Contractors

Manage Contractors in foundU

foundU isn't just for managing employees and clients! Profiles can also be used for any Contractors of your business, and they are managed in much of the same way that you do for your regular employees.

By adding your Contractors to your platform, you can:

• Onboard, collect and house ABN information
• Keep track of current licences and qualifications
• Track hours worked
• See the potential billed cost

In this article we cover:

• The key differences between an Employee and a Contractor 
• How to see if someone is set up as a Contractor in your platform
• How to enable and assign Contractors
• No Pay vs Paid positions and how both work can work in combination with your Contractors
• How to move a Contractor over to a paid employee

  If you are looking for instructions on adding a Contractor or Volunteer position to your Operation, check out our step by step guide.

Understanding Contractors

Employee vs Contractor *NEW

Did you know you can use your platform for not just employee management, rostering and payroll? Many of our clients also use us to house their Volunteer members and Contractors, opting to have all their employees, regardless of type, in one easy to use platform.

Before making the decision to enable and use your platform for Contractors as well, we think it is important to outline the key similarities and differences between a Contractor and an Employee in regards to how they work within the foundU key workflows. Ensure you know the full limits and capacity of what you can and cannot do!

  Please note: In order to best understand the difference between these 2 profiles, we have outlined some key questions that come up below. 

Key Questions	Employee	Contractor	Further Notes For Contractors
Do they need to onboard?	Yes	Yes	Every profile in foundU will need to onboard and be approved.
Does financial information need to be collected?	Yes	Optional	Financial information only needs to be collected for paid employees. You can still collect this for your Contractors, however, none of this information will flow through to payroll or the ATO once the Contractor is enabled on their profile.  Instead, you can opt to collect ABN details from your Contractor instead.
Does personal information need to be collected?	Yes	Optional	If you have multiple Contractors using 1 profile, or are simply using a Contractor profile as a placeholder on your roster, you can input dummy information in those fields.
Can they be issued documents to sign?	Yes	Yes	All documents for signing can be issued as normal.
Can positions be applied and rostered?	Yes	Yes	As long as a position is assigned on your Contractor's profile, you can roster them for shifts as you would an employee.
Can I view potential cost?	Yes	Yes	If you opt to assign a 'Paid Position' to your Contractor, you can track and view costs related to their shifts worked.
Can I track hours worked?	Yes	Yes	Contractors can clock in for shifts as normal by using either the Employee App or a clocking iPad on-site. Their clocked start and finish times will flow through to the Approve Shifts page.
Can I invoice clients for their hours worked?	Yes	Yes	If your Contractor has a Paid Position assigned and they have clocked hours for work, a Draft Payslip will be created for them. Draft Payslips can be used to create invoices for your clients.
Can they be paid in the platform?	Yes	No	Contractors cannot be paid in the platform. If you go to generate a Draft Payslip for a Contractor, it will not process, no ABA file will be created, no STP file will be created and no super will generate for them.
Can qualifications & licences be tracked?	Yes	Yes	All qualifications & licences can be tracked as normal

Viewing Contractors in foundU

Your Contractors can easily be identified across various pages of your platform from the People pages and the Employee Profile, to the Payroll > Pay page.

Below we will go through how you can navigate to those pages and filter or search through for your Contractors. 

People Pages and Employee Profile

1. From your dashboard, navigate to People and select the relevant page you want to look through.
2. Select show filter and from the 'Employment Type' dropdown, select Contractor.
3. Apply Filter to view your Contractors, they will be marked with a small 'C' badge, which you can also use to identify them if you opt to not use the filter to search.
   
   

   
   
   

4. From the Employee Profile, if Contractor is enabled, a larger badge will display next to their name.
   
   

   
   
   

Payroll Pay Page

1. Navigate to Payroll > Pay and select Draft payslips.
2. Select Filter and from the 'All employee conditions' drop down, select Contractor.
3. Apply Filters to view your Contractor drafts, they will be marked with a small 'C' badge, which you can also use to identify them if you opt to not use the filter to search.
   
   

   

Managing Contractors

Enable and assign Contractors in your platform

To make use of Contractors in your business you must first enable to use them in your platform, and assign them as you register candidates. 

Below we will go through the process of navigating both of these steps. 

Enable Contractors

Before you can add in or assign Contractors in your platform, you will first need to enable the setting the allows for this. 

To find the Contractor setting:

1. From the main menu, navigate to Platform Settings > System settings.
2. Scroll or use Ctrl + F and search for Enable Contractors setting.
3. Toggle to 'On' and Save Settings to update your platform.
   
   

   

 

Assigning Contractors

Once you have the Contractor setting enabled in your platform, there are 2 ways you can assign someone as a Contractor.

• • From the People > Add People page by an Admin.
  • From your Registration page, the employee self registers.

People > Add People

If your admins manually add employees to the platform via the People > Add People page, once they have filled in the standard mandatory fields (First Name, Surname, Mobile, Email), there will now be another mandatory field to select Employment Type.

From the dropdown, your admin can then select to assign the new profile as a Contractor. 

This option will ensure that your Contractors are receiving the correct onboarding experience and will have no financial details collected.

Registration Page

In your platform, you have the option to set up a registration link, which you can embed into your business's website, email signatures or job advertisements.

With this enabled, prospective employees and Contractors can self-register to your platform and it is mandatory for them to select their Employment Type.

Once they have registered, you will be able to see who is a Contractor, by looking or filtering through your Pending People page for the Contractor badge next to their name. 

No Pay vs Paid Positions

To roster Contractors in your platform, you will need to make sure you have a position assigned on their profile. Depending on your use of the Contractor profile, there are 2 position types you can assign, Paid Positions or No Pay Positions.

Below, we will outline the use cases for these options, along with key differences and how you can set them up.

No Pay Position

A No Pay Position or No Pay Award, is generally created to be used for businesses that have Volunteers or Contractors.

Use cases for why you would opt to use a No Pay Position are:

• • As Contractors and Volunteers are not paid employees, you want to keep your rosters and reports free of their wages.
  • Assigning positions is easier as you only need to set up one position in the No Pay Award (unless you want to capture different titles).
  • You don't need to track their hours and just want to use the position and profile as a placeholder on your roster. 

Paid Position

Though paid positions are generally associated with paid employees, they can also be used for your Contractors, to help you optimise efficiency within your platform. 

Use Cases for why you would opt to use a Paid Position are:

• • You want to track the hours worked and potential cost invoiced to you by your Contractor
  • You want to include Contractor hours and wages in your roster budget. 
  • You want to invoice your clients for Contractor work.
  • You want to be able to report on Contractor work.
    
    

Key Differences

Though for the most part, Contractor profiles are all the same, the key difference comes down to what type of position you have assigned on them. Depending on this, the outcome for the following pages, change. 

• • Work > Rosters
    • You can roster Contractors with both Paid and No Pay positions.
  • Time & attendance > Approve Shifts
    • Regardless of the position type, both will appear on the Approve Shifts page, where you can action and approve or decline them as you would a standard casual or permanent employee. 
  • Payroll > Pay Page
    • Only Contractors with Paid positions that have been worked and approved, will have a Draft payslip generated for them. Any hours approved for No Pay positions will not appear on this page, and no Draft payslip will be available. 
      
        Please note: Draft payslips for Contractors cannot be generated and paid. When processing your payroll the system will exclude these payslips from that process. 
  • Invoicing > Invoices
    • Invoices can be generated and issued to your clients for Contractor work that has been rostered and approved with a Paid position. As invoices are generated off of Draft payslips, no work completed by those with a No Pay position can be invoiced. 
  • Reports
    • Contractor hours worked can appear in the following reports: 
      • Labour Management report - This report runs off of timesheet data, therefore will only show Contractor data for those with Paid positions. 
      • Approve Shifts export - This export does not show the pay rates of positions, and can be used to export Contractor hours worked.
      • Payroll Billing (Invoice Test) report - Invoices can only be generated off of Draft payslips and timesheets, any Contractor with a No Pay position, will not appear in this report. 
        
        

Depending on your business needs and process, either of the above position types could work for you. Check out our article on how to Build or Update an Award or Agreement, for guidance on creating both Paid and No Pay Awards.

  Contact us: If you don't feel confident in this part of the platform, feel free to foundU support for further guidance.

Change a contractor over to a paid employee (or vice versa)

There will be times in your business that a Contractor will become a permanent employee of your business. If this is the case, please reach out to our friendly support team first for help, and there will be a few quick actions for yourself and the employee after we do our part!

The process goes as follows:

1. Reach out to support - We will intiate the change on their profile.
2. Encourage employee to enter/check their financial details in the App, as they will now be paid through your platform, and may previously not have entered any financial details.
3. Ensure the correct position and entitlements are applied to their profile.

  Please note: In the case of the reverse (an employee becoming a Contractor), you will also need to reach out to Support so that we can make the relevant change on their employee profile.