Payroll Award Details Form

From Polygon Back Office,

Select the File menu, then select Application Settings,

Expand the Polygon Payroll heading on the left, then select General,

Click the Line Item icon to the right of the Payroll award settings option

Minimum hours worked at mixed duties before applying higher rate to full shift

This is the minimum number of hours which can be worked at a higher rate before the higher duties rate will apply to all hours worked by an employee for that shift.  

If a shift of X or more hours is worked under a classification which pays more than the employees ordinary classification – the hours worked for the whole day shall be paid at the higher rate.  

If the higher classification is worked for less than X hours, the higher rate is paid only for the time worked.

Excluded high duty rates - Rates which are excluded from this Higher Duties Rule will show in the drop down box for your reference.

To exclude a rate from the Higher Duties rule:

•From Polygon Back Office select the Payroll menu, then select Payroll Rates,

•Select the Payroll Rate you wish to exclude, then click the Change button

•Tick the Exclude this rate from Higher Duties computations tick box, then click OK

This section will have the system automatically apply a penalty for employees who are not given required meal breaks.

•Meal break threshold (in hours) - This is number of hours after starting work at which the employee is entitled to an unpaid meal break.

•Standard meal break duration (in minutes) - So that overtime may be properly calculated if your overtime settings are per day or per shift, you need to enter the length of scheduled meal breaks (in minutes).

•Penalty threshold (in hours) – This is the number of hours after stating work that the employee will start to be paid a penalty if they have not taken the unpaid meal break.

•Ordinary hourly rate penalty factor - This percentage value defines how much a base rate is increased by when a meal break penalty is applied.  For example if an Ordinary hourly rate penalty factor of 50% is applied to a base rate of $16 per hour, the rate of pay would become $24.  That is: base rate + (base rate x Ordinary hourly rate penalty factor) = 16 + (16 x 0.5)

Here are some examples where the:

•Meal Break Threshold = 4 hours;

•Standard Meal Break Duration = 30 mins;

•Penalty Threshold = 6 hours.

If an employee works from 12:00 to 19:00 without a break (a total of 7 hours), the Meal Break Threshold has been exceeded and there has been no meal break taken.  The total hours worked has exceeded the Penalty Threshold by 1 hour, therefore the employee will be paid the penalty factor for 1 hour.

If an employee works from 12:00 to 17:00, and then 17:30 to 19:30 (a total of 7 hours), the Meal Break Threshold has been exceeded but there is a 30 minute break taken.  No penalty will apply.

Please note: If a break is taken but the duration is less than the number of minutes entered in the Standard Meal Break duration the system will deem that the meal break has not been taken.

Work break threshold (in hours) - This is the number of hours an employee must have off between working an overtime shift and starting the next daily shift. If the number of hours between shifts is less than the work break threshold, both shifts will be paid at an overtime rate.

Standard shift break duration (in minutes) - This setting is used to determine if the accrual of hours worked on a day should stop or continue with regard to overtime calculations.  A break of this duration or less will deem the next period worked to be part of the same shift as the previous period.  A break of more than this duration will determine that the next period worked on the day will be deemed a different shift.

Default overtime settings

These are the default rules which determine after how many hours overtime 1 or overtime 2 rates are paid and how much is paid when overtime 1 or 2 rates are applied.  To save time, these default settings are automatically entered when creating a new rate schedule.  The overtime rules for each Payroll Rate can be changed from the Polygon Payroll > Payroll Rates File.  

OT1 starts after

These settings allow you to specify how many hours in a shift, or, how many hours in a day an employee must work before overtime 1 rates are earned.  To enter how many hours a shift must be worked before overtime 1 is applied, enter the number of hours in the first text box (circled in green below).  To enter how many hours must be worked in a day before overtime 1 applied, enter the number of hours into the second text box (circled in blue below).  

Note: You may enter one option or neither option, but not both.  

OT2 starts after

Set this value to the number of consecutive hours overtime 1 must be worked before overtime 2 rates are applied.  If this factor is 2 hours, it will be entered as 2.00.

Weekly OT starts after

If your overtime is applied on a weekly basis, enter the number of hours per week to be worked at the base rate before overtime applies.

Note: You may enter any or all of these fields (OT2 Starts after and Weekly OT starts after).

Overtime factors indicate the pay increase when a particular overtime rate is applied.  For Polygon Payroll to calculate overtime correctly according to the AHA Award, the following settings need to be applied.  Overtime factors express x times the normal hourly rate.  

•Enter the OT1 factor – This is the overtime rate which is used first in calculations. For example, if the first overtime rate is ‘time and one half’, the OT1 factor entered would be 1.50.

•Enter the OT2 factor – This is the overtime rate which is used second in overtime calculations. For example, if the next overtime rate is ‘double time’ it would be entered as 2.00.  

•Enter the Weekend Factor for overtime – If all weekend overtime is to be calculated at ‘double time'  the factor will be entered as 2.00.

Note: You may enter any or all of these fields.

Ensure that a full hour work week is worked for - This option enables automatic checking of timesheets for new payslips and a notification to be displayed if the recorded timesheet hours (plus sick leave and annual leave) is less than the employees Normal Hrs/Week setting.  

These checks can be applied to full time employees, part time employees, both or neither.  To select which employee classification to enforce full hour week rules for, select either Full Time & Part Time Staff, Full Time Staff, Part Time Staff or None from the Ensure that a full hour work week is worked for drop-down list-box on the Payroll Award Details form.  

See Also:

An employees Normal Hrs/Week setting can be set from the Employee Details form)

For more information about recording employee payslips, see section Recording Employee Payments

For more information about running a Payroll Batch see section Employees File.