Pay Code Maintenance

Pay codes define how payments are processed in FastTrack360. Every pay item is assigned to a pay code, which determines how hours or units are paid, billed, and reported.

Pay codes are used in pay agreements to allocate hours or units when rule conditions are met, and in pay-dependent bill agreements to determine bill rates. They can also be used as manual items, such as allowances or reimbursements, allowing payees to make claims on timesheets where permitted by the pay agreement.

Before creating pay agreements or pay-dependent bill agreements, the required pay codes must be set up in Rates and Rules.

When creating a pay code, you define its type, unit type, sort order, and optionally link it to oncosts. These settings control how the pay code behaves across payroll, billing, and reporting.

The pay code type groups similar pay items and determines how the payment is treated. Available types include Ordinary, Overtime, Allowance, Leave, and Reimbursement.

The unit type determines whether payments are calculated using hours or units. Hours are typically used for worked time, while units are used for allowances or reimbursements such as multiple taxi fares.

Sort order controls the sequence in which pay codes appear in picklists and rate matrices. Lower numeric values appear higher in lists, and values do not need to be unique or positive.

Sort order is particularly important where one pay code’s rate is calculated from another. Base rate pay codes should have a lower sort order so they load before dependent pay codes, ensuring calculated rates display correctly in agreement rate job orders.

Pay codes can be linked to bill oncosts and pay oncosts. Bill oncosts apply to pay-dependent bill agreements and are passed on to clients, while pay oncosts represent internal payroll costs and are used for reporting only.

Oncosts must exist in Rates and Rules before they can be linked, although pay codes can be created first and updated later.

A pay code can be linked to supplementary pay codes so that the supplementary rate is used when calculating oncosts instead of the paid rate. This is commonly used where overtime oncosts must be calculated using an ordinary time rate.

Supplementary rates are used only when the supplementary pay code is valid on the timesheet end date, exists in the job order rates matrix, and the relevant supplementary rate options are enabled on the agreement or job order and the oncost itself. Where multiple supplementary pay codes are available, the highest-priority valid code is used. If none apply, the paid pay code rate is used.

Reimbursement pay codes cannot be used as supplementary pay codes. Supplementary rates also do not apply to manual items or leave payments that do not originate from timesheets.

A pay code can be flagged for Workers Comp / Other Payments to identify insurer-funded payments made through payroll after a payee has returned to work.

For Single Touch Payroll reporting, these payments may be reported as Lump Sum E when specific criteria are met. This flag should not be used for Workers’ Compensation leave, and to avoid double reporting it is recommended that only Ordinary pay codes are flagged and that Bonus or Commission flags are not also enabled.

When enabled, a pay code’s rates are included in estimated job rates shown on job orders and job templates. These estimates are used to quote pay and bill rates and to indicate expected margin.

Only pay codes representing ordinary time should usually be included to avoid inflating estimates. Estimated rates do not update if rates or oncosts change later in the job lifecycle.

This option allows payments made via leave deduction rules to appear at the Leave Payments pay batch stage, where quantities and rates can be manually adjusted. This is useful for items such as leave loading paid against non-leave pay codes.

For Australia, leave payments to Individual Non-Business payees must generally be paid against Leave-type pay codes to ensure correct STP reporting, except in specific scenarios such as overtime-based leave loading cash-outs.

Pay codes used for bonuses or commissions can be flagged accordingly. In Australia, these payments are reported separately in STP.

This option is not available for Overtime, Leave, or Reimbursement pay codes and should not be combined with Workers Comp or Return to Work Payment flags to avoid double reporting.

Return to Work Payments are one-off lump sum payments made to cease industrial action or retain an employee. These payments are reported as Lump Sum W in STP.

This option is unavailable for certain pay code types and where the pay code is flagged for Workers Comp payments. A special tax rate applies, which must be manually adjusted during payroll processing.

For Leave-type pay codes, an STP Paid Leave Type can be set to determine reporting when a payment cannot be linked back to a leave type record. If a link exists, FastTrack360 uses the leave type’s STP configuration instead.

This ensures leave payments added manually or originating from unlinked absences are still reported correctly via STP.