Salaried positions

Managing salaried positions for existing employees

A salaried position is an additional option for your full-time and part-time employees.

This position helps streamline payroll by automatically creating a weekly draft payslip, skipping the need to approve shifts. This ensures that employees are paid the same amount each pay period.

Salaried positions are best used for employees whose regular pay does not change regardless of hours worked. This could include employees such as such as:

• High-level executives i.e CFO's, COO's, CEO, etc
• Employees with contractual pay/salary obligations
• Directors

In this article, we will cover:

• The difference between salaried & permanent employees
• Setting up your salaried employee positions
• Additional settings for your salaried employees
• Reporting & FAQs

  To understand the key differences between paying an employee by a salary or an annualised wage agreement, please refer to this guide.

Understanding Salaried Employees

Salaried vs Permanent Employees *NEW

A salaried position is available for your full-time and part-time employees who work set or regular hours and, come rain, hail, or shine, receive the same pay each week. This applies regardless of where they work and how many hours they clock in a pay period; they will receive the same pay.

Any full-time or part-time positions can be converted into salaried by enabling an additional setting as part of the position workflow.

For those employees with the salaried option enabled:

• • A draft payslip (or part payslip for fortnightly periods) is automatically created each week, ready to be generated and paid. 
  • Instead of shifts approved, the employee's pay is based on the employee's hourly wage and work pattern.
  • Any one-off changes such as reduced/additional hours, bonuses or mid-week transitions must be manually added to a draft payslip via edit. 

The image below displays a high-level overview of the salaried employee process in foundU.



  If your full-time and part-time employees' hours and pay vary or like casuals who are paid based on hours worked). Then please refer to our article on permanent positions. 

Choosing Salaried or Permanent 

When creating full-time or part-time positions, it’s essential to take some time to figure out the best approach for managing and paying your employees.

To help with this, we’ve highlighted the main similarities and differences between salaried and permanent positions in relation to how they operate within foundU's key workflows.

Make sure you understand the complete limits of what you can and cannot do!

  Please note: To help you better understand the difference between these 2 types of positions, we have outlined some key questions below. Additionally, for items noted with an (*), please refer to the notes for further details. 

Key Questions	Salaried	Permanent	Further Notes For Salaried
Can the employee have multiple positions?	Yes*	Yes	Salaried employees, like permanent employees, can have a primary position from which their payslip is automatically created. They can also have multiple additional positions, which can be a helpful rostering tool. Additional positions do not affect how the payslip is created or paid. However, the draft payslip will require an edit to pay an employee from an additional position.  Permanent employees can be rostered using multiple positions, which will flow through to their payslips depending on the shift and position approved.
Can the employee be paid monthly?	Yes	No	If your platform is configured for monthly payments, you can set up your salaried employees to be paid monthly.
Can the employee's wages/leave be divided into multiple cost centres?	No	Yes	Payslips for salaried employees are generated based on their primary position, where only 1 cost code/ purchase order can be added. The cost code assigned here will be the only one used for reporting for that employee. While costs can be broken down using day and shift costing, this is tied explicitly to the full rostering and shift approval process. Unlike permanent employees, salaried employees can be rostered and do not require shift approval; therefore, day and shift costing does not apply to them.
Does the employee require rostering?	Optional	Yes	There is no requirement to roster your salaried employees. Rostering your salaried employees does not affect their pay. However, it can serve as an effective means of communication, especially with those engaged in shift work.
Is the employee's wages displayed in Roster Analytics?	Yes	Yes	When rostering a salaried employee with a paid position, their wage cost is included on the roster.  If you do not wish to include their wages, it could be beneficial to roster with an unpaid position.
Do the employee's shifts get approved?	No	Yes	Draft payslips for salaried employees are automatically created once a week. Because of this, they skip the shift approval process, meaning their shifts won't appear in Approve Shifts.
Can the employee submit shifts?	Limited*	Yes	Since salaried employees don’t need to get their shifts approved, they can’t submit their shifts. However, they can use the submit shifts feature to send weekly allowances and reimbursements, which need approval in Approve Shifts.
Can/ does the employee need to clock?	Optional	Optional	Your employees are not required to clock their shifts. However, they can do so if you require your salaried employees to clock for shifts. This can be beneficial for conducting a BOOT test or checking for time theft. Clocking in does not affect their pay, as this is based on the employee's work pattern. Any one-off changes in hours paid will need to be made via payslip edit.  You can check salaried employee's times from Time & attendance > Clock Log.
Can I pay the employee early?	Yes*	Yes	If you need to issue pay early, the foundU team can trigger the draft payslips in advance. Fill out the Early Pay Generation Form for each pay period you want to process ahead of schedule.

Apply Salaried Positions

Setting up a position as salaried is usually used when bringing a new employee onboard, but you can make this change at any time. Switching positions to salaried is done during the work pattern step while setting up an employee's position.

Once enabled, the salaried position automatically uses the employee's work pattern to create a payslip on their behalf each week. 

When updating positions, please consider the following: 

• • If you're using timesheets, they still need to be accepted if amendments are required.
  • If the draft payslip has been created, automation will commence the following week. Otherwise, if you have only just turned on the salaried toggle, the draft payslip can be reprocessed.
  • Draft payslips are generally created the morning after the end of your roster week. 
    
    • For example, if your roster week ends on a Sunday, the payslips are created Monday morning at 4 am AEST.
  • If you turn off the salaried option at any time, you will need to start rostering and approving shifts for the employee. 
    
    

To enable the salaried option:

1. From the Employee's Profile, navigate to the Employee Card > Employment Type. You can enable the salaried option by either:
   • Adding a new position (preferred).
   • Editing an existing primary position.
2. From the Primary position details tab, update the following:
   
   • Ordinary Hours - This is the maximum ordinary hours your employee will work each week. This amount is used to calculate the hourly rate at which your employee will be paid. 
     
   • Hourly Rate - This is the rate at which your employees are paid each week. Alternitvely, you can add an annual salary, however the payslip will be created based on the hourly rate. 
     
     For example, when an employee has their position set as follows:
     • Ordinary Hours: 38 hours
     • Annual Salary: $165 000
     • Work pattern: 38 hours
       
       First, the Ordinary Hours and Annual Salary are used to calculate the employee's Hourly Rate: $165 000 / (38 x 52) = $83.502.
       
       The Hourly Rate is then used to pay the employee according to their work pattern, so their weekly pay will be $83.502 x 38 = $3 173.08.
       
   • Position Start Date - Select a future start date from which the position is effective. Only pay period start dates can be selected.  
     
       Contact us: Draft payslips are automatically created for future dates. If you backdate a position's start date to a period where the payslip automation has already run, draft payslips will not be created; they will only be created for future periods. Please contact our support team if you require a payslip for a previous period. 
     
     

     

3. In the Work Pattern tab, check the following:
   • Work pattern - The work pattern provides a daily breakdown of how your employees will be paid and how labour will be costed. 
     
     For example, if an employee has a work pattern of Monday - Friday for 7.6 hours, their payslip will pay 7.6 hours each day, Monday - Friday.
     
       Hot tip: The work pattern also serves as the default for leave applications, meaning that when an employee applies for leave, it will automatically use the hours specified here.
     
     
   • Salaried - Turn on this setting and change the position to salaried.
   • Require an employee to submit a timesheet instead of creating a payslip automatically - When this toggle is on, employees are required to submit a timesheet through their Employee App. When using this feature, the draft payslip will not automatically be created. For most cases, it is recommended to keep this setting off.
   • Use salaried payslip template - This setting automatically activates when you engage the salaried toggle and will alter how the view of payslip PDF. With this setting turned on, there will be two changes:
     • It will display the annual salary for the employee's active primary position at the top left of the PDF.
     • The line item breakdown will no longer include the hours worked or the rate, just their pay period amount (leave hours and rate will still show as normal).
     • Refer to our guide on Salary & Annualised wage arrangements to understand the payslip requirements for each.
   • Use Normal Rate - This setting specifies if Public Holidays are to be paid at the base rate or Public Holiday rate.
   • Deduct Leave - Enable this option if the employee's leave balance should be reduced when a leave application includes a public holiday. 
     
     

     

4. Select Next, then continue the workflow. 
5. Once completed, you can identify a salaried position by the - Salaried label in the top left-hand corner of their current position. 

Additional Salaried Position Options

Monthly Pay

One of the options for paying your salaried employees is to pay them monthly. This method is usually advised for Board Members, CEOs, or other employees whose working conditions do not change.

When setting up a person as monthly, please consider the following:

• • Monthly pay is exclusively for salaried positions; therefore, casual and hourly full-time or part-time employees cannot receive monthly payments.
  • If your monthly period is 2 weeks in advance, 2 weeks arrears (i.e. you pay in the middle of the current month), retrospective leave will apply. 
  • Monthly draft payslips cannot be reprocessed; any changes must be made via manual editing. 
    
    

Monthly Pay Settings

Before adding monthly positions to your employees, you will first need to set up the pay period and payment date for their monthly payslips. Similar to other pay periods, the monthly period will be the same for all monthly employees.

Setting up monthly pay:

1. Navigate to the main menu > Platform Settings > Timesheet Settings. 
2. Locate and update the following settings:
   • Monthly payment date - Select the date the draft payslips will be created each month. We suggest making this a few days before the date you process payroll in case of events such as Public Holidays or weekends. 
     
     For example, if you process monthly payments on the 15th of each month, you may set this date as the 13th. 
     
     
   • Monthly period start date - Select the start date for your monthly pay period.  
     
     For example, if you select the 1st, each payslip will be created for the 1st to the end of that month. 
     
       Warning: Once saved, this setting cannot be updated. Please consider your decision carefully before saving.
3. Select Save Settings.

Monthly Pay Positions

Once you have set up your pay period settings, you can start adding monthly positions to your employees. To add monthly pay positions, you will need to add it as a new position. As monthly pay has a different pay period, existing positions cannot be edited to become monthly.

  This section will cover the key differences with setting up monthly positions; refer to our article Adding a new position for the full guide. 

Add a monthly pay position:

1.  From the Employee's Profile, navigate to the Employee Card > Employment Type>  + Add new position.
2. From the Primary position details tab, update the following:
   • Ordinary Hours - This is the maximum ordinary hours your employee will work each week. This amount is used to calculate the number of hours to be applied to the payslip each month.
     
     For example, if an employee has their ordinary hours listed as 38, then each month, their payslip will show a total of 38 x (52 / 12) = 164.67 hours (this is also shown on the Work pattern tab). 
     
     
   • Annual Salary - This is used to calculate the pay your employees will receive for each payslip. The Hourly rate field is used for monthly payslips. 
     
     For example, if an employee has an annual salary of $200 000, then the employee's monthly pay will be $200 000 / 12 = $16 666.67
     
     
   • Use Monthy Payment - Enable monthly payment by turning on the toggle. This will automatically make the position salaried.
   • Position Start Date - Select the start date from which the position is effective. Only pay period start dates can be selected. 
     
       Contact us: Draft payslips are automatically created for upcoming dates. If your start date is in a month in which the payslip automation has already run, draft payslips will not be created; they will only be created for future pay periods. Please contact our support team if you require a payslip for a previous period.
     
     

     

3. In the Work Pattern tab, check the following:
   • Work pattern - This is used for leave applications and labour costing. For monthly payments, work patterns are set by the number of days worked in a pay period, which is then used to calculate the daily hours. 
     
     For example, if an employee has their ordinary hours listed as 38 and their work patterns set as Monday - Friday (5 days). Then, each day will have 38 / 5 = 7.6 hours applied.
     
     
   • Display annual salary on payslip - This setting automatically turns on for salaried employees. Turn the toggle off if you do not require an annual salary on payslips. 
   • Use Normal Rate - This setting specifies if Public Holidays are to be paid at the base rate or Public Holiday rate. 
     
     

     

4. Select Next, then continue the workflow. 
5. Once completed, you can identify a salaried position by the - Monthly Payment label in the top left-hand corner of the current position. 

Submit Timesheets

Timesheets are one of foundU's legacy features that enable salaried employees to submit their shifts (and hours), leave, and reimbursements weekly.

After submission, timesheets must be reviewed and accepted to create the draft payslip. Any approved hours will be reflected in the employee's draft payslip.

If you are thinking about using timesheets, please consider the following:

• • Salaried employees submit timesheets for an entire week all at once. 
  • Employees are unable to submit allowances using timesheets.
  • Employees do not receive reminders to submit their timesheets. 
  • Submitted hours and shifts will be reflected in the employee's draft payslip; this process will not apply hours set in the employee's work pattern. So, if an employee has done reduced or additional hours, this will be applied to their payslip. 
  • Timesheets become available to employees the day after their roster week finishes. This means that employees will submit their timesheets after draft payslips are scheduled for creation; as such, their draft payslips will not be created automatically.
  • Both employees and admin users can edit timesheets.
  • A draft payslip is created when an admin user accepts a submitted timesheet. A payslip cannot be created if an employee does not submit a timesheet.
  • Timesheets cannot be used in conjunction with Submit Shifts. 

Timesheets are a distinct process within your platform; as such, shifts submitted via timesheets will not appear in Approve Shifts, and leave requests will not flow through to Time Off. All items in a submitted timesheet are accepted from Time & attendance > Timesheets.

  For further reading on managing timesheets, please refer to our article Timesheets. If you would like to learn how an employee can submit timesheets, please check out our employee article Submit a timesheet.

To enable your employees to submit timesheets: 

1. From the Employee's Profile, navigate to the Employee Card > Employment Type. You can enable the timesheets option by either:
   • Adding a new position (preferred).
   • Editing an existing primary position.
2. Select to edit the employee's current position then navigate to the Work Pattern tab and update the following:
   • Salaried - Turn on this setting and change the position to salaried. Once selected, the following setting will become available. 
   • Require an employee to submit a timesheet instead of creating a payslip automatically - Turn on this setting to enable timesheets. 
3. Select Next, then continue the workflow.

  If your full-time or part-time employees have flexible working hours, it may be better to disable the salaried option and use the Submit Shifts feature instead. This enables them to submit their shifts, leave requests, allowances, and reimbursements for the ongoing week. For more information, please check our article on Submit Shifts.

Submit Shifts

The submit shifts feature is an excellent tool that allows your salaried employees to submit their weekly allowances and reimbursements at any time during the week.

This method is typically favoured as it provides greater visibility and enables approvals alongside the shifts of your non-salaried employees in one convenient location.

If you are thinking about using submit shifts, please consider the following:

• • Salaried employees can use submit shifts to submit weekly allowances and reimbursements. 
  • Timesheets and submit shifts cannot be used in combination.
  • You can send automated weekly reminders to employees who have not submitted shifts. 
  • Reimbursements and weekly allowances require approval in Approve Shifts; no other items for salaried employees will be available in Approve Shifts. 

            

  For further reading on how your employees can submit Weekly Allowances and Reimbursements, please check out our employee article, Submit Shifts - create a shift to submit your hours.

Enable employees to submit weekly allowances & reimbursements:

1. Navigate to People > Approved People or use the global search and find the desired employee.
2. Enable the 'Can Submit Shifts' toggle from the employee's profile Overview tab.
   • This will automatically enable the 'Can Edit Shift Position' toggle; this setting applies to non-salaried employees. 
     
     

     

3. Once an employee submits a weekly allowance or reimbursement, this will require approval from Time & attendance > Approve Shifts. 
   
   

  If your full-time or part-time employees have flexible working hours or you wish for them to track their shifts, it may be better to disable the salaried option and use the complete Submit Shifts feature instead. This enables them to submit their shifts, leave requests, allowances, and reimbursements for the ongoing week. For more information, please check our article on Submit Shifts.

Salaried Reporting & FAQs

Salaried Employee Reporting

For your reporting needs, there are a few options available to you that you can refer to to see your position changes. These options are:

  Permission Reminder: 'View Employee Pay Rates' and 'View Financial Report Centre' permissions are required for the following reports. 

• • Approve People Export
    • If you are looking for a quick way to create a list of all salaried or monthly employees, well look no further than your Approve People menu. 
    • From Approved People, you can use the Employment Type filter to create a list of all salaried/ monthly employees in your platform. 
    • Once filtered, you can use Bulk Actions > Export Filtered to export any relevant employee details.

     

• Position Changes Report
  • This report is a useful tool for tracking history and auditing, as it shows important details for each new position assigned to multiple employees.
  • Key details this report displays are:
    • Duration
    • Position Type
    • Classification and Awaerd
    • Rate of Pay

• • Employment History
    • The Employment History feature lets you track all position changes and updates made to an employee's position, enabling you to review past updates easily from the Employee Card.
    • This is useful when you need to make a quick change to an employee's position or view for which admin user has made a previous change. 

FAQs

Why doesn't my salaried employee show in Approve Shifts?

Salaried employees automatically get their draft payslips created weekly based on their hourly wage and work pattern set in their primary position.

Because of this automation, there’s no need for an approval process to create their payslips. So even if they have shifts on the roster, they won’t show up in the Approve Shifts.

When will my salaried employee's draft payslips be created?

Salaried employee's payslips are created weekly, this usually occurs the morning after the last day of your pay period. 

For example, if your pay period ends Sunday, the draft payslips are created at 4 am AEST, Monday morning. 

This also applies for fortnightly pay periods.

• Week 1 will create the draft payslip on Monday of Week 2
• Week 2's pay is then added to the same payslip the Monday after the period has ended. 

  Please note: This automation only runs once per week, so it is key to ensure that salaried positions are set up before they are due to be created. If backdating is required please reach out to our support team. 

Can a salaried employee have additional/ multiple positions?

Yes, they can! However they payslip will only be created using the information from the employee's primary position.

Additional positions are typically used by salaried employees in 2 use cases:

• To include a $0 position on your roster, which conceals employee wages.
• When an employee changes their rate mid-period. In this situation, their payslip will require an edit to incorporate the second position and adjust any hours accordingly.

Can a salaried employee's labour be costed across multiple operations?

Unfortunately, no. The payslip is automatically created from the details of their primary position, since only 1 operation can be assigned, all labor and leave costs to be recorded against that operation.

Can my salaried employee's wages be split amongst multiple cost codes/ purchase orders?

Payslips for salaried employees are generated based on their primary position, as only 1 cost code/ purchase order can be added all costs for the employee use the same code.

While costs can be broken down using day and shift costing, this is specifically tied to the rostering and shift approval process.

Since salaried employees do not have their shifts approved, day and shift costing does not apply to them.

When I suspend a salaried employee, will this prevent their payslip from being created?

No, suspending an employee means they won’t be included in the roster, which in turn means there are no shifts to approve, resulting in no pay.

However, since salaried employees don’t go through the shift approval process, their draft payslip is still created even if they are suspended.

Can salaried employees still clock in and out?

Absolutely!

Salaried employees are not required to keep track of their hours since clocking doesn't affect their pay, as their shifts are not approved and therefore don't have approve times that adjust with clocking.

Nevertheless, clocking can serve as a helpful resource when performing a BOOT test or monitoring for time theft.

Please take note of the folllowing:

• Clock times cannot be altered and are only recorded when an employee clocks in via their Employee App or iPad.
• It’s important to mention that if a salaried employee does not have a rostered, they must still select a roster to clock in against.

You can view the clock times for salaried employees under Time & attendance > Clock Log.

A Public Holiday is coming up, so how can we process payments early? 

If you need to issue pay early, the foundU team can trigger the draft payslips in advance. Once your draft payslips have been created you can process them as per normal. 

Fill out the Early Pay Generation Form for each pay period you want to process ahead of schedule.

Why isn't 'Public Holiday - Not Worked' showing on a salaried payslip?

The 'Public Holiday - Not Worked' label is a specific shift label that appears on payslips when a 'Paid, not worked' shift is approved.

As salaried employees do not approve shifts, they cannot have 'Paid, not worked' shifts approved and as a result will not have the 'Public Holiday - Not Worked' label appear on their payslips.

  Please refer here for instructions on setting up a 'Public Holiday - Not Worked' shift label.

What rate are my salaried employees paid for Public Holidays?

Salaried employees will receive their Public Holiday pay based on the 'Use normal rate' toggle set in the Work pattern tab of their position. This toggle affects all Public Holidays.

• If enabled, the Public Holiday will be paid at the employee's base rate.
• If disabled, employees will be paid according to their Public Holiday rates.

If an employee is entitled to both the Public Holiday and base rates on the same day, this can be achieved either by editing their draft payslip or by switching the employee's status from salaried to rostering a 'Paid, not worked' shift.

  For more information on managing Public Holidays, please refer to our article here.

How can I check the hours being paid to my salaried employees?

The best place to check your salaried employee's hours from their positon. When reviewing their position you will notice 2 sets of hours listed:

• Maximum Ordinary hours - You can see these in the position overview; however, for non-monthly payments, they do not represent the hours for which your employee will be paid. They are used soley to calculate the employee's hourly rate.
• Work pattern - Salaried employee's are paid based on the hours set in their work pattern. To view these hours you will need to edit their postions and navigate to the Work pattern tab. 

Remember, for any one-off changes in hours worked (reduced hours or additonal hours), these can be updated on a draft payslip using an edit. 

We process monthly pays mid-month. What happens if an employee submits a leave application after receiving their payslip?

After a payslip is generated and paid to an employee, any approved leave request will enter the retrospective leave process. To summarise, when you approve a retrospective leave application, you have 2 options:

• Keep the generated payslip unchanged; the employee's leave balance will automatically update in their profile.
• Opt not to update the leave balance in the employee's profile and manually edit their generated payslip instead.

  For more information, please see our article on Retrospective Leave.