Required Level : Standard
Required Version : 3.06c or later
TNA 4 allows you to categorise the time worked by the employee.
Typical categories include Normal Time, Excess Time, Overtime
1, Double Time and so on. Depending on the time of day worked,
the employee accrues time in different categories.
Some categories may contain a "Running Total" of time.
Flexitime is a good example of this. On any particular day an
employee may have earned extra time, or indeed lost some time.
This is collected in a running total so that at any time the employee
can know how much they have.
TNA 4 supports this running total process, and this
document explains how to implement it.
Shift Categories
The basic idea revolves around time categories. As you probably
know by now you will build up shifts using blocks of time marked
at a particular category. Normally the employee is paid directly
out of this.
With Running Totals 3 categories are used. One category is for
Time added, one for time removed, and the last category is the
actual Total category.
Note that you should never manually, or automatically, assign
time directly into the Running Total category. If you do this
then the processor will almost certainly overwrite your changes.
You should always manipulate the Add, and Subtract categories
instead.
At the end of each pay period (ie each "week") then
Daily Hours are consolidated into Payroll Hours. During this process
the Running Total may be altered according to the shift rules.
For example you may have a macro script that implements a cap
to the number of hours that can be carried forward.
Thus at the beginning of the following week, the Daily Running
Total may need to be reset to the Total as set at the end of the
previous week. Alternatively you could decide to reset it to zero
(ie start each week with a fresh total) or not reset it at all.
1) Create 3 time categories using the Configuration module, The
first is to hold the "Running Total" time, the others
contain the Add and Subtract categories. To do this;
- Use the Configuration module, Setup / Shifts menu,
Shift Time Categories option. Add a category. Call it say
Flexitime. For this category set the type to Total,
and make it a Daily Total. Set the Reset field as
desired.
- Add a second category. Call this one say Flexi+ (This
is the category we will use to Add time to the Flexitime total.)
For this one set the Category as Add and set the Affected
total to be Flexitime.
- Lastly add a third category. This will be the category used
to subtract time from the total. Call this one say Flexi-.
Set the category as Subtract, and as with the previous one set
the affected total to be Flexitime.
So now the categories are set up, but unless the system is completely
manual, you will need to add some shift processing rules to get
time into the Add and Subtract categories. You can obviously use
any of the usual TNA 4 techniques to do this. Here are some
examples of the common methods;
Using Balancing
Balancing is one obvious technique. For example if the
maximum normal time is set to 8:30 hours, then any excess can be
moved into Flexi+ time. Similarly if
the time worked is less than 8:30 hours then time will be taken from
Flexi- to make up the required 8:30 hours.
In the example below we are going to define
that an employee is required to work 8:30 hours per day, any extra
time will be moved to the flexi time category and if they are short
of time the time required to make up the 8:30 hours will be taken
from the Flexi time category. This is to be implemented daily -
there for will be set using Daily Shifts (if it is required to be
adjusted when processing payroll hours then the Balancing will be
done using Payroll Shifts).
- Select Daily Shifts option from
the toolbar Setup / Shifts menu.
- When the Browse Daily Shifts
window is displayed, select the particular Shift to which the
Flexi time is to be associated and then select the Balancing
settings option.
- Set the Category for the Flexi
Time Total category, the Min time to be that of the
minimum hours that have to be worked (8:30), the Get From
category to be that of the subtract time category (Flexi-), the
Max time to be that of the maximum hours to be worked and
the Send to Category for the add time category (Flexi+)
where any time above that of the required 8:30 hours will be
stored.
- Select Save to save these
settings.
Now when the Daily Hours processing is
performed, if the employee works more than the required Daily
Hours (8:30) then the additional hours will be added to the
flexi time category and if the daily hours are less than the
required daily hours, then the balance will be taken from the
flexi time category to make up the required hours (8:30).
Using Macro Scripts
Using a script allows for the
most flexible rules, and hence is the approach most often
used. Simply put you can manipulate the time calculated, moving
time from one category to another. There are 2 embed points
created especially for this purpose. The one is called
Before Daily Running
and the other is
Before Payroll Running
An example script might look like this;
At Before Daily Running
If Dai:Hours2 > 2880000
Dai:Hours6 = Dai:Hours2 - 2880000
Dai:Hours2 = 2880000
Else
Dai:Hours7 = 2880000 - Dai:Hours2
Dai:Hours2 = 2880000
End
In the above script the normal time is set to 8 hours (remember
in the scripts time is measured in hundredths of a second - ie
1 hour is 360000 and 8 hours is 2880000). If the person has worked
more than 8 hours then the excess is moved to the Flexi+ category
(category 6) and the normal time is limited to 8 hours. If they've
worked less than 8 hours then the missing time is added to the
Flexi- time, and the normal hours is again set to 8.
A slightly more complicated script might not allow the flexitime
to become negative. In other words the normal time is only padded
out if sufficient flexitime exists. In this case the script might
look like this;
At Before Daily Running
If Dai:Hours2 > 2880000
Dai:Hours6 = Dai:Hours2 - 2880000
Dai:Hours2 = 2880000
Else
If Dai:Hours8 > Dai:Hours2 - 2880000
Dai:Hours7 = 2880000 - Dai:Hours2
Dai:Hours2 = 2880000
Else
Dai:Hours7 = Dai:Hours8
Dai:Hours2 = Dai:Hours2 + Dai:Hours8
End
End
In both of the above scripts the Add category is category number
6, the subtract is number 7 and the total is in 8. The Normal
time is in category 2.
Of course these are just 2 common examples. You will need to
adjust the rules depending on the rules required on your site.
For more information on macros click here.
You can manually edit the employee's Running Total in the User
module. The important thing to note however is that you should
not edit the Running Total category directly. Rather you should
add time to either the Add or Subtract columns
For this reason, when editing Daily and Payroll hours records,
you will not be able to see any of the Categories which are marked
as Running Totals.
When viewing Daily and Payroll hours the Running Totals column
will appear in Blue.
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