Labour cost you can still do something about
Most workforce reporting arrives after the money has been spent. RosterElf reports from live rosters and clock-ins, so a cost overrun on Thursday is something you change on Friday rather than explain at month end.
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Labour cost against takings, by site and by day
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Rostered versus actual hours, and where the gap is
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Leave liability under the Holidays Act, before year end
The numbers that change a decision
Not a wall of charts. The handful of measures that actually alter what you do with next week’s roster.
Labour cost against takings
Cost as a percentage of revenue, by site and by day. The number most operators run on, and the one that is usually a week old by the time anyone sees it.
Rostered versus actual hours
The gap between what you planned and what was worked. Persistent overruns on the same shift are a rostering problem, not a staffing one.
Late starts and no-shows
By employee and by site. A pattern here usually shows up in a culture survey months later, and in a resignation after that.
Leave liability
Untaken annual holidays are a real liability under the Holidays Act 2003, and it grows quietly. Knowing the balance before year end is better than discovering it during an audit.
Minimum wage exposure
The adult minimum wage is $23.95 an hour from 1 April 2026, with starting-out and training rates at $19.16. Hours tracked against the rate that applies shows whether anyone is sitting under it.
Export to your own tools
Every view exports, so the numbers can go into the board pack or the accountant’s model without being re-typed.
General information, not legal or financial advice. Pay calculations are performed in your payroll system.
Trusted by shift-based businesses
From independent cafes to multi-site retail and care groups, thousands of teams run their rosters, timesheets and payroll exports on RosterElf.
A report you receive after payroll is a history lesson
Labour is usually the largest controllable cost in a shift-based business, and it is committed the moment the roster is published. Reporting that arrives with the payroll run tells you what happened; reporting that sits next to the roster tells you what is about to.
Decisions that are still open before the roster is published
- Whether Saturday is over-staffed against the same Saturday last month
- Which site is running consistently above its hours budget, and on which shifts
- Who is close to a leave balance worth encouraging them to take
- Where a repeated late finish is being paid for every week
The data comes from the same place the roster does — see rostering and time and attendance.
Explore related features
Discover other RosterElf features that work great together
See the cost while you can still change it
Labour cost, hours variance and leave liability reported from live rosters and clock-ins.
Labour cost and KPI guides
Forecasting, controlling and reviewing the cost of your roster.
Forecasting labour costs using employee rosters
Build budgets and predict overtime from the roster data you already have.
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Reducing labour costs without understaffing
Controlling cost through smarter rostering rather than thinner shifts.
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Reviewing rostering KPIs from the past year
Labour cost, roster accuracy and overtime — and what to target next.
Read articleWorkforce analytics FAQ
- Labour cost as a share of revenue, rostered versus actual hours, late starts and no-shows, overtime, and untaken annual holidays. The first four tell you whether the roster is working; the last is a liability under the Holidays Act 2003 that grows whether or not you are watching it.
- Annual holidays that have been earned but not taken remain owing, and they are paid at the greater of ordinary weekly pay and average weekly earnings — so the cost of a balance generally rises as the employee’s earnings rise. A large untaken balance is both a cash exposure and a sign that people are not getting time off.
- They help you see the exposure. Tracking hours against the rate that applies to each employee shows whether anyone is being paid below the rate they are entitled to, including where a starting-out or training rate has stopped applying. The pay calculation itself happens in your payroll system.
- It comes from the rosters and clock-ins as they happen, so you are looking at the current week rather than reconstructing last month. That is the difference between changing a roster and explaining one.