iPOS - Labour Manual

The iPOS system is very powerful tool for your business. Behind the Point of Sale system is a very comprehensive set of reports and features that will allow you to analyse your business and manage the POS system.

Part of the features found in iPOS is the Labour Module. The Labour Module will allow you to track, manage and analyse what is a very expensive cost centre in any business.

This document will take you through the all of the concepts behind the proper operation of the system.

The Labour Module is available only from the Back office Menu. Login to the Back Office system using your login and password.

Labour Main Menu
Once you have successfully logged in you will always be displayed the Main Menu. Across the top of the Page the system will display the name of the page (middle large font), the name of the store (top right corner), the day and date (lower right).

Click on Labour (top left) will always return you to this page which shows the Point of Sale Reporting options. The Stock and POS links will take you to those modules respectively.

Setup
While the iPOS system has been installed, it will not be fully operational until a number of tasks have been completed for your local operation. The single most important and largest of these tasks, is setting up your Staff in the system.

The Staff Records are used in all aspects of the iPOS system, but they are central to the operation of the Labour Module hence the reason why the instructions are included here.

To Add Staff to the system
Select Staff from the menu on the left hand side of the screen.
Click on the new Staff button (top right corner, blank page)
Fill in the fields required about each staff member.

The Staff Login field is the name as it will appear on the buttons in the POS part of the system. You can use nicknames or abbreviations. This field also doubles as the login to get into the back office part of the system.

The Time Clock is the part of the system that Staff use to record there hours of work. This is a very simple feature to use. The Time Clock is available from the Home page on any workstation (including PDAs). Start the Time Clock feature then select the name of the staff member. Staff are shown in different colours to denote their status.

Staff in Red on clocked-off, Staff in blue are clocked-on. Since the system knows the current status of the staff member each time it toggles the status automatically.

Staff should clock on at the start of every shift, clock off when they start any break and clock back on again, with a final clock off at the end of the day.

The records created from the Time Clock are reported using the Timesheet and Labour Summary Reports.

Rosters are completed on a daily basis. Once completed the rosters can be printed in either daily or weekly formats but they have to be created on a daily basis. The iPOS Rostering system is a feature rich system that is simple to use, that provides the users with a array of valuable information.

Rosters are controlled by dates. To create a roster or modify a roster is exactly the same enter the date and continue. The system may take a moment or two to display the roster screen, and depending on the number of staff the page may be quite long so please be patient.

Once calculated the page will display the staff names down the left hand side. The grid on the right visually shows the rosters shifts for the hours to be worked. Each cell is 30mins. At the top of the grid is a row of hourly makers. Above each hour is the estimated cost of wages for that hour and the estimates sales for the hour.

A quick note on the sales calculations. The system at this point uses the average sales over the last 6 weeks for each hour to arrive at the estimated sales. We believe that in the future more development will provide a number of different estimation tools that give better results for a particular industry. For the moment however the sales information here matches the data that can be seen on the Trend Reports.

To Rosters an employee on you can either type in the start and end times on the left of the page, or the easier method is to click and drag the shift directly onto the grid. The system will then calculate all the costs and update the display. The costs are controlled by the Rate column. As a maintenance task you should make sure that the rate field on the staff record is correct at all times.

When you have completed the Roster click the Save button on the bottom of the page to save all the data.

Once the rosters for a week have been completed then you can run the Weekly Rosters Report to print and display for the staff.

In many businesses the rosters have a common core of full time staff that work set hours. The roster system allows you to copy a roster from a previous day to cut down the data entry time. Click on the Copy link across the top of the page.

On the staff record we have provided a little grid of availability boxes. This data is represented on the Roster screen as greyed out colour. The roster does not stop you from rostering staff in these times since the times are arbitrary and staff may be only unavailable for part of that time.

Once complete the rosters need to be published to the staff. Normally this is done via printing the roster and posting a copy on the staff notice board. iPOS offers a number of methods to print the rosters, you can use any or all that suits your operations best.

Weekly Roster
This will report the complete roster for all staff for a week. If you have a large staff then printing the report by labour department may make it easier to display if there are separate department notice boards (Front of House, Back of House for example)

Daily Roster
This will make separate pages for each day selected in the date range. The Daily Roster is a printed version of what is shown on the Roster screen (minus any sales data). It shows the staff and the bar chart representing their shifts.

Timesheet
The Timesheet is a record of the hours completed by staff during the date range selected. Normally this report is used as the source document for a payroll system. Each staff member is represented with their own separate table showing each shift, the hours and the estimated GROSS wages earnt. This is NOT a payroll system. Therefore the earning are an estimate only. The Labour module does not have the details of the employee’s contract or award. Overtime and penalties will not be included.

Labour Summary
The Labour Summary is a summary of the time sheet, to show hours per employee per department. The Labour Summary is used as an analysis tool to make sure the wages are kept under control.

On a Daily Basis, a good operator would run the Timesheet to see how the current wages match sales. Extra staff can be called in or casual staff sent home, before them become idle.

Weekly, the current weeks timesheet is printed and entered into payroll. The next weeks Rosters are completed, and Staff Records are updated. When Rostering the system is always performing analysis against expected sales so that your labour force matches your needs.

Running the Labour Module is not a difficult or even time consuming task, yet if used properly it can make a significant difference to maintaining correct service levels and controlling the wages bill.

To set your staff up on the roster you must first log into Pos and go to the Main Labour Screen

Main Labour Screen:

• Click ‘staff’ from the list on the left
• Individually select each staff member to edit their details and input for each staff:
  • D.O.B
  • Time Clock (this needs to be ticked for the staff to appear on the roster. More info below)
    • PIN: If you wish for them to have a pin associated with their time clock
  • Choose their labour department for reporting purposes. Likely to be either staff, manager or franchisee
  • Choose their labour award if they are paid according to an award OR
  • Enter their hourly rate OR
  • Enter their salary
  • SAVE and do for all staff

• Labour Departments: This is where you can set up any additional labour departments you may need for reporting purposes. It is just a category to give staff. Staff, manager, chef and franchisee are already included.
• Labour Awards: This is where any industry awards that you are running under can be input
• Labour configuration: This is where you can input any penalties or super that apply to your wages as well as the start and end time you want your rosters to display.

At the top left hand corner click on 'Labour'

Click 'roster entry' under rosters.

• Choose roster on a day by day basis
• All of your staff should appear on your roster. If any aren’t there go into ‘staff’ and check that the staff member has ‘time clock’ ticked.
• Highlight the hours you wish each staff member to work
• Enter any (unpaid) breaks
• Save the roster

Staff Can log in and out of the time clock by clicking ‘time clock’ on the main POS screen when they enter the store by choosing their name to log in and out. You can choose whether or not the staff should require a password to do this or not. Staff do not need to log in and out just to create and view a roster but they do need to do so for you to access the other reporting like time sheets and actual labour costs as such reports are calculated based on the time the staff were actually at work, not when they were rostered to work.

• Daily Roster: Shows the roster in grid view on a day by day basis for the selected period
• Weekly roster: Shows the rostered hours for all staff members for a week period. To see any week view select the Sunday at end of the week to see the roster for the 7 days preceding it.
• Roster Summary: Summarises your roster by staff member labour hours and costs for the selected time period

Timesheet: Shows time sheet for selected period

Timesheet with Wages: Shows timesheet with wage costs for selected period