This article explains how to configure or edit the pay rule calculations that make up your pay rates.
Before you begin
Please ensure you have already read:
What is a pay rule?
In Deputy, a pay rule is a specific way that an individual can be paid. A pay rule is made up of several distinct pieces:
- A name
- Export code (for payroll purposes)
- How it is paid (for example, $20 an hour, or 1.5x your base pay, and whether it is part of an employee’s normal hours or an additional payment on top)
- It’s calculation type (what causes this payment to trigger) and the configuration that changes when this works.
For example, you may wish to pay a team member overtime when they work more than 8 ordinary hours in a day. This pay rule could be named Daily Overtime, it’s export code could be Overtime, paid at 1.5x the team member’s base rate, with a Daily Overtime base rate and configuration to trigger after 8 hours, on every day of the week, in all areas.
In this help guide we’ll step through the example of creating a new pay rule for Daily Overtime as an example, but additional information on how each calculation type works can also be found in these help articles:
- California Missed Meal Break (US only)
- California Missed Rest Break (US only)
- Consecutive Days Worked
- Daily Overtime
- Delayed Break
- Fair Workweek Schedule Premiums (US only)
- Minimum Gap After Overtime
- Minimum Shift Engagement
- Nevada Rolling Overtime (US only)
- Non Automated Allowance
- Ordinary Rate
- Outside Scheduled Hours
- Pay Alongside
- Period Overtime
- Public Holiday
- Reporting Time
- Rest Between Shifts
- Shift Allowance
- Shift Loading
- Split Shift Premium
- Spread of Hours
Creating a pay rule
Within each pay rate, on the Pay rules tab, you can view, edit or add to the pay rules that make up the pay rate.
To edit or delete an existing pay rule, hover over the pay rule name and click on the pencil icon to edit it or the trash can icon to delete it.
Note: to reorder your existing pay rules you will need to click on Advanced from the left-hand side menu.
1. Add a new pay rule
On the Pay rules tab in the selected pay rate click Add.
In this example, we’re adding a 'Daily Overtime' calculation type rule, so select this option from the drop-down menu and Add pay rule.
The options shown below are for the 'Daily Overtime' pay rule. See the specific help article for each pay rule calculation type for more information on the fields available in each one.
2. Pay rule name and calculation type
The name of the Pay Rule is shown at the top left. The Pay Rule name is how it will be identified in Deputy. Click on the name field to edit it, if required.
If the pay rule name is edited, then the label on the right, in this instance, DAILY OVERTIME, shows you the original pay rule calculation type that was selected in Step 1.
The first parameters shown are the unique parameters that define how a particular calculation type’s pay rule will behave. Not all Calculation Types have parameters.
For the Daily Overtime pay calculation, there is just one unique parameter, the Rule Threshold.
3. Rule Threshold
Rule Threshold defines how many hours in a day have to be worked before the shift is considered to be Overtime.
For our example, this can be set to 8 hours.
Note that other calculation types have different parameters that can be set to change the behaviour. It is recommended to look at the individual pay rule calculation types help articles to determine what these do.
4. Pay rate
This parameter allows you to set whether this pay rule should be paid as a
Multiples of a base rate
Multiples of the base rate are always in hours. For example, a value of 1.5 as entered in this example will pay the user's base pay rate, multiplied by 1.5, or 50% more than their base rate.
Flat rate
A Flat rate can be paid as a unit or per hour. It will pay exactly that amount every hour or unit.
Note: Base Pay Rules cannot be paid per unit so this option will be greyed out.
How many hours or units will be calculated varies per calculation type. Please check the expected behaviour for each, but in general, units occur each time an event happens.
Base pay rules and shift loadings
A base pay rule is a stand-alone pay rule, meaning two base pay rule will never apply at the same time to a single employee. A base pay rule is not limited to the Employee's base rate. It could be a regular hourly rate, an overtime hourly rate, or any rate.
Not all calculation types can be configured as base pay rules - some are only available as shift loadings.
A shift loading pay rule is an additive rule, because it applies in conjunction with a base pay rule. While base pay rules can only apply one at a time, you can have as many shift loadings apply on top of that base pay rule as you need.
For example, these can be used to add allowances or an additional payment on top - maybe if an employee works in the evening, they get an extra $1 an hour on top of their ordinary pay.
Not all calculation types can be configured as loadings, such as Daily Overtime, so we've shown an example before from the Shift loading pay rule calculation.
If a calculation type can be configured as both, it appears as a box to be selected. Ticking the Pay Rate as a Loading designates the pay calculation rule as a shift loading. If the box is left unchecked, then the calculation acts as a base payment.
Rounding to full hours
Some jurisdictions require all loadings and penalties to be rounded to full-hour increments.
For example, if a person earns 30 minutes of a night shift penalty, they are required to be paid a full hour.
To select this option, select the 'Apply Loading in Full Hour Increment Only' option. This is only available to shift loadings.
5. Export code
Select whether you want the pay rule to be exported to payroll.
Pay Rules don’t have to be exported, and if you select No, the pay rule will not be exported from Deputy via timesheets.
If you select Yes, enter the value to map this pay rule to the value required by your payroll provider. If you are uncertain what this value should be, please reach out to your payroll provider.
IMPORTANT: if you are using Pay Rate Builder to configure pay rates and assign these to your team members then when it comes time to export timesheets with these pay rates please do not use the edit export code field on the Export timesheet tab. Please always update any export code changes within the pay rule settings as shown above.
6. Days and time applies
When you add a new pay rule it will by default apply to all days and times of the day.
You can also use the tick boxes to select specific days and times this pay rule will apply.
Day
For example, if only Saturday and Sunday are selected, this pay rule will not trigger for time worked on weekdays.
Time of Day
You can also select particular times of the days. For example, if you wanted to create a pay rule that is only valid from hours worked between 9pm and 6am you can select Time range from the Time drop-down menu and then select the Start and End times of the range you want the pay rule to apply.
Public Holiday
It is also possible to select whether this pay rule will apply on public holidays or not.
Select whether this pay rule applies:
- Always applies (ie. applies whether the day is marked as a public holiday or not)
- Applies only on days marked as public holiday
- Does not apply on public holidays (ie. only applies on days not marked as public holidays)
7. Areas
This setting allows you to select particular areas in your business for the pay rule to apply to.
By default, all areas are selected.
If some areas are selected, this pay rule will only trigger on timesheets worked in that particular area.
To select an area, click on Certain areas then Add area. Use the checkboxes to tick which areas in your business apply then click Done.
You see which areas have been selected and can also remove the selected areas by clicking Remove.
Note: if any new areas are added to any location in your organisation after this pay rule is configured, they will not be automatically selected within the setting unless the All Areas option has been selected.
8. Advanced settings
These advanced parameters are the same for all pay rule calculation types:
- Apply to a specific date
- Apply pay rule to scheduled or unscheduled shifts
- Pay portion rule
- Rate type
- Rate tag
- Clock in and out requirements
- Timesheet custom fields - shift questions
- Shift custom fields
- Employee custom fields (Enterprise only)
Apply the pay rule to a specific date
If this setting is turned on, this pay rule will only trigger on the determined date. This can be useful for special days that attract a higher rate than normal public holidays, such as Christmas or New Year's Day.
Apply pay rule to scheduled or unscheduled shifts
This setting determines whether the pay rule will apply to:
- all shifts - both scheduled and unscheduled (default)
- scheduled shifts only
- unscheduled shifts only
Pay portion rule
Generally, an hourly rate will be assigned according to the exact hours that are matched, however, it is possible to enforce an hourly rate for a full shift even if it only matches a minor or major portion of that shift. Unless specifically told otherwise, you will likely use the Exact Hours (default) option.
Rate type
Deputy categorises each pay rule for the purposes of reporting, exception management, and in our calculations (for example, periodic overtime will ignore all hours already classed as overtime to prevent double overtime payments). This setting will default to the most approproate for the pay rule calculation type you have selected but if required, this can be changed.
Rate tag
This setting provides an additional (and optional) free-form comment/text field that will be used for reporting or other calculation requirements.
Pay Once Per Day
This setting will apply shift loadings only once a particular day. This is used if you have multiple shifts on a single day, but only want it to apply once rather than for each sub shift.
Clock in and out requirements
This setting checks to see if a team clocked in and clocked out within particular time periods before applying the pay rule.
For example, a night shift may only be classified as such for hours worked after 9pm provided the employee clocks in after 8pm. In this case, you might configure a setting as a clock in between 8pm and say 6am.
Timesheet custom fields
This rule will only trigger if a particular answer is provided to a timesheet question specified. A possible use of this setting would be a pay rule that can trigger only if a user enters No to the custom question "Did you take your rest breaks?".
Read more about setting you your custom timesheet questions: Creating custom timesheet fields for shift questions
Shift custom fields
This rule will only trigger if a particular answer is provided to a shift custom field. A possible use of this setting might be setting up a shift custom field that can be designated as the ‘First Aid Provider' when this shift is created and this would then trigger a pay rule that provided an allowance for fulfilling this function.
Read more about setting up customer shift fields: Creating custom shift fields
Employee custom fields (Enterprise only)
This rule will only trigger if a particular answer is provided to an employee custom field. A possible use of this setting would be to trigger a pay rule to apply to only those team members working in that particular role.
This functionality is only available to those on the Enterprise plan.
9. Save your pay rule
Once you have configured your settings for your pay rule don't forget to click Save on the top right of the page.
Once you have saved your pay rule you can:
- continue to create as many pay rules as you need to make up your pay rate
- reorder your pay rule priority as required
- assign the new pay rate to your team members.