be seen in the two examples below:

Example 1: Rate does NOT change at midnight - all Hours are at 'Overtime' rate

Example 2: Rate does change at midnight - some hours are at overtime, some at weekend Night (since it rolls over from Friday night into Saturday)

Timed Rates on a Shift-by-Shift Basis

From version 1.00.21.176

Within the Timed Rates setup for each client it is possible to use the drop-down at the bottom left to select a SHIFT, and then to select whether the SHIFT follows the same pattern as the client, or whether is does/does-not change after midnight.

EXAMPLE:

You may have rates setup such that

Basic (Mon-Fri)	08:00-18:00
Overtime (Mon-Fri)	18:00 - 08:00
Saturday	09:00-16:00
Sunday	09:00-16:00
Weekend O/Time	16:00-08:00
Bank Hol	00:00-00:00

If you made a booking on Friday, 22:00-03:00 You could have the system behave in different ways, depending on the SHIFT that was chosen, e.g.

SHIFT_A Basic (Mon-Fri) 5.0Hrs (All at the basic rate)

SHIFT_B Basic (Mon-Fri) 2.0Hrs
Weekend O/Time 3.0Hrs

In the second example (Shift_B) the shift has been setup to "Change at Midnight", and so some of the time is at Basic (Mon-Fri) and the remainder then swaps to the 'Weekend' rate.

TIMED RATES - USAGE (How to Use the Feature)

Using the facility is simply a case of making a booking as you normally would. When the system makes the booking it will attempt to put the booked hours against the relevant rate based on the day/time that has been booked.

EXAMPLE 1

In the example above a booking has been made from on Friday 22nd Feb at 20:00 until 05:00 Sat 23rd Feb, with a 30 min Break.
Because of the Times, 4.5 Hrs (00:00-05:00, less 30 mins Break) are treated as Saturday and then the remaining 4 Hrs (20:00-00:00) are treated as OVERTIME (Mon-Fri).

IMPORTANT >> In this instance the system checks for the "Saturday" hours first, and then deals with the remainder, due to the sequence. This highlights the importance of setting the sequence correctly when configuring the rate times to ensure the system works in the way you would want.

EXAMPLE 2

Assume the following Rate-Times are setup:
BASIC: 08:00-18:00 (Mon-Fri) Saturday: 09:00-18:00 (Sat)
EVENING: 18:00-00:00 (Mon-Fri) Sat Night: 18:00-09:00 (Sat)
NIGHT: 00:00-08:00 (Mon-Fri)

If a candidate is booked to work from (Friday) 16:30 -> 02:30 (Saturday) the system can allocate the hours in two different ways, depending upon the setting of parameter PayrollB - Flag(49)

Option A: Roll-over hours (Payroll_B,(49)= ticked)

Basic (M-F) : 1.5 Hrs
Evening (M-F): 6 Hrs
Sat Night (Sat): 2.5Hrs <= Because from 0:00-02:30 is actually on Saturday

Option B: Keep hours on Same Day (Payroll_B,(49)= un-ticked)

Basic (M-F) : 1.5 Hrs
Evening (M-F): 6 Hrs
Night (Mon-Fri): 2.5Hrs <= Using the Mon-Fri rates even though the time is actually Sat.

TIMESHEET ENTRY

The rate times will be applied when the booking is made, but are ALSO applied during timesheet entry. When using timesheet entry you must enter the times using the 'Combi' sheet (i.e. click the little 'Timesheet' icon and enter times into the top of the grid)

NB: After version 1.00.19.121 it is possible to edit the times on a line-by-line basis - previous versions do not allow this.

Once the 'Combi' sheet is open, simply enter the relevant times.

Example:

At a client, the times might be setup as below:
Basic: 08:00-18:00
Time and a Half: 00:00-06:00

A booking might be made initially to work from 15:00 - 01:00 (60 min Break), which would give: BASIC = 7Hrs, TIME and a HALF = 1Hrs

but..when the timesheet comes in it shows they worked until 02:00. If you edit the End time, then the rates would get adjusted as
BASIC = 7Hrs, TIME and a HALF = 2Hrs

Making the rates 'Fixed' for TEMP bookings.

A new facility has been added to the system to allow bookings to be made with FIXED Rates. This will be introduced after release 1.00.17.213

This new facility is controlled with a parameter.
NEW PARAMETER:
PAYROLLB - Flag 28 - Allow Fixed Rates? Defaults No on existing systems, Yes on new systems.

How it works

When making a booking the Booking Entry screen now includes a Fixed [ ] tick box. This will allow users to enforce that the rates entered at the time of booking remain at these rates, even if the "Update Rates" process is subsequently run.

In cases where the rates have been amended so that they are different than the rates automatically set by the system the adjusted values will be displayed in red.

Update Rates

The Update Rates process is an option which allows users to run a program to go through all current booking and check that they are at the "Current" applicable rates.

This is often run just before commencing Time-sheet Entry to ensure that all the bookings against which hours are about to be entered reflect the 'correct' rates.
e.g. A candidate may have some bookings which were made BEFORE they qualified for AWR, but where they have now reached the 12-week threshold and so should have a higher rate applied. Running the "Update Rates" process will amend the Pay/Charge rates for these bookings to reflect the rates as-if the booking had just been created 'Now'.

There are many placed from where the "Update Rates" program can be run.
In the example above you can see that there is an [Update Rates] button available at the bottom left whilst in Time-sheet Entry.

Bank Holidays

When using timed rates, it is important for the system to know when bank holidays occur, so relevant rates can be applied if needed.

The system can look-up (automatically) the Bank Holidays for England, Scotland or Northen Ireland. It is also possible to define additional Bank Holiday dates if necessary.

Parameter	Description
Payroll, Flag(56) Auto BH dates for EngWales/Scot/NI	Set this to lookup (automatically) bank holiday dates for the chosen country
PAYROLL, FLAG(59)	Set this to Y if you want to define additional dates to those found automatically
PAYROLL, DATE (1-10)	Use these to define any additional dates to be treated as Bank Holidays with regard to Pay.

When setting up Rate Times, if a company pays differen rates for Bank Holidays, then you should setup a separate row, indicating which rates are paid on bank holiday.

The Sequence for this should be low (typically 1) to ensure the system checks whether it is a bank holiday BEFORE checking others such as Saturday, Sunday or weekdays.

If a firm pays the same rates (e.g. Day/Night) all week, then it is acceptable to tick all 7 days, but do not tick BH - It is not needed and will cause issues with the allocation of hours if you do.

DO NOT DO THIS........

Fixed Hours

If it possible to setup the times against a client so that bookings will always be charged at a minimum of 8 Hrs, and that any hours over this will then be charged at Overtime Rate.

So, a Booking from 09:00 - 14:00 with 30-min break is actually, 4.5 Hrs, but would be charged at 8 Hrs

SETUP

In order to use the Fixed hours feature, you will need to turn-on the "Timed Rates"

Parameter PAYROLLB - Flag 47 is used to enable this option.

For more info about setup, see the article about Timed Rates.

Usage

Go to a client record, choose the [Rates] tab and click the [Rate Times] button at the bottom of the screen.

When the screen opens, use the drop-down to select Hours - see below.

Against each rate you have 4 choices.

No Restrictions - you can book and enter whatever hours you like.

Minimum Hours - Specify the MINIMUM Hours that will be booked. Whatever Start/end time is entered the system will book at least this many hours.

Overtime on Booked Hours - At timesheet entry, the system will put any hours which exceed the originally booked hours into overtime.

Overtime on Set Hours - At timesheet entry, the system will put hours which exceed the specified number of hours into this rate. e.g. You might say any hrs in excess of 7Hrs will be allocated to this rate.

You can specify which days these restrictions apply to by placing a Green tick into the relevant box.

Client vs System default

When setting these rate/Hours rules it is possible to set them on a specific client, or as an overall (default) rule.

To set rate/hours for a client go to the client, choose the [Rates] tab and click the [Rate Times] button.

To Set the overall SYSTEM default (which then applies to ALL clients) go to
Maintenance > Tools > Pay and Charge Rates, then set the HOURS rules in there.

Examples

Example Setup - 8Hrs Minimum then Overtime

Below is an example of how you might set the system up so that all bookings are for a minimum of 8 Hrs, and that anything over 8Hrs is put into the appropriate 'Overtime' Rate.

Notice how there are two lines, acting as a pair. i.e.
Basic Pay Rate => Minimum hours (8:00) Mon-Fri
Time And Half => Overtime on Set Hours (8:00) Mon-Fri

Examples of Bookings using these Rules

Example 1 : Minimum hours (8 Hours)

In the example below a booking has been made from 09:00 - 14:00
The Booking shows that 8 Hours have been booked, even though the times are less than this. (i.e. 8Hrs Minimum)

Example 2: Minimum Hours (booking already exceeds minimum)

In this example a worker has been booked from 09:00 - 18:30 (no break). The hours exceed the 8Hrs minimum, and so 8Hrs are booked at BASIC, and any hours exceeding 8 are booked at Time and Half.

i.e. Basic = 8 hrs, time and half = 1.5 hrs

Examples of Timesheet Entry using these Rules

When using these Fixed Hours/Minimum hours setup, it is best to enter timesheets using the Times

In the example below you can see that the start/End have been set to 09:00-14:00 on Wed, but that the BASIC shows 8Hrs worked.

Changing the times to 09:00-16:30 would still show 8Hrs, as that is the minimum.

Any entries where the hours are different than the start/end times (plus break) are shown in red.

NOTE: At timesheet entry you can FORCE the system to ignore the rules by keying in the actual hours worked, so entering 7.5 into the BASIC hrs box would record (and timesheet) 7.5 hours since you are effectively over-riding the calculations and telling the system the ACTUAL hours to record.

Overtime on Set Hours

This feature allows you to set a number of hours, after which any hours in excess of that amount will be treated as Overtime. (Different rate)

Setup

In order to use the Overtime on Set Hours feature, you will need to turn-on the "Timed Rates".

Parameter PAYROLLB - Flag 53 (Allow O/T on Timed Rates) is used to enable this option.

Usage

Go to a client record, choose the [Rates] tab and click the [Rate Times] button at the bottom of the screen.

When the [Booking Rates] page opens, make sure to select [Time Ranges] at the top of the screen.

If you tick the [OT?] column the system Greys-Out the [End] column, and leaves only the [Start] column. This [Start] column is used to enter the number of hours after-which working times gets treated as overtime.

Examples

Example 1: Overtime after 7Hrs

Below is an example of how you might set the system up so that all bookings Mon-Fri are treated such that any hours in excess of 7Hrs are treated as 'Overtime' rate.