Background
Customers using our payroll module often provide feedback that it would be great to be able to indicate which shifts had been checked already when reviewing and reconciling timesheets. For organizations with 2-week pay periods it was hard to recall what happened on a day at the beginning of the period. Some customers would filter their payroll period report for smaller blocks of time to try and reconcile a few days at a time but this wasn’t ideal.
Solution
We created a workflow called “Time and Attendance” (TA). The idea behind the TA workflow is to “verify” shifts at the end of the day, after they’ve been worked, basically confirming that what is on the schedule is in fact what really happened. Verified shifts get a special checkmark icon and a new entry in the audit history of a shift, but most importantly, they show now in a special colour code throughout the timesheets and payroll period report. Best of all, if somebody edits a verified shift, the shift goes back to unverified and is highlighted on the TS and reports!
Click here to learn how to enable the Time and Attendance workflow.
Here is an updated diagram of the three approval steps including the verification step:
- Shift Verification
Shift Verification the key part of the TA workflow. On a regular basis, schedulers and / or shift editors can verify shifts after they have been worked. The purpose of verification it to confirm that somebody has looked at the shift on the schedule and confirmed that it was worked as recorded. If the schedule does not accurately reflect what was worked, the scheduler should adjust the shift details until it is correct, and then verify the shift.
Shift can be verified from the Shift Details dialogue from the dashboard or inside the timesheet itself:
They can also be verified in bulk using the Verification dialogue, found in the drop-down menu on the middle panel of a manager / scheduler / shift editor’s dashboard:
The Verification dialogue works like many other RecStaff pages – you choose which ones you want to verify by selecting the row, which will turn blue. Pro tip: There are several ways to select anything in a RecStaff list: i) click the checkboxes of each row one at a time ii) hold ctrl and click the rows you want one at a time iii) click one row then hold shift and click any other row to select all the rows between your clicks or (iv) select “All None” from the upper left of the table.
Once you have your shifts selected the button will activate and you can verify them. Note that when a previously verified shift is edited, its verification flag is reset and it will need to be verified again.
The Verification dialogue also lets you edit the start and end times, the work code, and add a note to the shift, all without having to open each individual shift:
Note that when a shift is verified, it gets a green checkmark icon on the Employee Shift Listing report and on the dashboard shifts listing:
If the TA workflow is followed, when you go to run your timesheets you will be able to tell at a glance whether anything has changed and be confident that shifts reflect what really happened.
Verification is the first approval step in the payroll workflow. - Manager Timesheet Sign-off
Once the timesheets have been created, Payroll Manager review the timesheets and make any necessary corrections, and then sign off on the timesheets. The purpose of the Time and Attendance workflow is to move much of the review and correction work out of the payroll timesheet processing and do it regularly throughout the payroll period when changes and exceptions are fresh in one’s memory. When a manager reviews the timesheets and the payroll period report, colour coding indicates which shifts / days have been verified and which have not been.
Here is what the payroll period report showing the verification colour-coding:
Similarly the timesheet listing itself now has the same colour coding:
And finally, the timesheet itself has the same colour-coding:
Once the payroll manager has completed verifying all the shifts, the manager can sign-off on the timesheets from the listing page. Again, select which ones you want to sign off on using the same mouse clicks as before, the choose the menu option “Sign off on Selected”. After confirming the change, the list shows the new status:
The payroll period summary report shows the same status abbreviated “MS”:
Lastly, the timesheets themselves will now have the managers timestamp on them:
The manager’s timesheet sign-off is the second approval in the payroll workflow. - Payroll Period Completion
Once all timesheets have been signed-off, two menu options in the Payroll Period Report page will become active – “Export Payroll Data” and “Complete Payroll Period”.
The completion is the third approval level the standard PIT TA workflow. A Department manager can come in and approve the entire period by completing it.
This approval is also visible from the listing of payroll periods: