Maintaining an employee's regular work pattern using standard and contracted hours

In MYOB Acumatica — Workforce Management, there are two settings that determine your employees' regular work patterns:

• Standard hours: The days and times the employee usually works. Almost all employees require standard hours.

• Contracted hours: The maximum hours an employee can work, according to their contract. This is an optional setting used for certain contractual or award conditions relating to overtime.
  Contracted hours must be greater than or equal to the employee’s standard hours - their typical work schedule can’t be more hours than they are contractually allowed to work.

You set up your employees work patterns when adding or inviting them, and can update them on their employee record.

Standard hours vs ordinary hours

In addition to the work pattern settings covered here, it is possible to set up ordinary hours for an employee or a location. These are used to trigger penal rates and other pay conditions, often for industry-specific awards. For more info, see Setting up and assigning ordinary hours.

Standard hours

Standard hours record your employees' typical work pattern. They specify the days and times that an employee works and are used for leave calculations and generating rosters. A set of standard hours covers a repeating cycle of up to four work weeks, but for more complex or changing work hours you can specify multiple sets, with their own commencement dates.

While you need to enter standard hours for most employees, the exception is casual staff, who in some cases need to be managed differently.

Entering an employee’s standard hours

For new employees, you’ll find work hours settings on the Add New Employee and Invite employee panels. To add or update the standard hours for an existing employee, go to the Roster, Time and Attendance menu in the employee’s record.

Changing standard hours updates pre-approved leave

For example, if an employee's standard hours are typically Monday to Friday, 9 AM to 5 PM, but it changed to Wednesday-Sunday (3 PM to 11 PM), the pre-approved upcoming leave would be updated into the new standard hours. This does not apply to temporary variations.

1.  If you use standard hours to generate rosters, select Add these standard hours to roster.
   For more information, see Creating a roster and assigning shifts.

2. If your employee has set hours, select Lock the roster to these standard hours.
   The employee will receive a shift variation request for any shifts rostered outside their standard hours, which they can choose to accept or decline.

3. Select the days of the week the employee works.

   

4. Select a Location and Position for each day.

   

5. Click the clock icon to enter the start and end times for the shift and break on each day.

   

6. If your employee has a work pattern that spans multiple weeks, click Add week. and continue entering the employee’s standard hours.

   • You can add up to three weeks, for a total of four. Each week has its own tab.

   • Click Copy Week 1 to copy the standard hours from week 1 to week 2 (only available for two-week work patterns).

   • Enter a Standard hours commencement date, to specify the Monday of week 1, when the work pattern begins.

7. Once the standard hours are set up, continue adding or inviting your new employee, or click Save standard hours.

Adding additional sets of standard hours

To seamlessly change between different sets of standard hours or deal with more complex situations, you can add multiple sets of standard hours to a single employee.

To do this, go to the Roster, Time and Attendance menu in the employee’s record and click Add Standard Hours again. Each extra set of hours will show, along with their commencement dates.

You can only add one set of standard hours when inviting or adding a new employee.

Contracted hours

Contracted hours record the maximum number of hours the employee can work, according to their contract or award. Hours worked above this number normally show as alerts on timesheets or rosters, and may be paid at overtime rates.

Entering an employee’s contracted hours

For new employees, you’ll find work hours settings on the Add New Employee and Invite employee panels, next to the standard hours. To add or update the standard hours for an existing employee, go to the Roster, Time and Attendance menu in the employee’s record.

Just enter the amount of hours in the Contracted hours field. Make sure it’s equal to or less than the number of hours in their standard hours.

Work patterns for casual staff

The nature of casual staff means they don’t have regular work patterns in the same way as other employees. How you set up casual staff depends on your country.

• In Australia, casual staff cannot have standard hours. The Standard hours field is not required, and unavailable to staff with the Employment type set to Casual.

• In New Zealand, casual staff may or may not require standard hours, depending on the specific agreement you have with the employee. The standard hours field is available, but not required.
  Check with your MYOB Acumatica support team for the best way to manage casual staff in your business.