Pay: Contractors, by Load Attributes, Non-Trucking, Single Contractor

Contractors can be paid according to the weight or volume of the loads that your company delivers to a mill.  For example you might pay a contractor $10.00/Tonne or $40.00/MBF on the loads that you handle.  You can also pay a contractor a percentage of the revenue you receive from a mill.  For example, if you are paid by the mill $50 for harvesting, you could set up a contract to pay a contractor 20 percent of that amount.  This type of contract may be useful when you have a large number of rate breaks on your revenue contract and merely want to pay your contractors a percentage of what you get paid.  If you had to set up contractor pay rates for each revenue rate break, there could be substantial time wasted in maintaining both a revenue and pay rate schedule.  The alternative of setting up just one rate (say 20 percent) can be much easier to maintain as it automatically takes into account any revenue rate breaks or changes over time.

If you only use single contractors to perform any given activity -- for example you only use one contractor for felling or only one contractor for skidding (possibly the same contractor, but it need not be) for all the loads from a given block,  The Logger's Edge has a simplified setup.  The major simplification is that if you have multiple contractors performing an activity, you must specify the worker and/or equipment on every load ticket in order to distinguish which contractor should be paid.  If you only have one contractor, you can avoid this step, saving substantial data entry time.

In your block setup (see below), you select 'Do Not Track Activities, Employees, Equipment on Load Slips'.  This selection eliminates the need to track contractors on a load-by-load basis.

In the screen above, delimbing, felling, and loading are all checked, meaning that I want to pay each of those three activities (on the block) on a load attribute (not hourly) basis.  Also, for each of the three activities, I have only one contractor performing the activity.  This setup tells The Logger's Edge that I want to pay a specific contractor for a particular activity for all the loads from a given block and do not need to distinguish between multiple contractors.

Once you have setup your block, you need to setup your pay contract for each contractor, specifying their payment terms.  As noted above, there are two basic ways to pay contractors on a load-by-load basis: (1) pay by load attributes (weight, volume, etc), or (2) pay as a percentage of load revenue.

These two cases are explained below.

Case I.  You pay based on load attributes (weight, volume).  

Steps:

  1. Set up the Contractor.  Select Setup | Vendors from the Main Menu
  2. Set up Activity.  Select Setup | Pay Activities from the Main Menu.
  3. Set up Activity to be Paid on Block.  Select Setup | Blocks | Setup from the Main Menu.  On the block you must identify the activity for which a contractor will be paid.  This task must be performed for each block that has loads for which contractors need to be paid.
  4. Set up Pay Contract.  Select Contracts | Payment Contracts | Contract Setup from the Main Menu.
  5. Enter Load Slips.  Select Data Entry | Load Slips | Load Data.  You do not need to enter the activities, workers or equipment on the load slip.
  6. Run Vendor (Contractor) Calculator.  Select Calculators | Vendors - Full. 
  7. Review Vendor (Contractor) Statement. Select Reports Vendor Statements.  Alternatively, Select  Reports | Hourly | Vendors.

Case II.  You pay based on percentage of load revenue.

This type of contract is special in that it its 'rate' is really expressed as a percent of the revenue you earn on a load-by-load basis.  Thus, in order to use this type of contract, you must perform the additional step of entering or calculating the revenue for each load (step 7 below).

  1. Set up the Contractor.**  Select Setup | Vendors from the Main Menu
  2. Set up Activity.**  Select Setup | Pay Activities from the Main Menu.
  3. Set up Activity to be Paid on Block.**  Select Setup | Blocks | Setup from the Main Menu.  On the block you must identify which activity for which a contractor will be paid.  This task must be performed for each block that has loads for which contractors need to be paid.
  4. Set up Pay Contract.  Select Contracts | Payment Contracts | Contract Setup from the Main Menu.
  5. Enter Load Slips.**  Select Data Entry | Load Slips | Load Data.  You do not need to enter the activities, workers or equipment on the load slip.
  6. Enter Revenue on Load Slip or Use The Logger's Edge to Automatically Calculate Revenue.  In order for the 'percent of load revenue' pay contract to work, you must have revenue entered for each load.
  7. Run Vendor (Contractor) Calculator.**  Select Calculators | Contractors - Full. 
  8. Review Vendor (Contractor) Statement.  Select Reports Contractor Statements.

** Step is the same as in Case I.

Troubleshooting Common Errors:

1.    "Error: PAY_CONTRACT_RATE not Set up For: TICKET_NO = 6879 DATE_OUT = [8/3/2004 8:03:00 AM] and Activity = HARVESTING
Ticket: 6879 Detail:
Tract: 01-GREEN-1001
Destination: SS-DANVILLE
Species: MAPLE
Grade: NONE
Truck No: HL6004
Truck Type: 7C
Route: OFF"
 

This error occurs when a valid pay rate is not found for the a load slip for a contractor on a load.

This message can be interpreted as:

"The is no pay rate for ticket 6879 (date out of 8/3/2004 8:03:00 AM) for the activity HARVESTING."

In other words, you have told The Logger's Edge that you want to pay the activity HARVESTING for all loads on the block, yet there is no valid pay contract for the load ticket '6879'

Things to check when this occurs:

2.    "Error: No Conversion Set Up For LBS to CORD For Block 01-GREEN-1001
Ticket: 6948 Detail:
Block: 01-GREEN-1001
Destination: IP-AUGUSTA
Species: PINE
Grade: NONE
Truck No: T'10001
Truck Type: 7A
Route: ON"

The fragment 'Ticket: 6948' refers to the ticket number.  In this example, the error occurs because a conversion factor is not found to convert 'LBS' into 'CORD' and the matching pay contract rate for this load has a pay basis of cords.  Anytime, The Logger's Edge cannot convert the weight measure on the block to the pay basis on the matching pay contract, you will receive this message.  For example, if you have set kilograms up on the block as your weight measure and want to pay a contractor in cubic meters (M3) and you fail to set up a conversion factor, you will receive a message such as 'No Conversion Set Up For KGS to M3'.

The fragment 'For Block 01-GREEN-1001'  tells you the block that has the problem.  There are 2 conditions that give rise to this error.

1.    There is no conversion set up on the  block to convert the weight on the tickets to your pay basis on your matching pay contract.  (For example, your loads may be entered in kilograms, but you want to pay in cubic meters 'M3'.) 

2.    There is no 'Generic Conversion' available.  Generic conversions are those that never change under any circumstance, such as KGs to Tonnes and Lbs to Tons.  (If you think that the system is missing a generic conversion, contact a support representative to assist you.)

If there is no conversion set up, as indicated in (1.) above, you must select option 'C' in the conversion setup window in the block setup wizard (see below) and then manually enter your conversion factors.        

Things to check when you get a conversion error are:

3.    "Error: Missing Load Revenue for Load= 7531 and Activity= SKID"

 The fragment 'Load= 7531' refers to the ticket number.  Things to check when this occurs:

4.    The wrong rate is applied.

Things to check when this occurs:

5.    Multi-Pay Errors.  The Logger's Edge allows you to split the payment for the same activity between two different vendors.  As a consequence, there are occasions where the same activity (for a given ticket) will be paid twice (or more) correctly.  For most users, however, such multiple payments for the same activity on the same load will be in error.  When The Logger's Edge finishes a pay calculator it checks to see if there are any multiple payments for an activity.  If there are, The Logger's Edge reports a 'Multi-Pay Error'.

Example:

--------------------------MULTI PAY ERROR ---------------------------------------------
ERROR: MULTIPLE PAY FOR TICKET:7019, ACTIVITY: TRUCKING
Pay Date: 8/9/2004; Tract: 02-CLEAR-2102, DESTINATION IP-AUGUSTA
1) Pay Contract: 2BR - TRUCKING Paid to: 2BR; Amount: $165.78; Pay Period: [Aug 1 04 V]
2) Pay Contract: ARROW - TRUCKING Paid to: ARROW; Amount: $182.36; Pay Period: [Aug 1 04 V]

The above error message says that the ticket '7019' has been paid twice for the activity 'TRUCKING'.  The two lines -- numbered 1) and 2) -- show each pay contract that has been applied and the corresponding pay period with which the payment is associated ('Aug 1 04 V' in this case).  Presumably, one is the correct contract and the other is incorrect.  If both payments are correct, you don't need to do anything.  In this case, the error message serves as a harmless warning.

If you don't want to pay both contracts, you should check:


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