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Using Pay by area in Xero

Eden Pigram
  • Updated

If you use Xero for payroll and export your Deputy timesheets to Xero, you can now use Pay by Area to modify the hourly rates of a team member prior to export. If Pay by Area is enabled in Deputy, pay sent to Xero will be adjusted depending on the area in which an employee worked - allowing you to pay a team member different pay rates if they occasionally work a different role or in the same role under different conditions that affect pay rates.

 

What is Pay by Area?

It’s commonplace to have team members qualified to work across different roles and responsibilities in one organisation.  

Enabling Pay by area in Deputy allows team members to flexibly move between roles while ensuring they’re paid correctly for the work they’re performing in each role. 

If Pay by Area is enabled in Deputy, pay sent to Xero will be adjusted depending on the area in which an employee worked

Note: Any pay by area hours exported will not accrue leave within Xero. 

 

Set up Pay by area with Xero

  1. Set up pay by area within your team member's profile as outlined in Pay by Area, choosing which awards and pay rates apply when the employee works in a given area. 
  2. Schedule the team member for shifts in the required areas as usual. The team member's default pay rate is now being modified based on the area in which they worked. 
  3. Approve and export timesheets. 
  • Choose Xero Payroll in the export dropdown and then choose timesheets in the 'export as' dropdown
  • In order to export area-based pay, tick the checkbox 'Replace XERO's base hourly rate with Deputy's base hourly rate
  • A warning will inform if a team member's pay rates are being modified by area-based pay. 
  • Click Export. 
  • Within Xero, the timesheets exported will appear in Payroll > Timesheets. 
  • A new pay item (Settings > Payroll Settings > Pay item) is created for each pay rate that applies (To see the pay rates that apply for a given export, navigate to Timesheets > Export Timesheets > Group by Pay Rate within Deputy). The prefix added to the pay items ABP[number] denotes the area where the employee worked. 
  • These pay items are assigned to the user pay template within Xero (Payroll > Employees > *Select Team Member* > Pay Template) with the rates matching the rate set up within an employee profile within Deputy
  • When running payroll (Payroll > Pay Employees > *Select Pay Calendar*) you will see a team member's pay has been modified to reflect the areas in which they worked. 

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    Troubleshooting

    • There is a limit to how long earnings names can be within Xero. If the pay rate export code within Deputy is over 90 characters long it will need to be renamed to be shorter. 
    • You receive an error message "The export code <name> is too long", but all export codes are less than 90 characters. Check how many areas are included in each area group. 10 or more areas in the same group can also cause this error to appear. If there are more than 10, try splitting the areas into two or more area groups of 5 areas each, and then export the timesheets. 
    • Please ensure that you are exporting for a date range that corresponds to the open pay calendar that is assigned to your employee. To see open pay calendars in Xero go to Settings > Payroll Settings > Calendars.

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