What are pay periods in Usked? How do I set them up? Read more to find out answers to the questions and more. #

What is a pay period in Usked?  #

A pay period in Usked defines the dates for a calendar period that service providers can bill for their services. A pay period consists of four dates:

1. Start Date
   This is the first day of this pay period. Ideally, assignments with a start date from this day will be added to the invoice for the current pay period.* 
2. End Date
   This is the last day of this pay period. Assignments with a start date beyond this date will not be available to add to the current pay period’s invoice. 
3. Invoice By Date
   Your service providers must submit their invoices by this date, in order to receive their payment by the pay date. This date is typically a few days from the End Date for the pay period, to allow your service providers some time to add their jobs to their invoice once complete. Usked will automatically submit any open invoice or time sheet that has at least one billable object added to it at midnight the day after this date.
4. Pay Date
   This is the date you normally pay your service providers by, for invoices submitted by the invoice by date.

*In an ideal world service providers would add all jobs that occur within a pay period to the invoice for that same pay period by the end of the invoice by date. However, if a service provider missed adding jobs to their invoice for a previous pay period before it was submitted they can add them to the next pay period’s invoice. 

Who can create and/or update pay periods?  #

Any staff with the Billing role enabled can create and/or update pay periods. 

How/when do I set up pay periods?  #

See this video for how to create a pay period:

We suggest creating pay periods for one year at a time. This could be a end of year task for your Billing Dept. to create the following year’s pay periods. 

When can service providers add jobs to their invoices for the current pay period? #

While service providers can technically add jobs to a new invoice once the previous period’s invoice by date has passed  (typically a few days into the start of the next pay period), we suggest having them wait until the end date of the pay period has passed. We’ve found that asking them to add jobs starting the day after the end date for that period and making sure they have added all by the end of the invoice by date avoids necessary adjustments. The reason for this is that once jobs are added to an invoice the service provider slot is locked for editing. So, it is important that service providers check to make sure their pay and expenses are accurate before adding it to their invoice.

The Invoicing grace period and mode settings found in System Settings also influences when service providers can add jobs to invoices. This can be set to allow service providers to add jobs from X amount of business hours from the start of the business day of the assignment or X amount of business hours from the end time of the assignment. 

NOTE: Assignments that start on a non business day (i.e. potentially weekends if you do not have business hours on weekends or holidays) cannot be added until at least the next business day.

What about staff time sheets for the pay period?  #

Time sheets are handled very similarly to invoices and are also based on the pay periods. The difference is that Usked will automatically add staff days and jobs to the staff’s time sheet the day after they occur, instead of the service providers having to add them themselves (as is true with non staff service providers).  Then, just like for invoices, Usked will auto submit the time sheet the morning after the invoice by date.