Collective agreements explained

This article will give you a detailed explanation of Collective Agreements, which is important to understand and allows you to automate salary and invoice values on jobs. Additionally, we recommend reading this article regarding this subject as it sets the foundation for what can be applied in a given Collective agreement.

A system administrator can create new or edit existing collective agreements by going to System Settings → Staffing → Collective agreements. Here, you will find an overview of collective agreements in your system. From this overview, you can create a new agreement by pressing Create. You may also make a copy, edit general information on an existing agreement by clicking on its name, or delete it.

Collective agreements can be seen as a template for setting up jobs in RecMan and the “engine” that calculates the basis for salary and invoice for all logged work in the system. Collective agreements act as an advanced calculator consisting of several rules. These sets of rules can be laid upon each other and can be reasonably advanced. Each rule is again divided in two, where one calculates the basis for salary, and the other calculates the basis for billing/invoicing. As we know, it is not necessarily the case that the customer should pay twice, even if the employee gets 100% overtime pay.

In this article, we will explain how to create collective agreements and explain the various functions in this module. It is essential to understand how to use this module, test the agreements you create, and find your best practice. You can save a lot of time by doing this.

Collective agreement settings

In the image below, we have a completely new and empty collective agreement that we have appropriately named Collective agreement. Here, you will be able to enter a lot of information to make agreements ready to be assigned to a job – allowing for registering work and creating payrolls and invoices from the system. Below the picture, we will explain the various numbered boxes found in the picture.

1. Collective agreement

In this box, you’ll find general information about this specific agreement. Press the Edit button, and you will be able to edit the default information related to the agreement.

Name	Here, you are able to edit the name of the agreement.
Status	Select if you wish to activate or archive this agreement.
Corporation	Choose which company the agreement is to be available for (default is All).
Holiday calendar	Assign a wanted holiday calendar. To do this, you must first create a holiday calendar. Read this article for more information.
Rounding salary	If you want rounding on salary (default is No).
Rounding invoice	If you want rounding on invoice (default is No).
Social cost	Choose social cost (can be created in the agreement)
Description	Free text field to add a description of the agreement.

2. Permissions

This is where you may set the permission that will be active on the job where this agreement is selected.

Log work outside of calendar	If it should be possible to log work outside of shifts from the staffing calendar.
Log work manually	If it should be possible to log work manually. This should not be applied unless you have a need for your employees to log work manually.
Log work in the future	If it should be possible to log work in the future.
Log addition/deduction	If it should be possible for the employee to log additions/deductions.
Log absence	If it should be possible for the employee to log an absence.
Log piecework	If it should be possible for the employee to log piecework.
View salary	If it should be possible for the employee to view values for salary.
View invoice	If it should be possible for the employee to view values for an invoice.

3. Social costs

Social costs are a list of the different social expenses that are applicable to the agreement/job. This is included in the calculation of the contribution margin so you can make sure that you don’t lose money on the job when social costs come into play. This won’t affect the basis for salary or invoicing, and it is only there to be used internally so that you can get a realistic picture of the contribution margin on the job.

4. Employees connected to the agreement

This is where all the active jobs connected to this agreement are listed. The beauty of this box is that when you make changes to a collective agreement, you can mark all employees or selection of those and update their job with the new changes. In other words, you will not have to make manual changes to every single employee agreement.

5. Workweek

This box allows you to set working hours for each day of the week instead of general working hours for every day. Once this is registered, the candidate will have these times suggested when they register their hours, making it very easy for them to do so.

6. Weekday calculation

Here, you add the general rules that the employee's register hours are based on. The first thing you do here is to define which days the different rules should apply to. You may want to be thorough in your work here to minimize the possibility of mistakes and revisions of agreements in the long term. An example of types of day rules typically used when creating a collective agreement is one for workdays (Monday to Friday), a specific rule for Saturdays, another for Sunday and a public holiday rule. Having more weekday calculation rules defined gives you the possibility to differentiate rules for the different days.

After creating day rules, you can add and edit the conditions for calculation on this agreement. This is done through the following buttons.

Pen icon	Edit the weekday calculation rule.
Garbage can icon	Delete the weekday calculation rule.
Salary	Add a salary rule (must be linked to a salary article).
Addition	Add an additional rule (must be linked to an addition article).
Day addition	Add a day addition rule (must be linked to an addition article).
Overtime	Add an overtime rule (must be connected to a salary article).

All the possibilities that exist here are explained in detail in the article Practical use of collective agreements.

6.1 + Salary

Below you can see the editing screen for adding salary rules. As we see from the example, we have a basic rule that says between 00:00 – 24:00 (all day), the salary and invoice price are calculated based on a factor of 1 (100%). It simply means that when this agreement is used as a template for a particular job, and one defines the normal hourly rate to be, e.g., 250,- and invoice price of 350,-, the summation becomes:

In our example, the summation is:

6.2 + Addition

Adding a rule for addition will be similar to the method for salary mentioned above. When applied, the employee will automatically get an addition per hour as defined in the setup.

6.3 + Day addition

Same as addition, with the difference of addition being added per day instead of per hour.

• Log on first date only → If you register hours over midnight, this setting will make sure the daily addition is only triggered on the first day.
• Log on both dates → If you register hours over midnight, this setting will make sure the daily addition is triggered for both days.

6.4 + Overtime

Building rules for overtime is made here. See the illustration and the table below to gain insight into the possibilities for overtime.

Salary article	Here, you can choose which article you want the rule to be linked to.
Overtime trigger	Whether overtime should count break or not before it triggers.
After num hours	The amount of logged hours before this overtime rule gets triggered.
To num hours	The amount of logged hours before this overtime rule becomes invalid. For example, if another overtime rule is to be used after 14 hours of work, have this rule top at 14 hours, and the other begins after the same amount.
Salary calculation	This is where you enter the salary.
Invoice calculation	This is where you enter the invoice.
VAT	Decide which VAT rate to use.
Social cost	Whether to calculate social cost on the overtime rule.
Paid break	Whether the break is paid or not.
Invoiceable break	Whether the break is invoiceable or not.
Start time period	When operating with shifts, it could be relevant to inform the system that this rule will only be valid if the first hour logged is within the defined start time period. This may be set up here.
Time interval	Some overtime rules are only used at given hours in a day. You may restrict the overtime rule by limiting the hours in which the rule should be valid. This is similar to the from time and to time in regular salary and addition rules.
Note	A free text field where you can enter notes for the specific rule.

6.4 Overtime pr week

Overtime rules could also be applied per week instead of per day, as described above. See the picture and table below for more information.

Salary article	Here, you can choose which article you want the rule to be linked to.
Overtime trigger	Whether overtime should count break or not before it triggers.
Hour calculation	Whether this rule should count regular hours or regular hours and overtime hours before it triggers.
After num hours	The amount of logged hours per week before this overtime rule gets triggered.
To num hours	The amount of logged hours per week before this overtime rule becomes invalid.
Salary calculation	Here, you enter the salary.
Invoice calculation	This is where you enter the invoice.
VAT	Decide which VAT rate to use.
Social cost	Whether to calculate social cost on the overtime rule.
Paid break	Whether the break is paid or not.
Invoiceable break	Whether the break is invoiceable or not.
Time interval	Some overtime rules are only used at given hours in a day. You may restrict the overtime rule by limiting the hours in which the rule should be valid.
Weekdays	Define which weekdays this rule should be valid for.
Weekend	Define which weekend days this rule should be valid for.
Note	A free text field where you can enter notes for the specific rule.

7. Absence rule

Rules for absence can be set up as well. Note that this is a function to build logic for absence registration. When this is applied, the employee may not select what article they wish to use when registering an absence.

Name	This is where you can write the name of the rule.
Type	Choose which type of absence.
Article	Select the absence article.
Duration (days)	The duration of this specific rule.
Salary calculation	This is where you enter the salary and if it should calculate the salary from the guarantee salary.
Invoice calculation	This is where you enter the invoice.
VAT	Determining which VAT rate to use.
Social cost	Whether to calculate social cost on the absence rule.
Salary break pay	Whether the break is paid or not.
Invoice break pay	Whether the break is invoiceable or not.
Must have been employed since	Some overtime rules are only used at given hours in a day. You may restrict the overtime rule by limiting the hours in which the rule should be valid.
Log addition	Whether additions that would have been received should be logged or not. Additions are calculated the same way as the salary.
Max number of periods	The max amount of this rule during a specified amount of days.
Max number of days	The max amount of days within this rule during a specified amount of days.
Reset duration counter	Whether duration counter of absence should be reset after a specified amount of days after normal work day or days of inactivity or not. Use Normal if this is not relevant or Custom if is relevant.

8. Piecework & Period logging

In this box, you have the opportunity to enter a rule on piecework. Piecework is a deal that makes salary dependent on output (a fixed fee per unit sold). Press the Create button, and you’ll get a screen similar to this:

Note that some options in the create window will not be shown until you go back to edit the article. All the options will be described below:

Article	Here, you can choose which article you want the rule to be linked to.
Article group	Which article group the piecework should belong to. Article groups are custom defined in the staffing settings.
Salary matrix	Use this if you want the salary information to be obtained from a salary matrix.
Salary calculation	Choose how the salary is calculated, either by a factor or a fixed price.
Salary	Here, you enter the salary. If you chose fixed price as a calculation method, you would enter the price per piecework. If the calculation method is a factor, you enter the value of the factor.
Salary addition	Enter if you want an addition per piecework.
Invoice calculation	Choose how an invoice is calculated, either by a factor, markup salary factor or fixed price.
Invoice	Here, you enter the invoice price (if it’s by fixed price) or the value of the factor.
Invoice addition	Addition on invoice per piecework.
Default qty	The default quantity of units.
Social cost	Whether to calculate social cost on the piecework rule.
VAT	Determining which VAT rate to use.
Log quantity in time	Lets you log the time instead of quantity. E.g. 01:30 is the equivalent of logging 1,5.
Log time used	Lets you log the time used in addition to the quantity. Will show as: Quantity (time logged)
Allow zero quantity	Lets you log zero as quantity, but requires the use of "log time used".
Negative time	Allows negative time to be logged. Requires the use of "log time used" and "allow zero quantity".
Notes	A free text field where you can enter notes for the specific rule.

Period logging
Changes piecework to be monthly. The candidate still adds their piecework to each day, but it cannot be submitted until the selected period. Also, they can not register work for the following month without submitting it for the last month.

In the menu, you can select what day of the month should be the one where they submit.

• Month – Automatically set the date to be the final date of that month.
• Last Friday of the month – The date for submitting the piecework will always be the final Friday of that month.
• Last Sunday of the month – Same as Friday, but with Sunday instead.

You can also add up to 4 articles for the candidates to choose from. They can register each article once for each day.

9. Fixed addition/deduction

In this box, you have the opportunity to enter a rule on addition and deduction articles. Fixed addition/deduction is a rule that sets a fixed suggested Salary and Invoice price when you or your candidate have logged work in the set interval of a month or a week, and the article will be added automatically when logged work has passed the set interval.
Press the + Add button, and you’ll get a screen similar to this:

When saving the fixed addition or deduction, the article should appear as this on your screen:

10. Month pay

In this box, you have the opportunity to build rules for monthly salary. This becomes relevant if the employee receives a fixed monthly salary, and the customer will be invoiced a fixed sum. You can also choose to let the invoice price be zero and bill the customer pr. hour if the agreement requires this. The same applies in the opposite direction.

Article	Here, you can choose which salary article you want the rule to be linked to.
Primary month pay	Due to some employees potentially being connected to several jobs where monthly pay is applied, this check box can be used to inform the system of which monthly salary is the primary one.
Salary calculation	Here, you enter the monthly salary.
Invoice calculation	Here, you enter the monthly invoice.
Workdays	Here, you may choose what days of the week should be counted as a workday. For instance, an employee could have his/her first or last workday on the 15th. The system then uses the defined days to calculate the correct salary/invoice for this month.
VAT	Determining which VAT rate to use.
Social cost	Whether to calculate social cost on the monthly pay rule.
Note	A free text field where you can enter notes for the specific rule.

11. Salary articles

This is where you add the salary articles that apply to this collective agreement. Press the Add button, and you will get a list of all salary articles you have created in the system and the opportunity to choose salary articles according to this list.

Typical salary articles can be Fixed salary, Hourly wage, 50% overtime, 100% overtime, etc. The system allows you to have an unlimited amount of articles, and the main reason is to provide more insight into the different salary types you’re using. In principle, you can have one salary article and register normal hourly wage, overtime and everything else on this, but that would be impossible to manage in the long run. Salary articles are related to products.

Read more about salary articles and their creation in this article.

12. Absence articles

Here, you add the various absence articles that apply to this collective agreement. Pressing the Add button, you will see a list of absence articles you’ve created in the system and the ability to select relevant articles from this list. The absence articles added to the collective agreement will come up as an option when registering hours for the employee (either if the employee does it himself or a co-worker does it). If, e.g., the absence article Sick leave is added, the employees could register Sick leave when they register hours.

13. Addition and deduction articles

Here, you add the various addition- and deduction articles that apply to this collective agreement. Pressing the Add button, you will see a list of addition- and deduction articles you’ve created in the system and the ability to select relevant articles from this list. The addition- and deduction articles added to the collective agreement will come up as an option when registering hours for the employee (either if the employee does it himself or is done by a co-worker). If, e.g., the addition article Tools addition is added, the employees could register Tool addition when he /she registers hours.

14. Reminders

Here, you can set up an automatic reminder to employees connected to the agreement. This message will go out on a specific day of the week, at a specific time of the day, and could potentially be used as a reminder for the employee to log their work. The message can be sent as email, SMS or as a notification for employees using the RecMan Employee app.

Instead of choosing a day of the week, you may also choose a day at the end of each month. This can also be based on the piecework period.

An in-depth overview, with examples of the practical use of collective agreements, is shown in this article.