Before you begin
Before you set up or change any staff details in , please read about how staff base rates, billable rates and security privileges are used—and why they are important.
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Staff base rates and billable rates
Each staff member has a base rate and a billable rate, which are both used by for important financial calculations.
A staff member's Staff Base Rate is critically important as it will be used to calculate the 'actual cost' to you of all timesheet entries written by the staff member. It also affects all actual profit calculations. The Staff Base Rate is the FULL cost to you of employing a staff member.
To calculate the rate, start with their base hourly rate (say $40.00 per hour). Then add on allowances for annual leave, sick leave, public holidays, bonuses, accident levies, superannuation and anything else that will affect their overall cost to the business. This may, for example increase the value you put into the Staff Base Rate field from $40/hour to (for example) $48.52. The more accurate this number, the more accurate will be your profitability reporting.
A staff member's Staff Billable Rate answers the question 'If someone came to you and asked to buy one hour of Mary's time (irrespective of what task/work Mary did), what would you charge them?' The value you use for a staff member's Staff Billable Rate also depends on whether you are using staff or task billing:
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Staff billing. If your Task Invoice Rate The Task Invoice Rate is a key configuration setting (set in
> Settings > Organisation Settings > Job (Section) ). If it is set to Staff Billable, will use Staff billing when calculating the cost of time spent working on a task. If it is set to Task Billable, will use Task billing when calculating the cost of time spent working on a task. is set to Staff Billable, then the Staff Billable Rate is also a critical setting, as it will be used to calculate all Quotable and Billable values involving this staff member.
- Task billing. If your Task Invoice Rate is set to Task Billable, then the Staff Billable Rate for all staff may be set to 0.00. However we recommend that you do populate this field with a meaningful number, in case you should ever need to switch an individual job's Task Invoice Rate from Task Billable to Staff Billable, which can be done on the Financial tab of any job.
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Staff billing. If your Task Invoice Rate The Task Invoice Rate is a key configuration setting (set in
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Security privileges and permissions
Security privileges and their associated permissions control what users are able to do in . Typical privileges allow the user to work with clients, quotes, invoices or jobs, and to create or run custom reports.
By changing the user's permissions settings on a privilege-by-privilege basis, or by role, you can control the access that each user has to each privilege.
Available permissions vary, depending on the privilege. Some privileges (using Collaboration Manager, for example) are either Full or No Access, while other privileges (Client, for example) can be controlled much more closely, with progressive levels of access, ranging from no access to full access:
- No Access
- View Only Access
- Create/Edit Access
- Create/Edit/Delete Access
- Full Access.
Before you set up or change a staff member's security permissions settings, please review these examples.
- For a basic staff member, do not change any permissions (No Access is the default). They can view the Dashboard screen and run reports they have been given access to. They can also view jobs they are assigned to, and enter time against those jobs (in the Timesheets tab of the job). However, they cannot access the Clients or Business menus. This means that they cannot create or view clients; or view, edit and create quotes or invoices or view financial information.
- For the owner and business manager who require full access to all features, select full access to all privileges, or apply a role that does that.
- For the office administrator, who requires only administrative access, select full access to financial privileges, or apply a role that does that.
Several privileges include a Delete permission. We recommend that you select the Delete permission only for staff with full access to the Administrator privilege.
Limiting visibility of staff base rates
To prevent a staff member from being able to view staff base rates for other staff, select No Access to the following privileges on their staff record.
- Administrator, which allows staff to view or edit all staff base rates.
- Financial Reports, which gives access to Reports > Standard Reports Tab.
- Report Builder, which gives access to create and run custom reports.
- Job Financial Summary, which gives access to the Job financial summary report, which contains information that can be used to work out staff base rates for other staff.
For full details about working with privileges and permissions, see the section at the end of this article.
Add a staff member
To add a staff member to :
- On the toolbar click the Settings
icon.
- On the General Settings tab, make sure that the Staff section is selected.
- On the Staff screen, make sure that the Staff tile is selected.
- Click the + Create New Staff button.
- On the Adding a Staff Member screen:
- Provide information as required (see Data field reference, Staff member information, below).
- (optional) Select a role to pre-populate permissions settings based on the staff member's job role. If you select the role None, all permissions are set to No Access.
- Select permissions as required (see Data field reference, Privileges and permissions, below).
- Save your changes. The staff member is added to . If you specified an email address, an email is sent to that address, inviting them to log in.
If you need to re-send an invitation, select the checkbox to the left of the staff member's name on the > General Settings > Staff screen and click the Re-send invite button on the toolbar.
Edit a staff member
To view or edit information for a specific staff member:
- On the toolbar click the Settings
icon.
- On the General Settings tab, make sure that the Staff section is selected.
- On the Staff screen, make sure that the Staff tile is selected.
- Drill down on the Name of the staff member you wish to edit.
- On the staff detail screen:
- View or change information as required (see Data field reference, Staff member information, below).
- (optional) Select a role to pre-populate permissions settings based on the staff member's job role. If you select the role None, all permissions are set to No Access.
- View or select permissions as required (see Data field reference, Privileges and permissions, below).
- Save your changes.
Data field reference
Staff member information
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General Information
Field Description First Name Employee's first name. Last Name Employee's family name. Email The employee's email address, which they will use to log in to .
Each staff member must have their own unique email address.
Invite to WorkflowMax by BlueRock If this checkbox is selected, an invitation (to log in) is sent to the email address specified in the Email field.
If the checkbox is deselected, you can create a staff member record without an email address. This allows you to set up their account (especially financial details and access privileges) without inviting them to log in.
When you are ready to invite them to log in, you can specify their email address and select this checkbox. Once the staff member has been sent the invitation, this checkbox is no longer shown.
Currently Working? If an employee temporarily leaves the company (on unpaid leave for example), but plans to return later, deselect this checkbox to indicate they are not currently available. Their name will not appear in the list of available resources when allocating staff to a job.
Deselecting this checkbox does not prevent the staff member from accessing their account.
A staff member is counted towards your total number of subscribed users regardless of the setting of this checkbox. So, if you are currently on a 10 user subscription plan, deselecting any users who are not currently working will not affect your subscription.
Notes Any notes specific to this employee.
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Financial Information
Field Description Base Rate The hourly cost of employing this staff member. This is not just their hourly rate, but may include an allowance for other costs you need to meet in relation to employing that person, such as annual leave, sick leave, ACC and superannuation. will use this rate to determine the profits made on each job, so it is important that this is value is correct.
If the base rate is incorrect during timesheet entry, you will need to delete the time entry, correct the base rate and then re-enter the time.
Billable Rate The hourly rate that the employee is charged out at. The Billable Rate is required only if the Organisation Settings > Task Invoice Rate is configured as Staff Billable Rate.
Payroll Code The payroll code used in your payroll system software for this employee. This is required only if you will be interfacing with a payroll system that integrates with .
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Contact Information
Field Description Phone Number Home or other contact telephone number.
Mobile Number Mobile telephone number.
Address Physical address.
Privileges and permissions
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General Privileges
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Admin Privileges
Privilege Controls a user's ability to... Administrator Work as administrator with full access to system settings (excluding costs).
Cost Admin Work as cost administrator with full access to cost information only.
Job Template Create, edit and delete job templates.
Task Admin Create, edit and delete tasks.
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Financial Privileges
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API Access Privileges
Privilege Controls a user's ability to... Authorise 3rd Party Full Access Connect your account to third-party add-ons. This privilege is available only if the staff member has Administrator access set to Full Access (see Admin Privileges).