How to set up and manage payroll entities

A payroll entity is a group of workers who are paid on the same cycle, for example everyone on your night shift team, or everyone based at a particular location. Each entity has its own pay schedule, its own pay day and its own list of members.

Entities are the foundation of payroll. Every payroll you run is created for one entity and one pay period, so it is worth setting them up carefully before your first pay run.

Most agencies end up with several entities rather than one, because different groups of workers are often paid on different cycles.

Before you begin

Payroll is available on Agency Accelerator Pro.
You will need a user access level that allows you to work with payroll. Payroll contains sensitive information, so access is usually limited to a small number of people.
Fields marked with an asterisk (*) are required.
Have your list of workers to hand, along with the pay schedule that applies to them.

If you would like more background, select What is a Payroll Entity? at the top of the entity screen.

Finding your payroll entities

Select Payroll in the left hand menu.
Select Manage Payroll Entities.
Choose View to see your existing entities, or Create to set up a new one.

The other option in the same menu, Manage Payroll, is where you create and run payrolls. See How to run and export a payroll for that part.

Viewing your existing entities

When you choose View, the Entity Details page opens. The panel on the right lists every entity you have, showing its name, your agency name and its current status, ACTIVE or DEACTIVATED. To find a particular one, type into Search by Entity Name or use Filter By Status. If you have a lot of entities, use the page numbers at the bottom of the panel to move through the list.

Select an entity to open it. You will then see:

The entity's name, with a link to View entity description
The date it was created
A badge showing how many members it has, for example 19 Members
A table of those members

For each member, the table shows:

Worker Name: the worker's name, their pay type such as paye or psc, and their email address
Designation: their role, or N/A if none is set
Primary Location: the location they are mainly based at
Agency Locations: how many of your agency's locations they are linked to, for example 3 Locations
Profile Status: the worker's current status, such as APPROVED, ACTIVE, INACTIVE, DEACTIVATED or DENIED

An entity with no workers shows No members here yet in place of the table.

Tip: Keep an eye on the Profile Status column. A worker who is inactive, deactivated or denied can still sit in an entity, so it is worth checking whether they should still be there. See Understanding worker statuses and lifecycle for what each status means.

Select the ⋮ menu beside the members badge for the actions available to that entity:

Edit Entity Details, available on every entity
Deactivate Entity, shown on an active entity
Activate Entity, shown on a deactivated entity

Each of these is covered further down this article.

Creating a payroll entity

Select Payroll in the left hand menu, then Manage Payroll Entities and Create.
Under Entity Information, enter an Entity Name. Choose something your team will recognise, such as the team or location the group belongs to.
Choose the Payroll Schedule, which is how often this group is paid. Weekly, fortnightly and monthly schedules are available.
Set the Payroll Date, which is the day the group is paid on.
Set Payroll Process Starts (Days Before), which is how many days ahead of pay day the payroll run should begin. Allow yourself enough time to check the figures without rushing.
Choose whether payslips for this entity should be shared with workers in the Care Hires Worker app. See Sharing payslips with workers below.
Add an Entity Description if it would help colleagues understand who the entity is for.
Move down to Assign Workers and use Search by Employee Name / Email to find each worker you want to include. Each one you add is confirmed on screen and appears in the table below.
Check the table. If you have added someone by mistake, select the ⋮ menu in the Actions column on their row and choose Remove Worker.
When your list is complete, select CREATE PAYROLL ENTITY.

Tip: The CREATE PAYROLL ENTITY button stays greyed out until every required field is complete. If it will not respond, scroll back up and look for an empty required field.

Sharing payslips with workers

Each entity has a setting that controls whether payslips are shared with its workers through the Care Hires Worker app.

Payslips are always generated. Whenever a payroll for the entity is run and exported, a payslip is produced for each worker, whatever this setting says.
Sharing is your choice. Payslips only appear in workers' apps automatically when sharing is turned on for the entity.
Useful if someone else pays your workers. If you use a payroll bureau, a factoring company or another provider that sends its own payslips, leave sharing off so workers do not receive two different documents.

See Sending payslips to your workers from the pay run for what workers see in the app.

Keeping your entities up to date

An entity is only as good as its member list, so it is worth a quick review before each pay run:

Has anyone joined? Add them to the right entity before the payroll is created, not after.
Has anyone left? Remove them so they are not included in the next run.
Is anyone in the wrong entity? A worker paid on a different cycle to the rest of their group will need moving. Remove them from this entity, then add them to the correct one.
Is the schedule still right? If a group's pay cycle changes, update the entity rather than working around it each period.

Editing an entity

To change an entity's name, schedule, pay day, payslip sharing, description or members:

Open the entity from the list on the right.
Select the ⋮ menu beside the members badge.
Choose Edit Entity Details.
Amend any of the entity information that needs changing.
To add a worker, go to Assign Workers and use Search by Employee Name / Email.
To take a worker out of the entity, select the ⋮ menu in the Actions column on their row and choose Remove Worker.
Select Update to save your changes, or Cancel to leave without saving.

The Update button stays greyed out until you have changed something.

Please note: Changing the schedule or pay date affects every future payroll created for that entity, so make the change between pay runs rather than in the middle of one.

Deactivating an entity

Deactivate an entity when the group it covers no longer exists, such as a team that has been disbanded or a location you have closed. A deactivated entity cannot be used for a payroll, so before it is switched off, every worker in it is moved to another entity as part of the same step.

Before you start, check two things:

No payroll is in progress for it. Finish and export any open pay period first.
You know where the workers should go. All of the entity's workers are moved to the one entity you choose. If some of them belong somewhere else, move those workers first using Edit Entity Details, then deactivate.

To deactivate an entity:

Open the entity from the list on the right.
Select the ⋮ menu beside the members badge.
Choose Deactivate Entity.
A message asks Deactivate Payroll Entity? and reminds you that all workers in this entity will need to be reassigned. Select Yes, Deactivate to carry on, or Cancel to stop.
The Reassign Workers window opens, showing how many workers are being moved. Under Select Payroll Entity, choose the entity they should move to. Each option shows how many members that entity already has, for example Night Shift Workers (3 members).
Check the summary, which shows the entity you Selected and the number of Workers to reassign.
Select Confirm Reassignment.
A progress bar shows the workers being moved, for example 1 of 1 workers reassigned. Wait until it finishes before leaving the page.

Once it is done, the entity shows 0 Members and its badge changes to DEACTIVATED. It stays in your list rather than disappearing, so nothing is lost, and you can find it again at any time using Filter By Status. The workers now appear in the entity you chose, and its members badge goes up to match.

Please note: Moving workers into another entity means they will be paid on that entity's schedule and pay day from its next payroll. Choose the entity that matches how those workers are actually paid.

Tip: Deactivate rather than leaving unused entities active. A short, current list makes choosing the right entity at the Create Payroll step much less error prone.

Reactivating an entity

If a group comes back into use, you can switch its entity back on rather than creating a new one.

Use Filter By Status to find the deactivated entity, then open it.
Select the ⋮ menu beside the members badge.
Choose Activate Entity.

The entity's badge changes back to ACTIVE and it can be used for payrolls again. Its workers were moved out when it was deactivated, so it starts with no members. Use Edit Entity Details to add the right workers before you create its next payroll.

What to do next

Once your entities are set up, you are ready to run your first payroll. See How to run and export a payroll for the next steps.

If something looks wrong

A worker cannot be found when you search. Check that their profile is complete and active. An incomplete profile may not appear in the results.
A worker is missing from a payroll. Check they are a member of the entity the payroll was created for, and that the entity is active.
The entity you want is not offered in Reassign Workers. Only other active entities are listed. Activate the entity you need first, then deactivate the old one.
Workers have their payslips in the app when they should not, or the other way round. Check the payslip sharing setting on their entity using Edit Entity Details.

If an entity shows the wrong number of members, will not save, or appears with a status you did not set, please contact our Support Team with the entity name and we will look into it for you.