Managing operational details across the full lifecycle of your clients and venues
Operations are super important for any platform; to put it simply, they act as business profiles that help you store and filter data for specific entities. How you set them up can change based on what your business needs.
- For Direct Employment customers - Operations might be a venue or branch of your business.
- For Labour Hire customers - Each operation could be a different client you invoice.
- For NDIS customers - You can use operations for each client you care for.
When managing operations, it's key that your operations reflect what’s happening with the business entities they represent. With this in mind, we advise that you regularly review, update your operations, and archive them when they are no longer relevant.
This ensures that your employees' minimum pay rates are accurate and that you are invoicing clients correctly.
In this article, we will cover:
- Navigating and understanding all of the data in detail in each operation tab
- Managing an operation's status (approving, declining and archiving)
- Editing an operation's details
If you are looking to set a default setting for all Operations upon creation in your platform, please see our article on Operation Defaults.
Navigating operations
Familiarising yourself with the navigation of your operations will enable you to utilise them effectively and update them promptly when circumstances change.
The way you use operations can greatly impact your platform, as each operation has specific settings and features, that allow you to customise how your platform will work.
For example, some of the customisation options that meet specific needs are:
- Adding iPads and setting specific overrides for clocking.
- Set up operation-specific work default settings
- Store ABN and client contact details
- Using the CRM
- Utilise the rates book to:
- Limit which positions can be rostered
- Override specific shift rates
- For labour hire, set charge rates
- Update your quick settings for any specific rostering and invoicing requirements.
Below, we have provided a list of key fields for each tab.
The Overview page offers a summary of the contact details for the operation, as well as highlights any settings that have been overridden. You can conveniently manage these overrides, along with your rostering and invoicing settings, from this page.
From the Overview page, you can manage:
- Clock Rules - Apply operation-specific clock settings, approve shift rules and install your iPads.
- Break Rules - Set up break rules to automatically apply a break when rostering shifts.
- Quick Settings - Manage your invoice and rostering settings, such as position groups.
- Checklists - Create custom Pending and Approved Operation checklists; these can be used to help keep you on track when setting up your operations.
- Comments - Keep note of any changes or key updates.
This tab, is key as it manages the financial aspects of your operation.
From the Card, you can manage:
- Rates Books - A rates book stores all positions that can be used on a roster for an operation. Additionally, if your platform uses invoicing, your charge rates are added here.
- Allowances - Any allowances with specific pay rates per operation can be added here.
- Financial - The section stores key financial details, such as setting the payroll state, pay period and cycle. Once set, you should have no need to update the financial section.
The Business tab provides you with additional settings for managing your cost centres and invoices. These settings include:
- Cost Code/ Purchase Order Library - For a filtered list of all codes available for your operation, select manage to navigate to your Cost Code/ Purchase Order Library.
- Trading Terms - This setting determines when your invoices are marked as overdue for Debtor Management.
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Timesheets - View a list of all timesheets for this operation. To view a breakdown of the award rules for a timesheet, select the ID Number > View Breakdown.
- Invoices - Select manage to navigate to a filtered list of your issued invoices.
- Invoice Contacts - If you have chosen to split your invoices by purchase order, you can specify where each invoice should be sent.
This tab holds the information for an operation in relation to its address, contact details, and information that will be related to billing for invoices.
From the Details tab, you can manage:
- Details - Stores all business details; see the 'Operation Details' section below for further information.
- Tags - You can assign tags to your operations; these are useful when filtering and exporting.
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Users - Used to create and manage your operation users.
Contact us: If you don't already use operations users, please contact our support team, before using this section.
These tabs are useful tools for maintaining client relationships, particularly for our labour hire customers.
From the CRM tab, you can:
- Upload documents, i.e. Contracts or Agreements
- Leave any feedback, comments or incidents that occur when dealing with your operation contacts
- Create follow-up actions for your admin users
From the Contacts tab, you can:
- Add Contacts and select if a contact can receive communications
- Store notes against your contacts; this can allow you to keep an audit history
- Edit contact details and delete contacts
The CRM and Contacts tabs work hand-in-hand to help you manage your contacts and your relationship with them. For further information about this topic, please refer to our article here.
Managing operation status
The first step in using operations is to add, set up, and accept them into your platform. You can add new operations at any time when needed.
For the full guide on adding, setting up and accepting operations, please refer to our article on Adding a new Operation.
When circumstances change, it may become necessary to end a relationship with a client, business, or venue. This could occur for several reasons, such as:
- Losing a prospective client
- A restructuring of a business
- The completion of a contract with a client
- Venues being acquired or closed
In these situations, it will be necessary to either decline or archive their operations. Therefore, it’s important to know when to proceed with declining or archiving an operation.
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Declining an operation
- This is the preferred process for ending a Pending Operation, such as a prospective client.
- Declining an unsuccessful prospect allows you to focus on and keep track of your active leads more effectively.
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Archiving an operation
- This is the recommended procedure for terminating an Approved Operation, such as a venue or a client that you have invoiced through your platform.
- After an operation is archived, operation users will still have access to their portal. This feature is beneficial as it allows them to make payments and view their invoices.
How to decline/ archive an operation:
- Before you decline or archive an operation, please ensure that any shifts on rosters for this operation have been approved. Once declined or archived, the rosters will be unavailable for rostering and shift approval.
- From the quick menu, navigate to Operations > Approved Operation > Select your required operation.
- On the overview page, navigate to Actions and select:
- Decline Operations - Once selected, the operation will be moved to the Declined Operations menu.
- Archive Operations - Once selected, you will have the option to send a communication to the registered email address. The operation will be moved to the Archived Operations menu.
- After an operation has been archived, please ensure that all relevant employee positions are updated accordingly.
If you ever decide to decline or archive an operation, you can reactivate it by accepting it again. Before doing so, we advise reviewing your rate books and settings to ensure they are still up to date.
Updating operations
In an operation, there are two key areas related to financials that need to be kept up to date these include the Financials tab and the Rates Books.
Financials tab
This tab should be reviewed and set up when initially adding an operation. However, as your business grows, you can come back and update or apply specific overrides for each operation to fit your evolving needs.
Some ways this can occur include:
- Adding additional payroll states (this will create additional rates books per state)
- Updating your margins
- If you pay a higher amount of superannuation
- Setting a custom Public Liability percentage for each operation
- Changing the Pay Period
Contact us: If are looking to update a pay period for an operation that has processed pay, or approved shifts, please contact our support team before using this section.
Rates books
The next key area to consider is the Rates Books. A Rates book is a crucial resource, particularly for labour hire customers! This is because they significantly affect how you pay your employees and invoice your clients.
Key uses for a Rates Book include:
- Limiting which positions can be used for rostering
- Setting the minimum pay and shift rates for your employees
- If you’re invoicing, establish your charge rates
To ensure that your rate books are kept up-to-date, there are a few methods you can use:
- Update your charge rates by exporting and updating in bulk
- Update any allowances with operation overrides
- For the annual minimum wage increase, update rates in bulk using the Rate Rise tool
As an operation progresses, you might need to check and update some important details from time to time. This could mean changing contact info or updating invoicing specifics.
This is especially important for labour hire customers since having the right details helps make sure your invoices go to the correct address.
Please note: Some settings listed below are only available for platforms that use invoicing. If your platform does not utilise this feature, your options may vary.
To update an Operation's details:
- From the quick menu, navigate to Operations > Pending Operations and select the required operation.
- Once in the operation, select the Details tab > Details > Edit.
- Apply your required updates to the following fields:
- ID# - This unique ID number is assigned to each operation and cannot be edited.
- Company Name - The legal name of the business. This will appear on invoices.
- Trading Name - The short name for the business. This will appear throughout the platform.
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Theme - Apply a colour to the border for your rosters displayed on the Unfilled Shifts page. The font colour does not update for this setting.
- ABN/ACN - The ABN or ACN of the business. This will appear on invoices.
- Postal Address - The postal address of the business. This will appear on invoices.
- Office Address - The business's office address. This will appear throughout the platform.
- Invoicing Address - This setting will replace the postal address on invoices with a billing address.
- Phone - Landline for the business. This will be visible in the Operations menu.
- Mobile - Mobile for the business. This will be visible in the Operations menu.
- Admin Email - The email address to which communications are sent.
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Accounts Email - The email address to which invoices will be sent.
- You can add an additional email address by selecting Add Email and providing the details.
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Website - The URL of an Operation's external website.
- Job Type - Choose between using rosters, jobs, or both. If your platform does not support jobs, then 'Roster Only' is the only option available.
- Assign Type* - The ability to allow offer shifts, assign shifts, or both.
- Estimated Client Value - When using the prospects feature, you can add a note regarding the estimated value of the client for your business.
- Conversation Probability - When using prospects, you can indicate the likelihood of converting the prospect to an Approved Operation.
- Expected Conversion Date - This can be used to select a date when a prospective client will be approved.
- Authorisation to Approve Leave - This setting allows operation users to approve and decline leave applications.
- Generate Empty Perm/Pt-time Invoices*
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Decimal Time Calculation* - Select from the following options:
- Division - This calculates time increments using decimals.
- Kronos - This calculates time increments using the Kronos method.
- Fixed Margin - This setting determines if charge rates are calculated as a percentage (fixed margin) or added individually in dollars.
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Invoice Numbers - This setting is useful when transitioning between invoicing software. It enables you to establish a starting point to continue your numbering system in foundU.
- To update, select Custom and add the Reference and Next ID.
Hot tip: Invoice numbers consist of a reference number and an ID number, with the reference number being the digits before the (-) and the ID number being the digits after it.
- To update, select Custom and add the Reference and Next ID.
- GST on Invoice - Specify the GST percentage used for invoicing.
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External ID - This can be used to list an external ID.
- To save your changes, scroll to the bottom and select Save.
Contact us: Any option with an * is a legacy feature and is no longer supported. If you would like further assistance on the above options, please reach out to our support team.