How to Configure Shift Rules

What This Feature Does

Shift Rules allow you to define rate multipliers based on when a shift starts. Instead of paying a flat rate for all shifts, you can configure different multiplier segments within a shift. For example, a night shift starting at 6 PM might pay the first 2 hours at 1.25x and remaining hours at 1.5x the base rate.

Shift rules are configured within Rule Groups inside a pay rate document.

Key Concepts

Rate Application Method

Each shift rule has a Rate Application Method that determines how the rule matches activities on a timesheet:

• Based on Shift Start Time (default): The rule matches once based on the earliest activity start time. If the shift starts within the defined window, the entire shift uses this rule's segments and multipliers.
• Based on Hours Worked Within Defined Time Range: The rule evaluates each activity individually. Any hours that fall within the defined time window receive the rule's rate, regardless of when the shift started. This is useful for time-of-day-based premiums where only the hours worked within a specific window should be affected.

Application Method

Each shift rule also has an Application Method that determines how the matched hours are coded into pay lines. This is separate from the Rate Application Method above (which controls matching) — Application Method controls output.

• Replacement (default): The current behaviour. The rule's segments replace the rate on the matched hours and produce a single combined line per segment. For example, a segment at 1.5x produces one line at 1.5x the base rate.

• Loading (additive parallel line): The rule produces two parallel lines per shift hour:

  1. The ordinary line — the matched hours at their segment rate (typically 1.0x base), coded to the normal/segment cost code.
  2. An additive loading line — the same hours paid at a percentage of the worker's base rate, coded to a separate loading cost code.

  Use Loading when an award requires the ordinary hours and the shift premium to be reported on separate, individually-coded payroll lines rather than combined into one multiplied rate.

When Loading is selected, three extra fields appear:

• Loading Rate (% of base): The loading line's rate as a percentage of the worker base rate. For example, 50 produces a loading line at 50% of base (so an ordinary line at 1.0x base plus a 0.5x loading line — 1.5x base in total, split across two coded lines).
• Loading Cost Code: The cost code applied to the additive loading line.
• Loading Hours Cap (optional): Stops the loading line after this many hours of the shift. Leave it blank for the default, which loads every hour the rule covers.

Note: With Loading, keep the segment rate at the ordinary level (typically a Regular Time segment at 1.0x). The premium is expressed through the Loading Rate, not the segment multiplier. By default the loading line is added to every hour the rule covers — including any hours that escalate into overtime. The loading is always a percentage of the base rate, so an overtime hour pays the overtime line (e.g. 1.5× base) plus a loading line at the same percentage of base; the overtime multiplier does not inflate the loading.

Loading Hours Cap: Set this when the award stops the loading partway through the shift. With a cap of 8, a 12-hour night shift pays the loading on the first 8 hours only; the hours past that — typically the overtime and second-overtime segments — carry their overtime line and no loading line. The cap counts the hours this rule covers (for a rule matched on shift start that is normally the whole shift, unless the rule splits the shift into its own time-window segments — then it is just those segments). The cap is spent in time order — the earliest hours of the shift first, so on a shift that runs into overtime the ordinary hours are loaded and the overtime hours at the end are not. Overnight shifts count from the shift's own start, so a shift beginning at 4:30pm spends the cap on the evening hours, not on the hours after midnight. Leave it blank for no cap; it must be greater than zero, so to remove the loading altogether switch the rule back to Replacement.

The cap is a budget per timesheet. Two loading rules on the same day each get their own budget. If a single rule matches two separate shift blocks on one timesheet, they share one budget rather than getting the cap twice — the cap says "the loading stops after N hours" about the day, not about each block.

Example: An afternoon shift coded as 100 @ 1x base plus 140AC @ 50% of base is configured as a single shift rule with Application Method = Loading, a Regular Time segment at 1.0x (coded to 100), Loading Rate = 50, and Loading Cost Code = 140AC.

Shift-rule loading vs. Worked Hours Loading: A shift rule's Loading method only loads the hours that shift rule governs (those matching its window/segments). To load a percentage onto every worked hour in the rule group — regardless of shift rule — use Worked Hours Loading instead (e.g. a casual 25% loading). The two stack cleanly: each is computed off base and neither loads the other.

Shift Window

Each shift rule defines a shift window - the time range during which a shift must start for the rule to apply. For example, a shift window of 6:00 PM to 6:00 AM means the rule applies to any shift that begins between those times.

Segments

A shift rule contains one or more segments, each defining how a portion of the shift is paid. Segments are applied in order from the start of the shift.

Each segment has the following fields:

• Hour Bucket Type: How to identify which hours this segment applies to (see table below)
• Rate Type: Select the rate tier — Regular Time, Overtime, or Second Overtime. This sets the default multiplier for the segment.
• Multiplier: Rate multiplier applied to the base rate (e.g., 1.5 for time and a half). Can be customized after selecting the rate type.
• Fixed Rate Override: Use a specific dollar amount per hour instead of the multiplier calculation (e.g., $45.50). Leave empty to use the multiplier. When set, this takes highest precedence.
• Use Shift Rate from Tree: When enabled, uses the role-specific shift rate defined in the tree template instead of multipliers or fixed rates. This allows different classifications/roles to have different shift rates configured at the tree level.
• Cost Code: Optional cost code linked to this segment's pay line item for project costing.

Rate precedence: Fixed Rate Override > Tree Shift Rate > Multiplier.

Hour Bucket Types

Example: A night shift rule with two segments:

• Segment 1: First 2 hours at 1.25x multiplier
• Segment 2: Remaining hours at 1.5x multiplier

Priority

When multiple shift rules could match a timesheet, priority determines which rule applies. Lower numbers = higher priority.

Role Filter

A shift rule can be scoped to specific roles, in either direction:

• Exclude selected roles (the default): the rule applies to everyone except the roles you pick. Use it to keep a premium off supervisors or office staff.
• Only include selected roles: the rule applies only to the roles you pick. Use it for a premium that belongs to one trade — "night loading for Crane Operators only".

Leaving the selection empty means the rule applies to every role, which is how every existing rule behaves. The role filter combines with the Days of Week and Activities filters using AND — a timesheet must satisfy all of them for the rule to apply. A timesheet with no role recorded is treated as not selected: it is skipped by an include rule and unaffected by an exclude one.

When a rule is skipped because of its role filter, the hours are not dropped — they simply fall back to the ordinary rate and coding (or to a lower-priority shift rule that does match).

Contributes to Overtime

Each shift rule has a Contributes to Overtime setting (on by default) that controls whether the hours the rule prices count toward the daily and weekly overtime thresholds.

When it is off, the hours the rule actually prices are treated as the rule's own: premium multipliers, fixed-rate and tree-rate segments, and Overtime / Second Overtime segments. Those hours are paid at the shift rate, do not consume the daily ordinary-time budget, and do not push the weekly threshold. Segments paid at the plain 1.0x base rate (and any hours outside a Hours Worked rule's window) are ordinary time and still count.

Example: An early-start rule pays 4:00–6:00 AM at 1.5x, on an 11-hour day starting at 4:00 AM against a 7.6-hour daily threshold and a 10-hour double-time threshold.

With the setting on, the 2 premium hours use up part of the ordinary-time budget, so the day reaches overtime sooner and crosses into double time. With it off, only the 9 hours outside the window count toward the thresholds, so the full 7.6-hour ordinary budget is available and double time never starts. Over a week the 2 premium hours per day likewise stay out of the weekly tally.

Because fewer hours reach overtime, a day priced with the setting off generally costs less than the same day with it on. How much less depends on your thresholds and on how many hours the rule prices.

How it interacts with other settings

• Prevent Daily Overtime Calculation changes how much is excluded. With it off (the default), only the segments priced above the base rate are held out, and base-rate segments still count toward the thresholds. With it on, every hour the rule matches is held out, base-rate segments included.

• Time-of-day loadings do not apply inside the excluded hours. The shift rule prices those hours outright, so a night or afternoon loading covering the same window has no effect on pay there — the same as when Prevent Daily Overtime Calculation is on. If you need the loading to win, leave Contributes to Overtime on.

• Shift Premium Counts Toward OT1 can be combined with this setting, and the two are often set together. It answers a different question: Contributes to Overtime decides whether the premium hours consume the ordinary-time budget, while Shift Premium Counts Toward OT1 decides whether they consume the first overtime tier's budget. Turn Contributes to Overtime off and this on when an award both guarantees the full daily ordinary hours and caps the first overtime tier across the premium and the end-of-day overtime combined.

  Example: 7.6-hour ordinary day, first overtime tier capped at 2 hours, and a 1-hour early start at 1.5x. The worker still gets a full 7.6 hours of ordinary time, but the early start has already used 1 hour of the 2-hour overtime cap — so only 1 hour of the afternoon is at the first overtime tier and the rest escalates to the second. The setting needs a second daily overtime tier configured to do anything: with no such rule there is nothing for the excess to escalate into, so the extra overtime stays at the first tier. It is also ignored when Prevent Daily Overtime Calculation is on, because the shift rule then prices the whole day.

  It can move weekly overtime too, and it can move pay down. Moving hours out of the first overtime tier into the second reduces the hours a weekly threshold sees when that threshold counts ordinary plus first-tier overtime hours — so a weekly tier can start later than it would with the setting off. Where that weekly tier pays more than the daily tiers, delaying it can make a timesheet pay less overall, even though the setting escalates more hours earlier in the day. Whether a given account gains or loses depends on its weekly tiers, so check a full week against real timesheets before enabling this — a single day will not show it.

• Saturday, Sunday and public holiday days are unaffected — day pricing replaces daily overtime, and the weekly rule's Exclude weekend and public holiday hours from the threshold option is the control for those days. This covers Shift Premium Counts Toward OT1 as well: with Contributes to Overtime off, no premium accrues on a day priced by a day rule, so nothing carries into a later shift on that day.

• Fortnightly thresholds are not covered. Excluded hours still count toward a fortnightly overtime threshold, so a fortnightly award will reach its threshold on the original hours.

How to Create a Shift Rule

1. Open a pay rate document from the Pay Rate Documents tab
2. Navigate to the Rule Groups section
3. In the shift rules area, click "Add Shift Rule"
4. Fill in the form fields described below
5. Click "Save" to create the shift rule Basic Details:

• Name: Descriptive name (e.g., "Night Shift Premium", "Early Morning Rate")
• Priority: Number determining evaluation order (lower = evaluated first)

Application Method:

• Choose Replacement (single combined line) or Loading (additive parallel line)
• If you choose Loading, set the Loading Rate (% of base) and the Loading Cost Code
• Optionally set a Loading Hours Cap to stop the loading after a set number of hours (blank = every hour the rule covers)

Shift Window:

• Start Time: When the shift window opens (e.g., 6:00 PM)
• End Time: When the shift window closes (e.g., 6:00 AM)
• Shifts starting within this window will match this rule

Roles:

• Choose Exclude selected roles or Only include selected roles
• Pick the roles the filter applies to; leave the selection empty to apply the rule to every role
• If you choose Only include selected roles, you must pick at least one role

Segments:

• Click "Add Segment" to define rate multiplier periods
• Duration: How many hours this segment covers (leave blank for "remaining hours")
• Multiplier: The rate multiplier for this segment (e.g., 1.5 for time-and-a-half)
• Cost Code: Optional cost code for this segment's pay line item

How to Edit a Shift Rule

1. In the shift rules section, find the rule you want to edit
2. Click the actions menu (three dots) on the right side of the row
3. Select "Edit"
4. Modify the shift window, segments, or priority as needed
5. Click "Save" to apply changes

How to Delete a Shift Rule

1. Click the actions menu on the rule row
2. Select "Delete"
3. Confirm the deletion

Understanding the Shift Rules Table

The shift rules section displays a table with:

• Name: The rule name
• Shift Window: Start and end times for matching
• Segments: Number of rate segments configured
• Priority: Evaluation order

Examples

Night Shift Premium

• Shift Window: 6:00 PM - 6:00 AM
• Segment 1: First 2 hours at 1.25x
• Segment 2: Remaining hours at 1.5x
• Workers starting shifts between 6 PM and 6 AM receive premium rates

Early Morning Rate

• Shift Window: 4:00 AM - 6:00 AM
• Segment 1: All hours at 1.3x
• Workers starting very early shifts receive a flat multiplier

Split Shift

• Shift Window: 12:00 PM - 4:00 PM
• Segment 1: First 4 hours at 1.0x (normal rate)
• Segment 2: Next 2 hours at 1.25x
• Segment 3: Remaining hours at 1.5x

Afternoon Loading (two parallel coded lines)

• Application Method: Loading
• Rate Application Method: Based on Shift Start Time
• Shift Window: 10:00 AM - 6:00 PM
• Days of Week: Monday–Friday
• Segment 1: Remaining hours at 1.0x (Regular Time), cost code 100
• Loading Rate: 50% of base
• Loading Cost Code: 140AC
• A 7.6-hour afternoon shift produces 100 × 7.6 hours at the base rate and 140AC × 7.6 hours at 50% of the base rate.

Tips

• Start with your award document: Most awards define specific shift windows and multipliers - configure rules to match
• Use priority wisely: If a worker's shift could match multiple rules, the highest-priority rule applies
• Link cost codes to segments: This ensures each multiplied rate component is tracked to the right cost code
• Test with real timesheets: After configuring, apply rates to a pay period and verify the calculations

What's Next

• Return to Rule Groups to configure other rule types
• Set up Allowance Rules for activity-based payments
• Emit a loading line on every worked hour with Worked Hours Loading
• Configure Cost Code Linking to map rate outputs to project cost codes