Because the agreements between Labor Buyers and Labor Suppliers vary greatly about tracking and calculating training hours, WorkRecords provides flexibility to meet all of these different needs using a combination of multiple Orders, AddOns, and adjustments. Listed below are the most common practices in use by the vast majority of our Labor Buyers and Labor Suppliers that need to adjust billing for training.
(NOTE: If the Bill Rate for training is ZERO, please check with the Labor Buyer before creating a $0.00 Bill Rate Order and having the worker check-in/out using a QR code. The labor hours in WorkRecords are often integrated with the Labor Buyer's systems to track labor costs and productivity. On some occasions, the Labor Buyer may not want the hours to negatively impact their reports when a worker is simply shadowing another worker and at a zero cost, as opposed to truly productive at a Bill Rate.)
AGREEMENTS WITH DAYS OF TRAINING
The easiest arrangement to track and bill training rates occurs when the agreement specifies "days" at a particular training rate as opposed to "hours." In this example, let's assume that the agreement requires no billing or reduced billing for the first two days a worker begins a new assignment.
1. Create one Order at the zero or reduced Bill Rate and enter "USE THIS ORDER FIRST 2 DAYS" in the Notes field. |
| 2. Create a second Order with the regular Bill Rate. |
| 3. Confirm with the worker that they will check in/out for the first two days on the training order that states "USE THIS ORDER FIRST 2 DAYS." |
| 4. Carefully review the first week to ensure the worker's WorkSegments are in the appropriate Order. |
| 5. Enter a termination date to close the training Order once the training period has expired or at the end of the work week. |
| 6. Confirm that no OT billing is due when adding the total between the two TimeCards generated in a single work week. |
AGREEMENTS WITH HOURS OF TRAINING
Tracking by hours can be more complicated since it is unlikely that a worker will hit the exact specified hours at the end of a work shift. This means that a worker will have hours at two rates within the same week, but likely on the same day. There are several ways that this can handle in WorkRecords due to the system's flexibility, but the process outline below has proved to be the best practice for the worker, Labor Buyer, and Labor Supplier.
| 1. Create an Order at the zero or reduced Bill Rate and enter "TRAINING ORDER" in the Notes field. | This note is helpful for Labor Buyers and Labor Suppliers that may be auditing TimeCards to ensure that training discounts have been properly applied. |
| 2. The worker checks in/out on the training order until and even after the training hours are met to complete the work week. | For example, if the agreement is for 20 training hours to be billed at a reduced Bill Rate of $10.25 and the worker's first day of work is the very last day of the work week, then the worker most likely will only have 8 or so hours total at the end of the work week. The worker will need to continue checking in/out on the training Order the entire next week as well. This could mean that the worker will have checked in at the $10.25 reduced rate for a total of 48 hours, instead of only 20 hours. |
| 3. At the close of the week on which the worker hits the specified number of training hours, the additional billing is captured by the Labor Supplier by entering the additional billing amount in the MISC AddOn field (if the TimeCard is not yet approved/invoiced) or it can be captured through a Credit/Charge Adjustment if the TimeCard has already been presented on an Invoice. | Continuing with our example above, the Labor Supplier would need to bill the difference between the reduced rate and the regular rate for 28 hours. Let's assume the difference is $3.00. Therefore, multiply 28 hours by $3.00 for a total of $84.00. The $84.00 would be edited in on the MISC AddOn field with a note, or could even be captured through a Credit/Charge Adjustment after the TimeCard has been presented on an Invoice. |
| 4. The Labor Supplier creates a new Order at the regular rate. | |
| 5. In addition, the old Order is closed by entering the termination date as the week-ending date that the worker completed the specified number of training hours. |
CAUTION: It is tempting to go ahead and create both Orders and try to set an expectation that the worker will manage to check in/out for 40 hours on the training Order and then begin checking in/out on the regular Bill Rate Order. This almost always (actually, we have seen this to be the case every time) results in the Labor Buyer or Labor Supplier having to "move" time from one Order to another, which can quickly become a complicated mess. It just isn't realistic to expect a worker to be able to track time to the minute for several days and be on the clock exactly when they need to change Orders.
To help manage the tracking of training hours, we recommend using a Review WorkSegments View or TimeCard View. By setting a wide date range (to make sure you capture everything) and then adding a target worksite, rate, job activity, or note, you can save the View and then set Alerts to make sure the appropriate team members are aware when the initial Order needs to be closed, any additional capture of billing is completed, and the new Order is entered. The selectors you choose will vary based on your agreement, but an example of what could be entered is shown below.
Be sure to click in the Group Order box for the Worker Name row, which will place a 1 in the "Group By" field column for that row. This will allow you to quickly see the total hours by the worker. We recommend using parameters that are a little wider than your exact needs to make sure no one is missed. This may mean that a worker shows up for review two weeks in a row, but that is much better than a missed worker! In the example below, there are two workers with 40 or more hours, but if your agreement is different, remember that the parameters or date range can be set to meet whatever your agreement states.
If you have additional questions, please reach out to WorkRecords Support for assistance.