Friday afternoon, pay day, and a phone full of messages
Busy weeks mean casual porters: people you call when there is work, plus agency labour when your own list runs out. At the end of the week the office works out who worked where and for how long.
Casual porters text their hours. Crew leaders have a different recollection. The agency sends a timesheet with its own figures. Someone reconciles all three by hand, argues with one or two people, and sends the numbers to whoever runs payroll.
Why hours are so hard to pin down
Casual and agency staff move between crews and jobs, sometimes several in a day, and nobody records hours at the time.
- Hours are recalled at the end of the week rather than recorded on the day.
- Porters move between crews, so no single crew leader sees their whole day.
- Agency timesheets are filled in by the agency, not from your records.
- Hours are not tied to jobs, so they cannot feed job costs.
- Disputes are settled by whoever remembers most confidently.
What hazy hours cost
Overpaying by a little on many shifts adds up. Underpaying causes disputes and good casual staff stop answering your calls. Agency invoices get paid without being checked against anything you recorded.
Office time on a Friday goes on reconciliation rather than preparing Saturday's moves.
How we record hours where the work happens
- Casual porters and agency workers are added to the day's plan against the crews and jobs they are working on.
- The crew leader records start and finish times for each person on the job sheet, or porters check in and out themselves on their phone with the crew leader confirming.
- Breaks and moves between jobs are recorded the same way.
- At the end of the week the office sees each person's hours by day and job, with any gaps or overlaps highlighted, and approves them.
- Approved hours export in the format your payroll or accountant uses, and agency hours are compared with the agency's invoice line by line.
- Hours are attached to each move, so job costs include the labour really used.
| Source | Today | After |
|---|---|---|
| Casual porter | Texts their hours | Recorded against the job on the day |
| Crew leader | Notes, if any | Confirms times in the job sheet |
| Agency | Sends its own timesheet | Invoice checked against your record |
| Payroll | Figures from reconciliation | Approved export |
We do not advise on employment status, pay rates or holiday entitlement. Those stay with you and your adviser; we make the hours accurate.
What Friday looks like after
Hours are already in, recorded on the day and confirmed by the crew leader. The office checks exceptions, approves and exports. Agency invoices are checked in minutes. Casual porters trust the numbers because they can see their own hours as they go.
Planning gets easier too. With a few months of recorded hours, you can see which weeks always need casual labour and roughly how much, and book your regular casual porters earlier instead of ringing round on the Thursday before a busy weekend.
Is pay week built from memory?
- Casual porters text their hours at the end of the week.
- Agency invoices are paid without checking them against your records.
- Hours disputes happen most weeks.
- Labour hours are not linked to moves.
- One person spends Friday reconciling timesheets.