Tuesday is pay day preparation day
The timesheets are in: some on paper, some photographed on a phone, one on the back of a delivery note. Each has start and finish times, breaks, a note about a night out in Carlisle. The payroll clerk checks them against the tachograph report because drivers round up and down in different ways. Overtime starts after different hours for different contracts. Weekend work pays differently. Nights out carry an allowance, and one driver says he had two nights out and the plan says one.
By Wednesday it is done, mostly, and the queries go on to next week.
Why it takes so long
Drivers' duty time is recorded accurately by the tachograph, but pay is calculated from a separate, less accurate record, and then the two have to be reconciled by hand. The rules that turn hours into pay are complicated and mostly unwritten.
- Timesheets and tachograph records disagree, and each difference has to be looked at.
- Pay rules differ between contracts, shifts and depots.
- Nights out are confirmed by the driver, the plan and sometimes a hotel receipt.
- Agency and employed drivers are paid differently.
- Only one or two people understand all the rules.
What the weekly slog costs
Two days of a skilled person's week, every week, is the obvious cost. Pay errors are the one drivers notice. A driver who is short changed, even by a small amount, will say so and remember it, and in a market where drivers can walk to another firm, pay accuracy matters. Overpayments go unnoticed. And if the person who knows the rules is off sick at pay time, the business has a problem.
The pay preparation we build
- Duty, driving and break times per driver per day are taken from your tachograph analysis data, which is already recorded and checked.
- Your pay rules are written down with you and your payroll adviser: basic hours, overtime thresholds, weekend and night rates, guaranteed hours, allowances. The system applies those rules; we do not advise on what they should be.
- Nights out come from the plan, confirmed by the driver in the app with a tap, and receipts if you need them.
- Each driver's week is calculated and shown with the source of every figure. Where tachograph data and the plan or driver's confirmation disagree, the line is flagged.
- Payroll reviews the flags, and the approved figures are exported in the format your payroll software needs, whether that is Sage, Xero or another package.
- Drivers can see their calculated week in the app before pay day, which catches disagreements early.
| Part of pay | Current source | With pay preparation |
|---|---|---|
| Hours worked | Handwritten timesheets | Tachograph duty time |
| Overtime and premiums | Clerk's knowledge | Your written pay rules |
| Nights out | Driver's note and plan | Plan plus driver confirmation |
| Checking | Every line by hand | Only flagged differences |
| Payroll input | Retyped | Exported file |
What pay week looks like after
The payroll clerk spends their time on the handful of lines that do not agree, not on the hundreds that do. Drivers see their figures before pay day and query them while they can still remember the week. The pay rules are written down, so someone else can run pay when needed. And disputes are settled from a record everyone trusts.
Checklist
- Driver pay takes one or two days each week.
- Timesheets are checked against tachograph reports by hand.
- Pay rules are not written down in one place.
- Night out allowances cause disputes.
- Drivers query their pay after it lands.