RosterElf Product Update - July 2022


This month the Developer team at RosterElf team have been busy with a lot of behind-the-scenes work, including general fixes/improvements and a tonne of work in preparation for future UX improvements and feature releases. Whilst I know feature releases are way more exciting, it's the work we need to do so we can give you more.


So this month, we have three tips on getting more out of your existing RosterElf account.



Feature Spotlight


How to Copy a Roster from a Previous Week and Validate Staff Availability


When copying a roster from a previous week, you can click Publish without actually going live with the roster as a quick check to see if any staff are unavailable, on leave or overlapping on the roster with other shifts they have. This trick saves you from copying a roster, then updating it and clicking publish, only to find that the time you spent updating the roster needs to be done again as one of your key staff members is unavailable this week.


To learn how to copy a roster and validate it - Click here.





Auto Rounding Staff Clock In/Out Times


RosterElf allows you to pay your staff based on four different payroll methods. You can pay them based on their Rostered, Time Clock (clock in/out), Auto Rounding and Custom. 


Before we talk about Auto Rounding, I'll briefly cover the three other choices. 


Rostered - Choosing the rostered time will pay the staff precisely as rostered. Simple and effective.


Time Clock - Time Clock pays staff the exact times they clock in and out. It's a popular option that brings a level of time and attendance that you may not have previously had. However, some businesses may find paying staff precisely to the minute a bit cumbersome when every shift in payroll has a clock in/out and break time that is a minute or more off.


Custom - Custom allows you to pay your staff for hours you manually input into RosterElf. Great for when a staff member forgets to clock in/out to their shift's start, end or break time. We also find that many customers use the Custom choice instead of Auto Rounding because they either haven't set up Auto Rounding correctly for their business or are unaware of the option. Whilst this works fine, Auto Rounding can save you time manually editing each shift on your payroll.


Auto Rounding - Auto Rounding will round the payroll times to a time that is 'cleaner' than simply using the Time Clock times. They can be set up separately for start, end and break times, and each of those times has three choices in the workflow that allows you to have an initial rounding timeframe and another rule if staff clock outside of that initial timeframe. In other words, you could set RosterElf to give staff a 10-minute buffer to clock in and outside that 10-minute buffer, round to the nearest 5 minutes. So if you had three staff starting at 8 am who clocked in at 7.55 am, 8.08 am, and 8.13 am. The three clock-in times would be 8 am, 8 am, and 8.15 am, respectively.


Customers using this feature often tell us they save a lot of time by selecting Auto Rounding as the payroll time. Rather than have times all over the place, give Auto Rounding a go. Click here to find out more on how to set up Auto Rounding.





Creating Positions as Sites for Mobile Businesses


There are many different business models, whether a fixed location like a restaurant, a mobile business like a pet groomer, online businesses like RosterElf, franchises, boutiques and large corporates etc. When there are so many different types of businesses, there will never be a one-size-fits-all to how a business runs but sometimes, thinking outside the box can help you get the best out of your tools. That's why this month, we wanted to bring another point of view on how to get the most out of RosterElf that works incredibly well for any business that has regular clients that they visit and need to roster their staff to those locations.


Some examples of businesses that would benefit from this articles approach are:


  • Cleaning businesses
  • NDIS support service
  • In-home hairdressing and other personal care businesses
  • Pet grooming businesses
  • Regular food or other delivery services
  • Property management PCR inspections


You can utilise our Positions as Sites hack for these businesses and many others with a similar multiple location roster. You'll be able to create a position as a site and add a description that could include contact details, client preferences, tasks or anything else you want. You can also colour code each 'site' for help when you roster and pay a different pay rate for each site. Plus, for Xero-connected customers, you can add Xero Tracking Codes to help run Xero reports on different segments of your business.


What are you waiting for? Give our Positions as Sites trick a go.




Until Next Month


We hope you like the tips and tricks we've shared. If you have any cool RosterElf tricks that you would like to share, feel free to reach out to the team at customersupport@rosterelf.com.