How gross pay is calculated
Pulse works out each employee's gross pay in a fixed order. Knowing the order explains most "why is this number different?" questions, including overtime and supplemental pay.
The order
| Step | What is added | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Job pay, travel pay, hourly pay and Additional Pay | Job pay follows each scope's pay type. See Pay Structure. A technician with an Annual Salary has $0 job pay on every job; see What the Salary field does. |
| 2 | Supplemental Pay | A top-up when the total from step 1 is less than minimum wage for the hours clocked |
| 3 | Bonus pay | Bonuses such as incentive pay |
| 4 | Overtime Pay | Half-time premium on overtime hours |
| 5 | Sick, holiday and vacation pay, and tips | Added after overtime |
Reimbursements are paid but not taxed. Deductions are what the employee owes.
Supplemental Pay (minimum wage top-up)
Supplemental Pay makes sure an employee earns at least minimum wage for every hour they were clocked in. It uses Minimum Wage (Per Period). Minimum Wage (Per Job) does not count toward the top-up; it raises job pay in step 1 instead.
- Formula: minimum wage x clock hours, minus the pay from step 1. If the result is zero or less, there is no Supplemental Pay.
- Minimum wage used: the higher of your company Minimum Wage (Per Period) (Settings > Payroll Options, under Wages & Rates) and the technician's own Min Hourly Rate.
- Per period vs per job: Payroll Options has two minimum wage settings. Minimum Wage (Per Period) drives the top-up described here. Minimum Wage (Per Job) is a separate hourly floor applied to each job before this step: when a captain's or team mate's pay for a job works out to less per hour than that rate, the job's pay is raised to the rate x their hours on the job (trainees and salaried employees are not affected). Setting it to 0 turns it off.
- Salaried employees are excluded. An employee with an Annual Salary above $0 never gets Supplemental Pay.
Example: a technician clocks 40 hours and earns $480 from jobs. Minimum wage is $15. The minimum is $600, so Supplemental Pay is $120.
Overtime
Overtime is based on clock hours, not job hours.
- Weekly overtime: clock hours above the full-time threshold. The default is 40 hours per week, and it is multiplied by the number of weeks in your pay period (80 for bi-weekly).
- Daily overtime: if Daily Overtime is on, hours above the daily threshold (default 8) on each day are added up. Payroll uses whichever is greater, weekly or daily, not both.
- Overtime Pay = overtime hours x average wage x 0.5. The average wage is pay before overtime (steps 1 to 3) divided by clock hours. The employee has already been paid for those hours at the regular rate, so only the extra half is added.
Example: 45 clock hours and $900 before overtime. The average wage is $20 an hour and there are 5 overtime hours, so Overtime Pay is 5 x $20 x 0.5 = $50.
Full-time hours and Daily Overtime are set in Payroll Options.
Salaried employees can still show overtime. Overtime comes from clock hours, and Pulse doesn't use the salary amount in this calculation.
Why sick, holiday, vacation pay and tips come last
They are added after overtime, so they don't count toward the minimum wage top-up or raise the overtime rate.
- Holiday pay is added automatically for company holidays only for employees without a salary.
- Tips are added to gross pay after overtime. See Tips and Tip Management.
Where do reimbursements show in payroll?
It depends on the pay type chosen when the Additional Pay record is created. A record with the type Reimbursement is not taxed. It appears in the Reimbursements column and is left out of Gross Wage. Mileage, Miscellaneous and Other are separate types, so they are not counted as Reimbursements. To make an amount a non-taxed reimbursement, create it with the Reimbursement type.
If your total doesn't match
A salaried employee's job pay is $0 on every job, by design. For anything else, find what you see in the table.
| What you see | Check |
|---|---|
| Gross pay differs from QuickBooks | Compare the pay components above. Reimbursements are paid but are not part of taxed gross wage. |
| Supplemental Pay appears unexpectedly | The technician's pay plus Additional Pay was below minimum wage for their clock hours. |
| Job pay is $0 for a technician on every job | They have an Annual Salary. Salaried technicians are paid through Additional Pay, not per job. |
| No Supplemental Pay for an employee | They have a salary above $0. |
| Overtime looks too high | Overtime uses clock hours, which include drive time. Check the day clock for errors. See Payroll Errors and Validations. |