Finance & NDIS | Payroll Pilot
This article provides detailed information relating to the recommended steps for piloting Finance & NDIS, from Activities, Rostering, Activity Sign Off, through to generating and exporting a Time Sheet Batch and Payroll Integration.
Audience: Finance Team, Team Leaders.
Summary
The following list summarises the content within this article. Click on the links below to take you to the relevant sections:
- Configuration
- Activities
- Add Staff shifts and customise (where required)
- Staff Roster
- Filling Staff Shifts (TO BE FILLED, optional)
- Complete Staff Time Sheets (optional)
- Activity Sign Off
- Generating and exporting a Time Sheet Batch
- Payroll Integration
1. Configuration
Payroll
Configuration must be completed before Time Sheet Batches can be exported to your organisation's Payroll system.
General Ledger codes for Staff Time Sheets must be entered for each Site/Service Staff work in whom your organisation will be generating Time Sheet Batches for.
Please review the Payroll Configuration article linked below for further details regarding this and the other configuration options. Some of these configuration options are only applicable for certain payroll systems and others are optional.
2. Activities
Activities reflect the Services that your organisation delivers and Clients & Staff participate in. Here, we discuss how to get started with Activities, or how to locate existing Activities.
Getting started with Activities
If your organisation has not yet commenced using Activities, they'll need to be created, before Staff Time Sheets may be completed (outlined further below).
Please review the Privileges required to manage Activities article linked below, to ensure these have been set up correctly for Staff involved in this pilot.
We recommend Staff tasked with creating Activities review the Activities Workflow video, as this resource covers each of the steps involved when creating and managing Activities.
How to locate existing Activities
To locate existing Activities with Staff rostered into them we recommend utilising the Activity Staff Report.
This report searches for Staff shifts within Activities. The report can be narrowed down to locate shifts for a particular Activity Date range and Staff Member, such as Staff member Abel Mccaa:
For the fortnight of the 10th to the 24th of September:
Each row returned reflects a Staff shift:
This report may also be used to generate a list of Staff shifts for a particular Site/s and/or Service/s. The results returned will depend on your Staff Account privileges.
3. Add Staff shifts and customise (where required)
The Staff Section of the Activity record is where Staff shifts are managed. The Staff shifts entered into an Activity create the Staff members Roster and their Time Sheet:
N.B. The 'Non-NDIS Chargeable Hrs' area of the Staff section in an Activity can be disregarded, as this does not apply to Staff shifts. These settings are related to the original functionality to manage Non-NDIS Funding and are not recommended to be used due to their limitations.
Customise Time
The shift time of any Staff who have been added to an Activity aligns with the time of the Activity by default, however, the 'Working From-To Time' may be customised as required.
Please review the 'Customise Time' section in the Managing Staff shifts article for an example of this and more information.
4. Staff Roster
Once Staff have been added to Activities, they can start to see the Activities that they have been scheduled into by viewing their Roster:
Please review the 'Staff Roster' section in the Managing Staff shifts article for further examples of this and more information.
5. Filling Staff Shifts (TO BE FILLED, optional)
SupportAbility has the functionality to set Staff shifts as TO BE FILLED in cases where the Roster needs to be set up but not filled or 'published' yet:
In the case where Staff Shifts need to be filled, we recommend using the Activity Staff Report. This report is a great way for those tasked with rostering to locate any Staff shifts set as TO BE FILLED for set criteria.
Your organisation will need to decide if you will get benefit from using this functionality, hence including it in the pilot process.
Please review the 'TO BE FILLED' section in the Managing Staff shifts article for further examples of this and more information.
6. Complete Staff Time Sheets (optional)
There is an optional feature available in SupportAbility whereby Staff may complete their timesheet by way of 'Sign Off':
Staff may Sign Off their Timesheets from either within the Activity record itself, or from the 'Activity Schedule' - Time Sheets Awaiting Sign Off Dashboard portal (provided this has been configured in the Dashboard settings):
When the Staff Time Sheet Sign Off is performed, SupportAbility will attempt to geolocate the whereabouts of the individual and include this in the completed Time Sheet details.
It is important to note that when the Activity Sign Off is performed (step #7), this will also Sign Off all Staff Time Sheets which have not already been completed.
Some organisations choose to only require Staff working in the field to Sign Off their Time Sheets, others wish all Staff to do so, yet others do not use this feature at all.
It is completely up to your organisation to determine if this is required. Please review the 'Staff Time Sheets' section in the Managing Staff shifts article linked below for more information.
7. Activity Sign Off
Activities must first be approved to then be available for inclusion in a Time Sheet batch. We call this process performing the 'Activity Sign Off' in SupportAbility.
Staff require specific privileges to manage Activities to complete this action.
Locating Activities awaiting Sign Off
The best way to locate Activities awaiting Sign Off, is to use the Activity Report.
For example, if we wish to approve Activities for a specific payroll cycle, we may enter the following report criteria:
- the Melbourne (HQ) Site,
- delivered by Day Services,
- for the Date Range of the 10th of September to the 24th of September, and
- Activities that are 'Not Signed Off Only':
The Activity Report then provides us with a list of Activities awaiting Sign Off:
Each Activity must be opened and reviewed to ensure all of the requirements have been met for approval i.e. Staff Time Sheets are correct.
Most Providers find opening each of the Activities for approval in a new tab the easiest way to navigate through them. You can right-click on the target icon and select 'Open in New Tab', or CTRL + (mouse) click, to do so.
Alternatively, open the Actions menu from within the Activity record and select 'Return to Activity List':
To perform the Activity Sign Off, select the 'Sign Off' button within the Activity Details:
Once this action has been completed, a Time Sheet batch may be generated.
8. Generating and exporting a Time Sheet Batch
SupportAbility is designed to produce Staff Time Sheets i.e. time and attendance data, that is then imported into your organisation's Payroll system for award interpretation and the generation of payroll.
Staff require the 'Edit ALL Client Records', the 'View Financial Information' and Team Leader Staff Account Privileges. N.B. If Staff do not have the 'Team Leader for ALL Services' privilege, nor the 'Human Resources for ALL Staff', then the Time Sheet results will be filtered to only include Time Sheets for Staff they have Team Leader privileges for.
For detail regarding how to generate a Time Sheet Batch including examples, please review the Generating a Time Sheet Batch article linked below.
9. Payroll integration
We suggest Providers check that the Time Sheets imported from SupportAbility are formatted appropriately in your organisation's Payroll system.
If there are any issues with the data presented in the invoices, please review your system configuration and the end-to-end process outlined in this article to ensure that they will result in the expected outcomes.
It may be of benefit to revisit the Payroll Configuration article.
N.B. If the Time Sheet Batch export has been customised for your organisation, please refer to the specification requirements internally that had been provided to us.