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      Approving hours and export

      Hours worked need to be checked and approved each day and week before you can export for payroll.

      Last updated 25 Jul 2023

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      For more detailed information as to Tronc Weighting, and how Tips and Gratuities are distributed, please read this article. 

      Approving hours worked

      Daily

      Hours are approved each day by the manager completing the venue Closing Tasks.

      Weekly

      Note: In order to add shifts that have been missed during Closings Tasks at the stage of Hours Worked approval, is only possible by those with the permission level Hours Worked > Approve.

      Each venue will need to check over their hours by going to Rotas > Rotas and choosing the week concerned. Filter by Venue, press View, and then press Hours Worked. You can see from this view which venues have approved their hours for that week. 

      Scroll down to check each shift and press Edit or Edit Charge as required.

      Once you are satisfied that the hours are correct, scroll back to the top and press the Approve Hours button (this can be removed in the same place by an Administrator if required).

      Note: In order to remove hours' approval, for further changes to be made, this requires a user with the Administration permission level.

      Approving the payroll export

      Before you can export payroll, each venue's hours will need to be approved for each week of the export.

      You can see an overview of the venues approval status by going to Rotas > Rotas > choose the correct week > Hours worked:

      Once all venues are approved, go to Rotas > Rotas > choose the correct week > Hours Worked. You will now notice a link "Approve Export" has appeared, and will need clicking. Note that the system will not require you to approve hours for "closed" sites.

      Once you’ve done that, go to Reports > Labour Analysis > Hours Export.

      Then select the Date Range required and the Venues and press Generate Report. Be aware that the report generates “Offline” meaning you will get a spinning wheel for a while because the report is pulled by our servers. Once it’s ready you’ll be able to press View, but it usually takes a while.

      Top Tip: In order to export the Hours Worked, you will need to make sure other settings are correct. The Generic Payroll export should be activated in Kobas System Preferences, and the Sage Payroll Export activated within Integration Settings.

      You can then Download Generic Payroll Export or Download Sage Payroll Export depending on how payroll would like the information formatted.

      Warning: Please be aware that the export does not show the pay for holidays taken, and this should be calculated by your payroll software or provider. This includes the variable Holiday Pay calculations for Irregular Hours Workers. We make this calculation purely for your Labour Financial Analysis within Kobas. The export will show the hours of holiday taken in the period for all staff.

      Notes

      Dealing with multiple pay rates

      Within Kobas each of your staff members will have one pay rate. This is a suggested route to manage situations where a staff member may receive different rates of pay for undertaking different roles.

      1. Set the staff member up on their regular rate of pay.
      2. Export a Generic Hours export report.
      3. Note the number of hours where the staff member is paid a higher rate. Work out the pay difference per hour from their base rate and calculate total owed.
      4. Run your usual payroll run, adding the additional pay from step 3 as "additional pay".

      Sick, or other, pay allowances

      Please note that Kobas doesn't calculate Sick Pay or any other type of leave (such as Maternity) and these items will need calculating outside of Kobas.

      Kobas System Preferences

      There are several settings within Administration > Kobas System Preferences that you will need to consider in relation to Hours Exports, Tips, Hours Rounding, Irregular Hours Holidays.

      Report financial lines

      The Total row on the Expenditure Summary on this report is calculated not to include the Pension Contributions row. The Pension Contributions are not exported as actual Pension totals should be calculated by the payroll provider.

      Working when the clock changes

      The system will not automatically make adjustments for those working across a period where the clocks change. In the UK, the clocks officially change at 2am, whether backwards or forwards.

      If you work 9pm - 3am, this should total 6 hours (assuming no unpaid breaks are included). If this shift spans the time clocks go back, then the staff member would (technically speaking) finish at 2am but still have worked 6 hours. Our system will calculate that shift as 5 hours.

      Therefore when approving hours, another hour will need to be added, and a note put in the notes section to correct this.

      Note: Please note that when you export Hours Worked for your Payroll, the export will only contain a Pay Reference ID that was present on the staff profile at the time of the export. This cannot be added retrospectively. Therefore, adding Payroll ID in at the earliest possible convenience is advised.

       

      You may also wish to read our article exploring how to integrate Sage Payroll with Kobas.