August 2nd 2023, Release Note: WFM UK | Scheduling: Costs Table Configuration

Summary

Release date: August 2nd 2023

• Enabled by Default? - Yes
• Set up by customer Admin? - Yes
• Enable via Support ticket? - No
• Affects configuration or data? - Yes

What’s Changing?

Introduction of a new page for configuring the Costs table.

Reason for the Change

Customer admins must configure the costs to be displayed on the Costs table before the migration to the new Scheduling user interface.

Customers Affected

All legacy user interface users with the permission level - Manage Customer Organisation Settings.

Release Notes

The system administrator should have access to make these changes. If the settings are not available to the system administrator please submit a request to the Fourth support team.

• Go to Settings > Admin Configuration > Costs Table Configuration

Fig.1 - Cost Table configuration

• In each Row drop-down, select one of the following and then Save

  • Sales (Forecast or Actual) - Actual sales will be used. If not available, forecast values will be used instead. Sales are from sales types or activity drivers which have been configured to be used within the Department's wage cost calculations. This value is used in all labour cost calculations

  • Forecast Sales - Taken from the Sales Forecasts page

  • Actual Sales - Actual sales taken from the Sales Forecasts page. Sales are from sales types or activity drivers which have been configured to be used within the Department's wage cost calculations

  • Sales Budget - Sales budgets that have been uploaded for the department. If using sales types, these are sales budgets that have been uploaded to the system via the Budget Upload page within settings. If using activity drivers for sales then these will be the activity driver budget values loaded via FTP or API

  • Wage Budget & Wage Budget Percentage - This is the total value allowed to spend based on the loaded wage % target and sales for the day. For example, if the sales are 1000 and the budget is 10% the wage budget will be 100. If the wage budget is configured to be displayed, then only "1000" will be shown. If the wage budget percentage is configured to be displayed then "1000 (10%)" will be shown.
    These are uploaded to the system via Settings > Uploads > Budget Upload

    (Sales x Labour Budget % ) = Wage Budget Value

  • Total Wage Cost & Total Wage Cost Percentage - This is the Location's actual/forecasted labour cost, taken from the shifts forecast/actual. The wage cost will be calculated from actual sales if available, and forecast sales if not. The wage cost is the total sum of shifts for any given day + an additional labour cost configuration and any configured fixed costs.
    If sales were 1000 and the labour cost was 200, the wage cost sales percentage would be 20%. If just the wage cost is configured to be displayed then this would show as"200". If the wage cost percentage is configured to be displayed then it would show as "200 (20%)"

  • Variance - The variance between wage cost & wage budget. If the cost is 200 and the budget is 100, then the variance would be -100 over budget. Any values which are over budget will be displayed in red

  • Variance Hours - Variance in hours is now calculated by day. The daily average hourly rate is calculated by dividing the daily wage cost by the daily actual hours. 

    The variance is then divided by the daily average hourly rate, to calculate the variance in hours.

    Example 

    Variance - -100
    Daily Wage cost - 200 
    Actual hours - 10
    Daily Average - 200 ÷ 10= 20
    Variance Hours - -100 ÷ 20 = -5 

    If over budget, the variance is displayed in red. If under budget, it will be green.

  • Actual Hours - Total number of actual hours for the day/week. If shifts are being added or modified for current or past days then only the actual record is updated

  • Forecast Hours - Total number of forecast hours for the day/week. If a shift is created for a future day then a forecast and actual shift are created

  • Fixed Costs - Fixed costs values. If integrated with Fourth's HR & Payroll solution, these values will be received via API. If using Team Hours they will be entered in the Reports > Fixed Costs page (only in scope if using Fixed Costs directly in the Scheduling module)

  • Cost Per Hour - Cost per hour is calculated by taking the total wage cost for the week / actual hours. For example, if the wage cost is £1000 and the hours are 80: £1000 ÷ 80 = £12.50

The cost table configuration will take effect only after you have completed the migration to the new Scheduling user interface. If the Costs Table Configuration settings are not configured before your migration to the new Scheduling version we will apply the default data as per below. 

• Sales (Forecast or Actual)
• Wage Budget & Wage Budget Percentage
• Total Wage Cost & Total Wage Cost Percentage
• Variance
• Variance Hours

Fig.2 - Costs table

In the Daily view, when the costs by sessions are enabled only 3 of the costs configured can be displayed as 'weekly totals' - see below in Fig.3.

Fig.3 -Daily view with Costs by Sessions enabled

In the Weekly view, a more detailed view of the cost table (see Fig.4)can be accessed via the Weekly Totals tab.

All the cost types configured on the organization settings page will be displayed in the weekly totals:

Fig.4 - Weekly totals

A detailed component breakdown of the Total wage cost could be done if in the Organisation settings, the following costs are enabled:

- Employee Wage Cost - these sums are the hourly payments per employee
- Open Shift Costs - the costs for all open shifts for the given period
- Contractor Costs - the costs for all contractor shifts

Fig.5 - Weekly totals with additional details for the wage costs components

• To configure these settings, go to Settings > Organisations and select Edit against the required Organisation
• Scroll down to the 'Labour Cost Data' section and tick the boxes for Employee Wage Costs, Open Shift Costs, and Contractor Costs as needed
• Scroll down and Save

Fig.6 - Total Wage costs configuration -organisation settings