Pay Condition Rules

1. All rules are in the format
   WHEN <conditions>
   THEN <actions>
2. All rules are executed sequentially, from top to bottom
3. As the rules are executed, the shift will be broken up into segments that match particular rules. The general process is that pay categories will be assigned to these shift segments.
4. Allowances may be added to a shift.

NOTE: Any rules that check for a pay category should be moved to late in the rule set to allow earlier rules to actually assign a pay category.

Preferred Matches

If the shift spans midnight (e.g.: 9pm - 4am), this condition will match the part of the shift after midnight (e.g.: in this case, midnight - 4am) 

 

This condition checks whether the employee is working at a higher classification for (part of) the shift. Employment agreements are given a rank, and a higher rank indicates a higher classification.
A higher classification can be specified for an employee in the timesheet entry page. Please note, in order to specify a higher classification for only part of a shift:

• Enter two separate timesheet lines. For example: 9am-11am at standard duties and 11am-4pm at higher duties.
• Configure the shift consolidation rules so that the rules engine treats the two timesheet lines as a single shift.

This condition allows you to build a rule based on the distinct number of calendar days an employee works within a specific period, rather than counting individual shifts. Multiple shifts worked on the same calendar day correctly count as a single day of work. Additionally, a shift that crosses over midnight will count as a single day of work. For eg, if an employee commenced work on Thursday 10pm and ended 6am on Friday the system will count this as 1 day of work as opposed to 2. When configuring this condition, you have the flexibility to specify whether the days worked must be consecutive, apply conditional filters to restrict which shifts qualify, and set the evaluation period to either a standard week or the rule set's period. If using a week as your evaluation period, take note that the week is derived by the rule set period ending date as the last day of the week. The exception to this is ‘calendar month’ and ‘monthly’ periods whereby the business “Work Week” setting derives the start/end of the week.

• work from 9am – 2pm
• a break of 30 minutes from 2pm – 2:30pm
• work from 2:30pm – 5pm

This action allows you to automate the payment of a specified number of allowance units per day, shift, hour worked, unit entered on timesheet or as a percentage of total shift cost. You can configure a minimum number of units to be paid per shift or per day. You can also configure a maximum number of units to be paid using one of the following options:

• Fixed amount: Define a fixed number of maximum units either per day or per week
• Employee standard hours: This action allows you to apply the basic weekly or per day contracted hours, as configured in the employee’s Pay Run Defaults, as the maximum number of units to be paid. For eg, if an employee’s basic work pattern is set as 32 hours per week and you apply the maximum of ‘employee standard hours’ per week then the employee will be paid no more than 32 units of an allowance per week. Please note that if an employee’s Pay Run Defaults has either 0 hours per week or 0 hours per day then no cap will be applied.
• Employee advanced standard hours: This action allows you to apply the advanced weekly or per day contracted hours, as configured in the employee’s Pay Run Defaults, as the maximum number of units to be paid. Please note that if an employee’s Pay Run Defaults has 0 hours configured on a specific day then no cap will be applied if an employee works on that day. If no advanced work pattern is defined for an employee, it will default to the employee’s basic work pattern.

This action allows multiple levels of overtime to apply to matching shift parts. For example:

• For the first 2 hours, apply pay category "time and a half"
• For the remaining time, apply pay category "double time"

When this is used as part of the 'Time Worked' condition, the tiers are reset each day from the start of each shift. That is, the matching parts of Monday will have 2 hours at time and a half and the remaining at double time; then the matching parts of Tuesday will have 2 hours at time and a half and the remaining at double time.

 

The Adjust classification action is only available as part of a 'Time Worked' condition and includes options to automatically calculate and apply a single classification rate across an employee's shifts based on the classifications allocated to timesheets for hours worked. This functionality operates under three distinct modes: Higher, highest and majority mode. All three modes can be configured across four different scopes: a single whole shift, all shifts on the same day, all shifts in the same week, or all shifts in the entire shift period. Note that "week" boundaries are dynamically determined by the employer's configured pay period setup (using the end-of-week day) rather than a fixed calendar week.

In Higher mode, the system will look at the classification—as defined by rank in the employee's Employment Agreement—allocated to a timesheet and apply the rate of that classification against the shift/s as defined in the rule. An eg is:

• WHEN: Time Worked in a shift WHERE Employee is working at a higher classification is greater than 2h
• THEN: Apply classification to whole shift

In Highest mode, the system evaluates all classifications worked within the scope and applies the highest-ranked classification—as defined by rank in the employee's Employment Agreement—to all shifts, regardless of the hours spent on each. If an employee works an exact tie in hours between classifications, the higher-ranked classification is automatically applied to prevent underpayment.

In Majority mode, the system calculates the total hours worked across a specified scope, identifies the classification with the most hours, and applies that rate to all shifts within that scope. If an employee works an exact tie in hours between classifications, the higher-ranked classification is automatically applied to prevent underpayment. When calculating totals for Majority mode, unpaid breaks are excluded from the initial hours count, though the final winning classification rate will still apply to the entire shift, including those breaks.

If the adjust classification rule is triggered in a payrun, the applied classification name (if different to the employee's normal classification) is automatically logged in the Notes field of the affected earnings line for easy verification.

This action is only available as part of a 'Time Worked' condition (and should only be used with a 'less than' duration). This action will extend the effective time of the last shift to make up the remaining time. For example:
 

• WHEN: Time Worked in a shift WHERE Work Type is Ordinary Hours is less than than 8h
• THEN: Add remaining time

This action is only enabled for the 'Time Worked' condition. Where the time worked condition will (potentially) match a series of shift parts, the conditional action can apply different actions based on conditions. 
 

• WHEN: Time Worked in a shift period WHERE Work Type is Ordinary Hours is greater ‌than 152h
• THEN: Conditional:
  • If the day is Monday-Saturday, apply M-S Overtime
  • If the day is Sunday, apply Sunday Overtime

This action is useful for shift workers who are entitled to whatever is higher - their shift value or ordinary hours. It should only be used for shifts that have a work type linked to a leave category with 

For this action to work correctly, rules in the rule set that assign pay categories (e.g.: time of day, day of week) should also consider this work type.

Once all of the rules have been applied, the interpreter will determine which is higher - the value of the shift as it stands with the rules applied or the amount the employee would have been paid with ordinary hours.

 

This action is useful for businesses with employees who work across multiple positions at different base rates of pay as it allows you to redirect which pay category a shift's earnings are booked to without changing the underlying rate calculation. Unlike the existing "Apply pay category" action—which changes both where the earnings are booked and shifts the rate calculation to that target category's base rate—the "Allocate earnings to pay category" action keeps the rate resolution tied directly to the specific role the employee worked. This allows you to manage overtime or penalty allocations across your entire workforce using a single rule rather than creating a separate rule for every individual position.

When this action is applied within a rule, the payroll engine completely ignores any base rate configured on the destination allocation pay category. Instead, it uses the employee's specific role rate as the baseline. If the destination pay category has a rate loading configured, that loading will be applied on top of the role rate. You can also combine this with a "Set rate multiplier" action, meaning both the multiplier and any destination category loadings will apply progressively to the role's base rate. This ensures ordinary hours remain under the correct role pay category while overtime portions route seamlessly to a shared category at the correct calculated rate.