Configure rule groups

A rule group is the set of pay rules a classification is paid under: when overtime starts, what weekends and public holidays pay, how leave and allowances are paid, and so on. Each classification in a pay rate document names its rule group on the Rate Tree tab, and several classifications can share one.

Open a document's rule groups

1. Under Payroll, select Pay Rates, then the Pay Rate Documents tab.
2. Select the eye icon in the Rates Data column of the document.
3. Select the Rule Groups tab. The number beside it is how many rule groups the document has.

Each rule group lists its rules in sections, with Add Rule (or a similar button) to add one and a pencil or menu on each rule to change or remove it.

To rename a rule group or set its Employment Category (Full Time, Part Time or Casual), open the menu beside its name and select Edit. Each rule group needs its own name: a name another rule group in the document already has is refused, even with different capitals. Delete in the same menu also deletes every classification that uses the rule group.

A new rule group is created each time you select Add Classification on the Rate Tree tab. It is named after the classification, for example Full Time Rules. If another rule group already has that name, a number is added, for example Full Time Rules 2. The same applies when renaming a classification renames its rule group. A duplicated classification's rule group is named after the copy, for example Full Time (Copy) Rules.

What each section does

Higher Duty Settings only appears when the document's rate tree has a Role level.

Daily overtime

Daily Overtime holds the tiers that turn a day's hours into overtime, for example time and a half after 8 hours and double time after 10. Select the pencil beside a tier to open Edit Daily Overtime Rule:

• After Hours: the hours in a day after which the tier starts.
• OT trigger hours (standard day): optional. A day of up to these hours pays no overtime from the tier, and its hours past After Hours stay ordinary time. A longer day counts overtime from After Hours. It must be more than After Hours and no more than where the tier ends. See Pay a standard day without overtime.
• Up To Hours (optional): how many hours the tier covers. Leave it empty for no limit.
• Unpaid break offset limit (minutes): adds the worker's recorded unpaid break minutes to After Hours, up to this limit.
• Multiplier: the rate for those hours, as a multiple of the base rate (1.5 for time and a half).
• Application Method: Replacement (single combined line) pays the hours as one overtime line; Loading (additive parallel line) pays them as ordinary hours plus a separate loading line.
• Split overtime by activity: pays the overtime part of the day differently depending on the activity worked. See Custom activity rules. Weekly thresholds have the same option, with an optional time window: see Pay overtime on some activities at a different rate.

A tier paid as a loading line shows its loading rate and cost code beside its name, such as "Loading: 50% → OT-LOAD". Its multiplier is dimmed because it doesn't set what the hours pay.

More than one timesheet on a day. Daily overtime counts all of the worker's timesheets on the same date, whole timesheet by whole timesheet in the order they start. When the timesheets follow one another, the overtime falls on the hours worked after the threshold.

When one timesheet fills a gap in another, the overtime goes on the hours worked after the threshold, in clock order. For example, with daily overtime after 8 hours, a worker records 07:00 to 08:00 and 13:00 to 16:00 on one timesheet and 08:00 to 13:00 on another. They reach 8 hours at 15:00, so 15:00 to 16:00 is overtime, on the first timesheet and with its cost code. Each timesheet's Rate Calculation Details then say "Daily overtime placed by time worked across 2 interleaved same-day timesheets", in place of how many hours were already worked that day.

The day's hours and pay are the same either way. On some days the timesheets are still counted one after another in the order they start, so the overtime can sit on the timesheet that starts later:

• when moving it would change pay or coding anywhere else that day, such as weekly overtime reached that day, an allowance that depends on overtime, a loading, an RDO, or an hour that would be left without a cost code
• on days with leave, an overnight shift, or timesheets that overlap
• when the day is paid under a shift rule with Prevent Daily Overtime Calculation on, a fortnightly overtime rule or a cost code threshold rule

Timesheets already worked out keep their overtime where it is until you apply pay rates to them again.

Pay a standard day without overtime

Some agreements treat a short overrun as part of the standard day. For example, full-time crews whose ordinary day is 7.6 hours submit 8-hour days. An 8-hour day is paid without overtime, but once the day goes past 8 hours, overtime counts from 7.6.

Set the first tier's After Hours to 7.6 and OT trigger hours (standard day) to 8. The tier then shows Standard day: up to 8h beside its name.

The day is measured in the hours that count toward daily overtime, across all the worker's timesheets for that date. Those are the hours worked, plus leave whose rule counts it toward daily overtime. Paid breaks, leave that doesn't count toward daily overtime, and activities a custom activity rule keeps out of overtime are left out. For example, a timesheet with 7.8 hours of work and 0.5 hours of leave that doesn't count is a 7.8-hour day, so it pays no overtime. A second, shorter timesheet that takes the day past 8 hours turns the earlier hours past 7.6 into overtime too. The setting belongs to the rule group, so a rule group for casuals with its own daily overtime is not affected. On a day it applies, the timesheet's Rate Calculation Details say that overtime starts after the standard day.

If the tier also has an Unpaid break offset limit, the break offset moves After Hours first. Overtime then starts after the moved After Hours on a longer day. When the offset moves After Hours to the trigger or beyond it, the trigger has no effect that day.

The OT trigger hours (standard day) value must be more than After Hours and no more than where the tier ends: its Up To Hours, or the After Hours of the next tier if that comes first. The editor says which limit applies, and Save stays off until the value fits. A value that doesn't fit is never applied: the tier shows Standard day not applied, overtime counts from After Hours, and the timesheet's Rate Calculation Details say why. Apply pay rates again to timesheets already worked out for the change to reach them.

Day rules

Day Rules set the multiplier for hours worked on a given day. To add one, select Add Day, choose the Day of Week and enter a Multiplier, or turn on Use tiered rates to pay the first hours and the remaining hours at different rates.

A Saturday or Sunday day rule also has Counts toward weekly overtime threshold, to leave that day's hours out of weekly overtime. See Leave one day out of the count.

A Saturday or Sunday rule can be limited to certain activities, such as crane work. Only activities whose name contains one of the rule's activity names get the day's rate. Every other activity that day, leave included, is paid as if the day had no rule: ordinary time, with daily and weekly overtime as usual. A timesheet on that day with no activities gets none of the day's rate.

Day Rules doesn't show this limit. To set, change or remove it, ask Milo in the document's Milo - Document Editor panel (see Check and edit the rates), for example "Pay the Saturday rule in Standard only for activities named Crane" or "Pay the Saturday rule in Standard for all work". Use the distinctive part of the activity's name, such as "Crane". A name like "Saturday Work" matches no activity, so the day's rate is never paid.

When a timesheet's weekend hours are paid at ordinary time, the rate details name the activities the rule left out, and say so when nothing on the timesheet matched. Ask Milo to add the missing activity name to the rule.

How the rules are applied

When you apply pay rates, Assignar Pay works through each worker's week:

1. It chooses the pay rate document for each timesheet (see Choose which timesheets a document pays).
2. If Higher Duty Settings are on and a higher duty role reached its threshold that day, it moves the day's timesheets to that role first.
3. It matches each timesheet to a classification and pays it under that classification's rule group, applying each rule that fits. Weekly thresholds are applied within each timesheet's own calculation, before minimum engagement and allowances, so those two see the hours as weekly overtime where they already are.
4. Once the whole week is done, it applies fortnightly thresholds.

Each rule page says where the order matters for that rule.