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Pay: Employees, by Load Attributes

Employees 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 guy $10.00/Tonne or $40.00/MBF on the loads that you handle.  You can also pay an employee 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 an employee 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 employees a percentage of what you get paid.  If you had to set up employee pay rates for each revenue rate break, there could be substantial time wasted in maintaining the pay schedule as well as the revenue 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.

These two cases are explained below:

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

Steps:

1. Set up the Employee. Select Setup | Workers | Worker Setup 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 an employee will be paid.  This task must be performed for each block that has loads for which employees 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.  Be sure to enter the Activity and Employee on the load slip.
6. Enter Employee on Load Slip.  Select Data Entry | Load Slips | Load Data.  Load Activities Tab
7. Run Employee Calculator.  Select Calculators | Employees - Full. 
8. Review Employee Statement.  Select Reports Employee Statements.
9. Review the Loads Unpaid report for the pay period you are processing as a precautionary measure to ensure that your setup has not inadvertently resulted in any loads remaining unpaid.  This report is found in The Logger's Edge reporting tool under the "Load Slips | Loads Paid, Only Unpaid" menu item.  The goal is for this report to return no loads.

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

This type of contract is special in that 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 Employee.** Select Setup | Workers | Worker Setup 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 an employee will be paid.  This task must be performed for each block that has loads for which employees 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.  Be sure to enter the Activity and Employee on the load slip.
6. Enter Employee on Load Slip.**  Select Data Entry | Load Slips | Load Data.  Load Activities Tab
7. 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.
8. Run Employee Calculator.**  Select Calculators | Employees - Full. 
9. Review Employee Statement.  Select Reports | Employee Statements.
10. Review the Loads Unpaid report for the pay period you are processing as a precautionary measure to ensure that your setup has not inadvertently resulted in any loads remaining unpaid.  This report is found in The Logger's Edge reporting tool under the "Load Slips | Loads Paid, Only Unpaid" menu item. The goal is for this report to return no loads.

** Step is the same as in Case I.

Troubleshooting Common Errors:

Example 1.    "Error: PAY_CONTRACT_RATE not Set up For: TICKET_NO = 7871 DATE_OUT = [8/3/2004 7:33:00 AM] and Activity = SKID
Employee: SS; Contract Employee: No
Ticket: 7871 Detail:
    Tract: 03-RAINBOW-2991
    Destination: SS-DANVILLE
    Species: PINE
    Grade: Pulp
    Truck No: T10011
    Truck Type: 7A
    Route: OFF"
 

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

This message can be interpreted as:

"The is no pay rate for ticket 7871 (date out of 8/3/2004 7:33:00 AM) for the activity SKID for the employee SS.  SS is not a contract worker, but is an employee."

Things to check when this occurs:

• Is there a pay contract setup?  Do you have a pay contract set up to pay the employee for the specified activity (SKID)?
• If there is a contract, is the contract type set to 'Worker/Operator' in Step 2 of the pay contract wizard? 
• If there is a contract, is the 'Worker/Operator' set to the employee (SS) or to 'DRIVER'?
• Does the block on the pay contact match the block on the load?
• Is the Pay Date on the Load between the Start Date and End Date for the Contract?
• Is there a valid rate in the rates grid?  Does the rate have the matching activity (SKID)?  Do the rate attributes (Destination, Species, Sort, Grade, Truck, Route, etc) either match the load or are they blank (meaning ALL).  All load attributes must match or be blank.  Is the effective date valid?  The effective date on the rate must precede the DATE OUT for the load

2.    "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:

• Check to see if you have revenue on your load.  You can check this on the load slip. This error occurs when there is no load revenue for the activity indicated in the error message.  Check to see if the activity (SKID) has revenue.
• Have you run the invoices calculator?  If you are using The Logger's Edge to calculate revenue automatically, you must run the invoices calculator to assign the revenue amounts to the load.
• If you have run the invoices calculator, but you still do not see the revenue on the load slip, check that you have a revenue contract for the activity that matches the activity of the pay contract (SKID).  The percent of load revenue rate matches the revenue based on the activity.

3.    "Warning: Truck COST_PER_UNIT not found for Truck Code: T10011,8/7/2004 2:06:00 PM"

When The Logger's Edge  calculates load pay, it also calculates the internal cost of your own log trucks (where truck costing is configured to be based on load units rather than hours).  This message informs you that there is no valid rate for the truck hauling the indicated load.  Things to check when this occurs:

• Is there a standard cost rate setup?  Check under Setup | Equipment/Trucks | Trucks | Truck Costing from the Main Menu.  Be sure there is a Std Cost/Unit rate set up in the grid for the truck indicated in the error message.

Note:  If you don't care about truck costing, you can always set the Std Cost/Unit rate to $0.00, and thereby eliminate the warning message.  This message will not prevent The Logger's Edge  from otherwise calculating payment for the load.

4.    "Warning: Truck FULL_FOUNDED_RATE_PROD not found for Truck Code: T10011,8/7/2004 2:06:00 PM"

When The Logger's Edge  calculates load pay, it also calculates the internal cost of your own log trucks (where truck costing is configured to be based on load units rather than hours).  This message informs you that there is no valid rate for the truck hauling the indicated load.  Things to check when this occurs:

• Is there a full rate set up for this truck?  Check the effective date.  Is the time entry Prior to the effective date?  If so, the system cannot identify a full rate to apply to the truck.

Note:  If you don't care about truck costing, you can always set the Full Cost/Unit rate to $0.00, and thereby eliminate the warning message.    This message will not prevent The Logger's Edge  from otherwise calculating payment for the load.

5.    The wrong rate is applied.

Things to check when this occurs:

• Are there multiple pay rates setup?  Check under Contracts | Payment Contracts | Setup from the Main Menu.  Select the relevant pay contract.  Be sure that the pay date of  your load ticket is subsequent to the rate you want applied.  If so, is there another rate between the date you think should apply and the date of the load ticket?  If so, the system will use that rate.  The system will use the pay rate that is (1) prior to the pay date of the your load ticket entry, and (2) the most recent of those that are prior to the load ticket.
• Do you have a pay contract setup under the 'DRIVER' employee?  The system will use this rate if there is no specific pay rate setup for the employee.  If you do not want to apply the 'DRIVER' employee rate, setup a pay rate for your specific employee.