Payroll

Written By Ignacio

Last updated 2 days ago

Payroll turns completed work and logged hours into what you owe people. It handles commission, hourly, or both together.

It's Reports > Payroll.

The Payroll report

1. Add someone to payroll

On an empty account the button reads Add your first employee, and becomes Add to payroll afterwards. Being on the team doesn't put someone on payroll, that's a separate step.

Adding an employee to payroll

The add to payroll panel

2 to 4. How they're paid

Three options, chosen per person.

2. Commission is a percentage. The field reads % Commission, and it pays against what they sell or complete. Standard for sales reps.

3. Hourly is a rate per hour, drawn from the hours in Timesheets. Standard for technicians.

4. Both combines them: an hourly base plus commission on top. Common for a technician who also upsells on site, and the arrangement most likely to be calculated wrong in a spreadsheet, which is a decent reason to let the app do it.

The Commission option

The Hourly option

The Both option

5. Export sales

The commission side: what each person sold, and what they're owed on it.

The Export sales button

6. Export technician

The delivery side: what each person completed. Different question from what they sold, and for a business where one person sells and another does the work, both numbers matter.

The Export technician button

7. Tip details

Tips recorded against jobs, broken out separately so they don't get muddled into commission.

The Tip details button

Where the numbers come from

Payroll is downstream of everything else, which is why the upstream habits matter:

  • Commission comes from the salesperson on a job or estimate.
  • Technician pay comes from the assigned employees on the job.
  • Hourly comes from Timesheets.

A job with no salesperson set pays no commission to anybody. That's the number one payroll dispute, and it's created weeks earlier by somebody skipping a field.

Tips and gotchas

  • Assign salesperson and technician on every job. Payroll is only as good as that data.
  • Being on the team is not being on payroll. Add people explicitly.
  • Check Timesheets first, since hourly reads straight from it.
  • Export both sides when sales and delivery are different people.
  • Tips are separate from commission. Don't double count.

Next up: Tasks