Payrun Templates
Introduction
Pay run templates are useful for linking farmers' employees and their clocking system to calculate weekly, fortnightly, and monthly rates based on factors such as days or hours worked, overtime, weekends, or public holidays, and leave time.
The benefit of using a pay run template is that it only needs to be set up once but can be used to calculate rates across all your employees.
Setting up a pay run template
To set up a pay run template, start by adding an earning, deduction, or benefit from the "Settings" in payroll.
Go to payroll.
Go to settings.
Click on "Add template".
Follow these steps to add a new pay run template:
Provide a name for your template.
Add a description to provide more details on what the pay run template is used for.
Make sure that the pay run template type is set to the type you would like to create:
Earning - a payable amount that is paid out to employees.
Deduction - amount to be deducted from employees.
Benefit & Contributions - an added benefit that gets awarded to employees.
Link up the pay run with the required SARS code.
Learn more about SARS codes and how to use them
You have the option to set up a quantity from the Functions (such as activities, working hours, leave, or absent days) or set up a Custom Quantity that will be used to calculate rate over time.
Note that quantity minimum and maximum limits can also be set up to help your pay run determine when a unit should start or stop being measured.
An example of this would be calculating hours worked and setting a maximum hour unit measurement. A new pay run template can then be set up to start calculating from that limit and apply a new rate, such as overtime. Read more about functions
Set a custom rate or a Variable unit rate that will be associated with all employees using this pay run template.
Note that when opting to use a variable unit, you would also be able to apply factors to them in a pay run. This added flexibility is useful in cases where an employee's rate might be adjusted by factors.
Click on add once you are done to add your new pay run template.
SARS Source codes
SARS codes are categorised based on the pay run type selected, such as earnings, deductions, or benefits. Each SARS code is accompanied by a short description to provide information on its appropriate use, and examples of when it is applicable.
Each SARS code includes the following information:
SARS code name
Description
Examples
Learn more about SARS codes and how to use them.
Functions/Metrics
When selecting quantities, users have the option to set which functions/metrics should be linked to the pay run from the employees' clocking metrics. These are grouped into the following categories:
Activities, harvesting, and packing: These metrics are used to link to piecework and its unit of measurement, which is captured on the system and then linked to a rate.
Working hours: These metrics are used to combine all working days or hours, overtime, and working public holidays.
Leave: These metrics are used to include any types of leave, such as annual, sick, family, or unpaid leave.
Absent days: This metric is used in cases where employees might be absent.
Unit Constraints
By providing minimum and maximum quantity constraints on the units provided by the functions, you can implement concepts like bucket hours. Bucket hours refer to when employees need to work a set number of hours within a pay period before they earn overtime.
Bucket Hours
Agrigistics's Time and Attendance module calculates overtime daily by default. That means employees will only earn overtime if they exceed their regular working hours. However, some farmers prefer to combine all hours worked and only allocate overtime when a certain threshold of hours is reached.
For example, a farmer pays his employees fortnightly. They work 5 days a week for 9 hours a day from Monday to Friday. On Saturdays, they are paid at a 1.5 rate, and on Sundays, at a 2 times rate. The regular working hours in a fortnight total to 9 hours per day x 5 days per week x 2 weeks = 90 hours.
To implement bucket hours, you need to configure an earning template for Normal Hours and combine the following functions:
Normal hours: All regular hours worked between Monday to Friday
Normal overtime: All overtime hours worked between Monday to Friday
Public Holiday Total Hours Clocked: If an employee works on a public holiday, those hours must also be accounted for in the 90 total hours for the fortnight period.
After selecting all the mentioned functions, you add a unit constraint with a maximum of 90. This will limit the total number of hours for all three functions to 90.
The next step is to create an earning template for Overtime Hours. Combine all the functions mentioned in the Normal Hours template, but now add a unit constraint with a minimum of 90. This will ensure that overtime will only be allocated once the sum of all hours reaches the minimum threshold.
Saturdays and Sundays are seen as irregular working days, and they can be added to their own respective pay run templates.
Custom quantity
Custom quantities are a great way to capture any special arrangements you may have with employees that need to be added to your pay runs and templates. These can include arrangements such as deductions in exchange for fuel, or other units of measurement for earnings that can be linked to a rate.
To set up custom quantities, follow these steps:
Select the "Custom Quantities" tab.
Input your unit of measurement (e.g. tokens).
Input the amount of units you typically trade with employees.
Click "Add" to add it to your pay run template.
Variable units
Variable units are customisable units that can be used across multiple pay runs. One benefit is that they can be amended in one place and updated immediately across all your pay runs. To link a variable unit to a pay run, follow these steps:
Click the "link variable unit" icon.
If a variable unit hasn't been created yet, add a new variable unit by clicking on the "add" icon and providing the following information:
Variable unit name
Description (optional)
Unit value
Click "add" once done.
Link your variable unit to your pay run template.
If necessary, multiply your variable units with factors, such as when arranging overtime pay for employees.
When should I use a Variable Unit?
Under normal circumstances hourly pay run templates are usually derived from a single rate. Normal hours are compensated at a rate of minimum wage. Overtime hours are compensated at minimum wage times a factor of 1.5. A Variable Unit will make it easy to manage all your hourly pay run templates as you only have to specify your minimum wage rate once and use it as a factor when creating multiple hourly pay run templates
Other content
SARS codes and how to use them
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