Each organization has different terms, acronyms and internal processes that make sure their staff get paid accurately and on time. RecStaff is flexible enough to handle all these different scenarios but it requires proper configuration. To help our clients understand how our modules are configured we've included a list of terms we use throughout the application.
| Term | Description |
|---|---|
| Payroll Period | A period (weekly, bi-weekly, monthly etc) that matches the payrolls schedule your organization uses to pay its staff. Everything you do with timesheets in RecStaff will be done within a payroll period. |
| Timesheet | An online view that show all the shifts from a payroll period for an employee in a given payroll group. The timesheet organizes all the rates, hours, GL codes and other information you need for your payroll group into a single view. |
| Payroll Group | To make your payroll processing more manageable, RecStaff lets you break up the work into different "payroll groups". A payroll group has a set of schedule types that are to be paid through the group, a set of payroll managers who can create and manage timesheets for the group, and configuration information that controls export formats etc. Payroll groups can be organized to match your departments (Aquatics payroll group, Front Desk payroll group), to match departments and facilities (Aquatics Pool A group) or any combination that matches your business needs. |
| Payroll Grade | Payroll grades (sometimes called pay-bands, pay scales, wage brackets etc) are ways to group employees together and assign them the same payroll rate. You might have payroll grades that are role-based (LG Lifeguard, SI - Swim Instructor) or you might have grades used across your municipality. Grades are useful because if there are wages increases you increase the rate attached to the grade and all the employees at that grade will be paid the new rate. |
| Payroll Grade Step | Steps (sometimes call levels, increments etc) allow you to define multiple levels of pay within the same grade. For example, you might have a grade LG with 3 steps - LG1, LG2, LG3. Each step would have it's own rate and usually staff advance through the steps from lowest to highest. |
| Payroll Rate | A payroll rate is a per hour amount that you want to pay somebody. Payroll rates can be assigned to pay grade / step combinations but can also be used in place of payroll grades. Payroll rates can also be used to handle exceptions, where a particular employee doing a certain activity needs to be paid outside of your standard pay scheme. Payroll rates can be configured for any combination of employee type (FT, PT, Casual etc), employee, role or work assignment. |
| Payroll Code | When you pay your staff you likely have some kind of code that indicates how each hour in your timesheet should be handled by the payroll department. Sometimes these codes are called "Time Codes", "Attendance and Absence Codes" or something similar. Normal hours would have a standard code but then sick time, overtime, different kinds of leave would be coded with a certain code and processed by the payroll department accordingly. |
| Staff Payroll Grade Assignment | A staff payroll grade assignment is a matching between a role an employee works and the payroll grade and step they should get when working that role. Assignment can be "default" or can be specific to a role. Employee Jill might be paid as LG1 when working in the role of lifeguard. However, she might also do other work that always gets the same grade no matter what role so she'll have a "default" assignment that has no role and will be used for everything other than LG. |
| Premiums | A premium is some kind of bonus that should be paid to staff under certain scenarios. For example, you might have a First Aid premium of $1.00/hr that is paid to the most senior staff member with advanced first aid training, or an "in water" premium that staff get when they teach lessons in the pool. Premiums can be set up to pay lump sums (eg $5 each day worked), hourly increases in per hour rates, increases in hours paid, or they can just be used to track activity. |
| Shift Differentials | Shift differentials automate the process of applying a premium that is time based. A shift differential in RecStaff combines a premium to be paid with a timetable of when that premium should be applied (which days, which roles are eligible etc). Shift differentials can then be attached to schedule types and any shifts worked on the related schedule will automatically trigger a shift differential increment to show on the employee's timesheet. |
| Overtime | Overtime is another example where RecStaff can automatically apply a premium when required. You set up an OT premium (eg pay staff @ 1.5 x normal rate) then configure your payroll group to use it whenever staff work OT. These premiums can also be applied manually if needed. |
| Time and Attendance | Time and Attendance is a workflow in RecStaff that makes it easy to stay on top of hours as they are worked throughout the payroll period, so that when it is time to process your payroll you aren't trying to remember what happened 2 weeks ago! The time and attendance workflow uses colour coding throughout the timesheets and payroll reports to show at a glance which shifts have been verified as worked, and also which shifts may have been edited after being verified. |
| Shift Verification | The shift verification step is somebody confirming that a shift was worked as it appears on the schedule. Verified shifts get a green checkmark on the dashboard and the audit history of a shift shows who verified it and when. Note that anytime a shift is edited AFTER verification, the shift must be verified again. This indicates to payroll managers that the shift needs to be looked at again. |
| Work Assignments | Work assignments are blocks of time within a shift that correspond to a particular activity the employee did. Different work assignments can trigger different rates or cost centres within a shift, without requiring the scheduler to create multiple shifts. |
| Override Roles | A work assignment can be configured to have an "override role". An override role tells RecStaff that whenever the work assignment is on a shift, the time for that work assignment should be treated AS IF it was worked as that role. A simple example is a LG shift of 6 hours, but for 2 hours of that shift and LG acted as the Deck Supervisor and is eligible for a higher rate of pay. Schedulers would create a work assignment "DS Coverage", set the override role on it to be "Deck Supervisor" and then anytime that work assignment is added to a shift, the time of that work assignment will be treated like the employee was working as a Deck Supervisor. |