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Adding a new Operation

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Adding & setting up new Operations

Operations are a key cornerstone in any platform, as they are the primary way labour costs are broken down for financial reporting. 

Additionally, operations have various other uses to assist with day-to-day tasks, such as quickly segmenting different parts of the business; these can include:

  • Filtering the people menus, payroll, and reporting. 
  • Restricting your admins with search restrictions.
  • For labour hire, customise your charge rates per operation.
  • Centralised source to store client data, leave comments, and create a CRM. 

Depending on your business and how you use foundU, you may need to regularly add operations to your platform. This will need to be done before rostering and payroll.

In this article, we will cover:

  • Understanding Operations
  • Registering a new Operation
  • Importing your current Operations
  • Setting financial details (pay period and payroll state)
  • Reviewing settings and accepting an Operation
  • Adding a rates book
  • Clocking
  • Next Steps

  The processes in this guide cater to adding an operation that will be used. If you would like to insert a step before these processes and track potential new clients or operations, please refer to the Prospects article. 

Creating & Accepting Operations

Understanding Operations

What are Operations?

To put it simply, operations are business profiles used to store and filter data for a specific entity on your platform. The way operations can be set up can vary depending on your specific business needs.

For instance:

    • Direct Employment customers - Operations can be a venue or branch of your business.
    • Labour Hire customers - Each operation can be a separate client you invoice.
    • NDIS customers - Operations can be used for each client you care for.

You can customise each operation by managing your rate books and applying settings, allowing for greater flexibility to meet your specific needs. Some of the ways you can customise each operation include:

    • From a rates book, you to limit which positions can be rostered, override specific shift rates and for labour hire set charge rates. 
    • Choose your invoice settings. 
    • Set specific overrides for clocking and work default settings.
    • Enable position groups.
    • Store ABN and client contact details.
    • Use the CRM. 

When you're setting up operations, it's important to think about how the way you structure them will affect the rest of your platform.

Here, we'll take a look at how operations can be used for employee management, rostering, and financial reporting.

Employee Management

After adding a position to an operation's rates book, the next step is to assign it to employees. When setting up an employee, you can add an Operation to their position in their profile.

    • For permanent employees, an operation is added to the employee profile when a primary position is assigned.

      Once added to a position, the operation is used to cost approved leave applications submitted from time off and salaried employees' wages.



    • For casual employees, it is optional to apply an operation. However, they can be applied to a causal employee either when adding leave entitlements or by editing the Associate with Operation field.

  For further reading on how to add employee positions, please refer to your guide on Adding a new position here. 

Assigning an operation to an employee's position allows you to begin segmenting groups of employees, giving you greater control and management over them.

Additionally, this expands your options for handling other HR-related tasks on your platform, such as:

 

Rostering & Approve Shifts

When adding a roster to a platform, a key step is to choose the relevant operation. This is important because the operation functions as the primary way to categorise labour costs for financial reporting. 



As shown in the image above, the Gumtree Cafe Brisbane operation has separate rosters for Front of House and Kitchen.

This means that when an employee works a shift on either roster, their labour is the first costed to the Gumtree Cafe Brisbane operation.  

You can then get a further breakdown of your labour costs by using Cost Codes/ Purchase Orders, which are generally assigned per roster; however, they can be applied per shift and per day. 

             

Financial Reporting

When adding operations to your platform, it's essential to think about your ultimate goal, which is financial reporting.

As you review your labour costs, you can rely on 2 key reports: the pre-payroll Labour Management Report and the post-payroll Advanced Payroll Activity Report. These reports provide 2 main groupings that help you effectively break down your costs, allowing for a two-layered structure for segmenting your data.

These groupings are:

    • Operation - The primary way was to break down costs (e.g. Per Venue/ Client).
    • Cost Code / Purchase Order - The second level of costing is used to break down costs within an operation (e.g., per Department/ Job site). 

Operations and cost codes are applied to shifts and leave under the following circumstances:

    • When a shift is approved, the operation and cost code set in the roster will apply.
    • Based on the details in the employee card, this will apply for salaried employees and leave applications. 
    • Editing of a payslip, an operation is required when making manual changes, or creating an ETP. 

Please see the above sections for more details. 

As we can see in the image above, the Advanced Payroll Activity report shows that groupings for Operation and Cost Code have been applied.

This allows us to view all costs associated with Gumtree Cafe Brisbane, enabling comparisons with other cafes on the platform.

The cost codes further break down Gumtree Cafe Brisbane's expenses by each department.

  Contact us: If you have any questions about how best to structure operations in your platform, please reach out to our support team. 

Adding a new Operation

You can add new operations to your platform whenever you need to. This could be because of company expansions, signing a new client, or a review of your organisational needs.

Before adding a new operation, we recommend discussing the changes you would like to make with your colleagues first, as this can impact how other admins use your platform.

To add a new operation:

  1. From the quick menu, navigate to Operations > Add Operations. 
  2. Complete the following details:

    General Details
    • Company Name - The legal name of the business. This will appear on invoices. 
    • ABN/ACN - The ABN or ACN of the business. This will appear on invoices. 
    • Trading Name - The short name for the business. This will appear throughout the platform. 
    • Postal Address - The postal address of the business. This will appear on invoices. 
    • Office Address - The office address of the business. This will appear throughout the platform. 
    Company Contact Details
    • Phone - Landline for the business. This will be visible in the Operations menu. 
    • Mobile - Mobile for the business. This will be visible in the Operations menu. 
    • Accounts Email - The email address invoices will be sent to. 
    • Admin Email - The email address to which communications are sent.
    • Payment Method - The preferred payment method for the business. This will not impact invoices in any way. 

        Hot tip: Mandatory items for registration are denoted by an *, if required other items can be added to your operation later from the  Details tab > Details > Edit. 
  3. Select Register.
  4. The Operation will now be added to the platform under Pending Operations.

Importing your Operations

Another way to add operations to your platform is by using the Operations Import feature. This import option allows you to add the basic details for multiple operations all at once.

You might prefer using this import method in the following situations:

    • Moving your client base between platforms.
    • Regularly recruit clients and need to add them in bulk.

Once you’ve completed the import, you can access your operations by navigating to Operations > Approved Operations. Here, they will have a Verified Status, as such they do not need to be Accepted. 

However, this does not mean it is ready for rostering or payroll. After importing, please follow the next steps to review your settings and add rate books, as these are necessary for rostering, payroll, and invoicing.

  Please note: The operations import is a valuable tool for adding operations to your platform. However, once an operation is added, the import cannot be used to edit or correct any details. If updates are necessary, they can be made in the Operation > Details section.

To import operations in bulk:

  1. Navigate to the main menu > Import/ Export > CSV Import.
  2. From the dropdown menu, select Operation (basic). 
  3. Download a sample CSV file, and select Download Blank File. This document can be edited and used to import your operations. 

      Hot tip: The Get Field Definitions button is a helpful tool that provides a list of required formatting for each column in the CSV. Mandatory fields are marked with a (*).

  4. Complete and Save your amended CSV document.
  5. To upload your completed CSV, select the Choose file button and upload your CSV document.
  6. Select Import CSV.

Once your CSV document has been uploaded, please wait for the bar to finish importing the details before navigating to another screen.

 

Data Validation

When importing data into foundU, the data must be provided in the correct format. Below, you will find all the information required about the columns included in this import and the formats accepted for editable data. 

  Please note: The bold rows in the table below denote mandatory columns in your export. 

Column Name Column definition Editable Accepted format
Name

The legal name of the business.
This will appear on invoices. 

 Y NA
Trade Name

The short name for the business.
This will appear throughout the platform. 

 Y NA
ABN A valid ABN.
ACN is not accepted. 		 Y

00000000000,
00 000 000 000
Postal Address

The postal address of the business.
This will appear on invoices. 

 Y NA
Office Address

The office address of the business.
This will appear throughout the platform. 

 Y NA
Phone Operation's landline phone number.  Y 00000000,
0000 0000,
0700000000,
07 0000 0000, 700000000,
7 0000 0000, 6100000000,
61 0000 0000
Fax Operation's fax number.  Y

00000000,
0000 0000,
0700000000,
07 0000 0000, 700000000,
7 0000 0000, 6100000000,
61 0000 0000
Mobile Operation's mobile phone number.  Y

0400000000,
04 0000 0000, 400000000,
4 0000 0000, 6100000000,
61 0000 0000
Accounts Email Address The email address invoices will be sent to.  Y

Valid email address
Admin Email Address The email address to which communications are sent. Y

Valid email address
Website Operations external website.  Y

Valid URL
https://www.URL.com.au
Setting financial details

Once you have registered your operation, just like an employee profile, it will exist in a pending state requiring a review prior to being accepted.

The first item requiring review is the financial details, such as payroll state and pay period. This is a key step, as once set, it will allow you to set up your rates book.

  If setting up and reviewing operations is a regular part of your business, to help keep you on track you can create 2 custom checklists to appear for all operations. For further reading about checklists please refer to our article here. 

To set up the operation's financial details:

  1. From the quick menu, navigate to Operations > Pending Operations and select the required operation. 
  2. Once in the operation, select Card > Financial.
  3. Complete and review the following fields:
    • Payroll -  Select the state/s that apply to this operation. It is important to note the following: 
      • This is required before a rates book can be built for the operation.
      • It also determines the payroll tax percentage to be calculated when employees work at this operation. 
      • Multiple states can be selected. This would be done when you have different rosters that are in different states. 
    • Public Liability - Used in your margin calculations. 
    • Superannuation - Can be increased to pay all employees working here a higher super guarantee percentage. You may not decrease this to below the superannuation guarantee minimum.
    • + Add Variable - Used in your margin calculations. 
    • Meal Allowances Applicable - Selecting No, will mean that meal allowances built into positions are not applied to shifts for this operation. Meal allowances applied manually or on profiles will still pull through. 
    • Statement Cycle - This will determine the period length of your payslips & invoices. Your choices are:
      • Weekly
      • Fortnightly
      • 1 Week Arrears, 1 Week Advanced
    • First Cycle - Select the first pay period end date or this operation.
      • This is key if you pay fortnightly or 1 Week Arrears, 1 Week Advanced as it will determine the starting week for your pay period. 
      • This will also prevent payslips from being created for dates prior to this period. 

          Please note: You must set the correct date here. Failing to do so could mean that your fortnight is set up on the off-week to when you normally run payroll or generate invoices.
    • Timesheet increments - The time increments accepted when submitting or editing Timesheets. Timesheets are a legacy feature and unlikely to be used in your platform.
    • MYOB Account Code (Export) - Used in conjunction with the Sales report. 
    • Xero Sales Export - Used in conjunction with the Sales report. 

  4. Once you have set the relevant financial details, select Save.

   You can also customise the invoice numbers for this operation if required. For more information regarding this, please refer to the invoicing article. 

   If you need specific purchase orders or cost codes for use with this operation, please refer to the article here. 

Quick Settings & Accepting an Operation

In every operation, you have the ability to tailor how rosters show positions and how invoices split costs through the use of Quick Settings.

Here are some important ways you can tailor:

    • Using position groups.
    • Hiding wages on the roster.
    • Setting an operation as no-pay to prevent invoicing.
    • Splitting invoices by Purchase Order.

To review settings and approve a new operation:

  1. From the quick menu, navigate to Operations > Pending Operations and select the required operation. 
  2. Once in the operation, you can review and update your settings from the Overview tab; this is the landing page whenever you select an operation. 

    The first section displays the operation's general details; in this section, you can update the following:
    • Company Logo - To easily identify your operations, you may wish to upload a copy of your logo. To do so, select on the profile silhouette and add a picture or logo.

      For the best resolution, select a square image of 300x300 pixels to avoid distortion.

        Hot tip: Once uploaded, you may need to hard refresh your page by selecting (Ctrl+Shift+R) for PC or (Cmd+Shift+R) for Mac users. 

    • Manager - Depending on how you have your communications configured, this admin may receive emails or SMS regarding employees (leave applications, shift offers, etc.). 
    • Office Code - This is used for the reporting and invoicing details, you can read more about office codes here. 
  3. The Quick Settings menu, is your general go-to when customising your operation. Review or change the following settings as required:
    • Enable Position Groups - If your platform uses Positions Groups, you will need this toggle to be enabled for your rostering to work as desired. You can read more about Position Groups here. 
    • Enable Timesheet reminders - With this enabled, reminders will be sent to employees to submit their timesheets.
      This is legacy functionality and is likely not used in your platform.  
    • Hide wages from roster - This relates to Operation Users only, not Admin users.
      Operation Users are legacy functionality and likely not used in your platform. 
    • Invoice Settings - For a detailed look at the invoice settings, please refer to the invoicing article.

  4. Once your settings have been reviewed, you can Accept your Operation. 

    To accept the operation, select the Accept Operation button and complete the workflow. You will then be prompted to confirm and given the option to send a communication to the registered email address.
  5. The Operation will now be approved and can be found in Operations > Approved Operations. 

Configuring Operation Settings

Setting up Rates Book

Regardless of whether you use invoicing or not, a rates book is required for every operation. The rates book is responsible for many things but most importantly, it will determine which positions can work at an operation and how much they are paid and charged out at. 

  Please note: In order to set up your rates book, you will need to have Workers Compensation rates added to your platform. If you do not intend to use Workers Compensation reporting through foundU, you can enter a rate of 0. Read more about setting this up here. 

To set up a rates book:

  1. From the operation profile, navigate to Card > Rates Book, and then select the edit option on the right. 
  2. Optionally use the following toggles on the right before adding positions: 
    • Auto Calculation - This is recommended if you are adding positions manually. When you add a position, all the rates for each rate label will be calculated for you based on the base rate. 
    • Show Base Chargeout input - Shows or hides the input field for the charge rate for permanent staff. This is ideally hidden if you have casual employees only. 
    • Disable min rate check - With this enabled, you can reduce a rate label to below what is set up as the award rate. This should only be used if you have custom position setups that require rate label overrides. 
  3. Select the Rates Book Template dropdown and select your template if you use this feature. 
    If you create new operations with any sort of regularity, a Rates Book Template is recommended to save you time. You can read more about them here. 
  4. If you do not use templates or need to add additional positions, select the Subclass dropdown and select a position. 
    • You can search within the dropdown, making locating the correct position easier. 
    • With auto calculation enabled, all of the pay rates will be added for you. 
    • If you are using invoicing, you will need to enter your charge rates. 
    • Select the Workers Compensation rate below each position. 
  5. Select Save. 
  6. If you charge out your allowances, this can be set up after saving. 
    • Navigate back to Card > Rates Book and edit. 
    • Select the Allowance tab and add the allowances you require. You can read more about this here. 

 

Templates vs Adding Individually

In the two GIFs below, we will demonstrate the key differences between using a template and adding positions individually.

This comparison will help you decide the advantages of each approach, so you can choose which option suits your needs best.

    • Using a Rates Book Template

      In the example below, you can see that all pay, charge, and Workers Compensation rates are added for multiple positions.



    • Adding positions individually

      In the example below, a single position is added. Auto Calculation is used to speed up the process, but the charge rates must be entered manually. Workers Compensation rates are added to each position.

  Hot tip: If you are adding positions and only the base rate is being applied, it could be because the Auto Calculation toggle has not been turned on.

To correct this, turn on the Auto Calculation toggle, select the base rate of your first listed position and press tab on your keyboard. Then, continue pressing tab until all rates (excluding charge rates) are filled.

Clock Settings

There are several clocking options available for your employees, which can be customised per operation.

    • If you are using iPad clocking, you will need to set one or more iPads up for use with the operation. 
    • Additionally, you may wish to review your operation's clock settings, this will allow you to apply any overrides if required. 

To access your operations clock settings:

  1. From the quick menu, navigate to Operations > Pending Operations and select the required operation. 
  2. Select either the:
    • Cog icon next to the operation's name, or
    • Operation override links for Clock General, Clock App or Employee Clock App. 

        Hot tip:       When an override is in use, an orange dot will appear next to the relevant override. 

  You can read more about your clocking options and the setup for each in the clocking article. 

Next steps

Now that you have your new operation created, the settings have been reviewed, the Clock App has been installed, and Rates Books has been set up, it is all ready for use. 

You will now be able to:

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