Table of Contents
Introduction
In the "Human Resources / Employees" section of foreknown you manage all the employees of your company and their basic contract data regarding working hours, vacations and public holidays.
For an employee there must always be a user in foreknown, so that this employee can also log in to foreknown, e.g. to book working hours. Depending on the authorization, employees can also be stored as "responsible persons", e.g. for customers, offers and orders.
Manage Employees
All actions to be able to create, edit, search and delete employees are described below.
Search Employees
In the upper area of the "Employees" dialog is the search field and the "+ New" button (see also Create Employee). Below this area all already created employees are displayed in form of a scrollable, sortable and filterable list.
If you now enter a search term in the input field, the list will only show the employees that contain the entered search term in their name. In this way, individual employees can be found and edited quickly.
Filter Employees
Employee management offers the following filter settings:
The "Apply" action will display all employees in the list that match the filter criteria. The "X" action removes all filter settings and the list displays all employees again. The "Reset" action (icon: arrow in a circle) will discard all the changes made to a saved filter, if any.
- User status: It is possible to filter for employees, whose associated user has a selected status (Inactive, Active, Waiting, Locked).
- Employment: Selection of one or more employment types (employee, external provider).
- Time Recording: Selection of one or more time recording types (Project Time, Presence Time, Full-Time).
For general information about the filter options, see also the chapter Basics: Filters.
Create Employee
To create a new employee, click on the "+ New" button located at the top right of the search box. This button will open the "Create Employee" popup dialog.
The following properties must be specified for a new employee:
- User: An existing user must be selected from a drop-down list.
- Country: From a drop-down list a country e.g. Germany must be selected.
- Region: From a drop-down list, if this was filled after the selection of a country, a region e.g. Hessen must be selected.
- Cost Center ID: The cost center serves as additional information about an employee and is, if maintained and used in the Excel template via the placeholder [#LIST#employeeWithCostCenter#], displayed on the activity export together with the name of the employee. The cost center is also displayed after the employee in case of grouping with employees.
- Allow booking of absence times: If this flag is deactivated, only the Team Manager or HR Manager can enter absences. If the team manager himself has the flag inactive, he can only maintain the absences for his team members but not for himself.
The specification of a country and if available a region is necessary to be able to determine the suitable holidays for an employee.
With the action "Save" a new employee is created. With the action "Reset" and "Cancel" the entries are discarded and in case of the action "Cancel" the dialog is closed.
Edit Master Data
The master data of an employee can be edited via a popup dialog. This is opened from the list of employees via the action menu with the action "Edit Employee" in each row.
This opens the "Update Employee" dialog, which can be used to change all of an employee's properties. Also see the description of the Create Employee dialog.
The "Save" action will save the changes made to the employee. The "Reset" and "Cancel" actions discard the entries, and in the case of the "Cancel " action, the dialog is closed.
Via the action menu, an existing employee can be deleted with the action "Delete Employee". A confirmation dialog opens, which must be confirmed with the action "Delete".
Manage Employee Contracts
Employee contracts provide important information about employee availability. An employee contract contains the working hours per weekday in hours (also as decimal numbers), and the number of vacation days per year. In addition, imputed costs and a target agreement regarding workload and billing rate can be stored.
NOTE: When creating an employee, a contract is automatically created that initially includes a 40-hour week with 8 hours per workday and 20 days of vacation. The contract data should therefore be adjusted directly for new employees!
Edit Contract
In the lower area of the detail view, which can be opened by clicking on an employee in the list, the tab "Contract Data" can be found. Via the action menu of a contract, the following dialog can be opened with the action "Edit Contract".
The following properties can be changed for an existing contract:
- Valid from: Specify the date from which the contract is valid. Can only be set on creation of a contract.
- Employment: Indicates the type of employment relationship. Depending on this the personnel costs
are calculated.
- Employee: This employment relationship describes an employee of the company. Therefore also the field "Monthly salary" is displayed, which contains the monthly salary including other salary components.
- External Provider: This employment describes an employee of another company or a freelancer. Therefore, the field "Hourly Rate" needs to be filled on which the monthly costs are calculated.
- Monthly Salary: Sum of the monthly basic salary plus monthly additional costs, in order to be able to calculate the monthly personnel costs can be calculated.
- Imputed Cost Rate: Represents an hourly rate used to calculate variable employee costs.
Calculation: Monthly salary * 3 months / 13 weeks / number of hours per week.
- Hourly Rate (third party providers only): Hourly rate of the third party provider to be able to calculate the monthly personnel costs.
- Notes: In this field the composition of the monthly salary can be noted.
- Working time: Here the working time is entered in hours (also decimal numbers) for each individual weekday.
- Vacation days: The number of agreed vacation days is entered here.
- Vacation Determination: This setting determines how the employee can book his/her vacation.
- Full days and half days: Absence times of the type "Vacation" are counted as half days if the employee has to work
at least 6 hours on a day, but has specified an absence time of <= 50%. Absence times > 50% always represent a
full day of vacation.
Example: An employee always has to work 8h on Mondays. He/she enters 4h of vacation. A half day of vacation is is booked for the employee. If he/she had entered 6h, a full day of vacation would have been booked.
- Full days: Absence times of the type "vacation" are always counted as full days, even if e.g. only 4h vacation was entered.
- Full days and half days: Absence times of the type "Vacation" are counted as half days if the employee has to work
at least 6 hours on a day, but has specified an absence time of <= 50%. Absence times > 50% always represent a
full day of vacation.
- Time Recording: Defines the type of time recording.
- Project Time: Employees with this type of time recording can only book activities. It is not possible to record presence and break times. Is usually used for external providers.
- Presence Time: Employees with this type of time recording must maintain presence, break and absence times. The recording of activities is optional and the sum of booked activities also does not have to match the entered working time.
- Full-Time: Employees with this type of time recording must maintain presence, break and absence times. In addition, the recording of activities is required and the total of booked activities must match the specified working time.
- Target agreement:
- Customer Order Quota: Here the percentage of booked working times is defined for an employee, that is to be spent on customer-related orders.
- Billing quota: Here the percentage of booked working times is defined for an employee, that should be billable via customers.
The "Save" action saves the changes to the contract. With the action "Reset" and "Cancel" the entries are discarded and in case of the action "Cancel" the dialog is closed.
Via the action menu of a contract, a contract can be removed with the action "Delete Contract". A confirmation dialog opens, which must be confirmed with the action "Delete".
Create Contract
At the bottom of the detail view, which can be opened by clicking on an employee in the list, is the "Contract Data" tab. In the upper right corner of the "Contract Data" tab is the "Create Contract" button. Clicking on this button opens a popup dialog which allows the definition of all properties of a contract (see Edit Contract).
With the action "Save" a new contract is created. With the action "Reset" and "Cancel" the entries are discarded and in case of the action "Cancel" the dialog is closed.
Manage Staff Costs
The "Staff Costs" tab is located below the master data. There, all staff costs of employees or external providers for a selected year are displayed. Additional costs, such as bonus or overtime payments, can be added on a monthly level.
The "Current Year" button is used to retrieve the staff costs for the current year. By using the arrow keys you can scroll through other years.
Notes on the calculation of staff costs: **.
- Employees: For the calculation of staff costs, the monthly salary of the employee contract is used. If there is a change of contract within a month, the salary of the current contract is used for the calculation of staff costs. There is no daily-based salary calculation per month. However, for the month can be created for the month.
- External Provider: For the calculation of the staff costs, the sum of the recorded working hours of the month is multiplied by the hourly rate stored in the contract. If a new contract with a new hourly rate is created within a month, the correct hourly rates are used for each day.
The specification of staff costs is required in order to be able to obtain a contribution margin calculation in foreknown.
Create Staff Costs
To create additional staff costs, you can either click on the "+" button above the list or in each month row. This will open the "Create Staff Costs" dialog.
The following properties can/must be specified for new staff costs:
- Date: The date on which the cost entry are incurred.
- Cost: The amount and currency of the cost entry.
- Name: A short description for the cost entry.
The "Save" action creates the new personnel cost entry and displays it in the list.
Edit Staff Costs
Existing staff cost entries can easily be adjusted via the action menu (three dots in front of each entry) with the action "Edit Staff Costs" action. The "Update Staff Costs" dialog opens.
Here all data (see "Create Staff Costs"") can be edited.
If staff cost entries are to be deleted again, this is possible via the action menu with the action "Delete Staff Costs". delete". A dialog will open where the "Delete" must be confirmed again.
Manage Time Account
Under the "Time account" tab, the HR manager can view the current or past annual overviews of the current employee's working time account and vacation account and book debit and credit entries.
Working Time Account
The working time account lists all monthly balances and additional entries in chronologically ascending order. Via the "+" link, a new booking can be created for a working time account. For this purpose the following information must be entered:
- Date: Selection of a booking date.
- Value: Specification of a duration e.g. 3h 30m. Negative values are also possible.
- Name: Specification of a name for the booking.
Examples
- An employee collected 34 overtime hours at the end of the year, which should be carried over into the next year as a new start balance.
- An employee got 20 overtime hours paid. Then a corresponding negative value is booked.
Via the action menu (three small dots) in front of a manual entry, an entry can be edited or deleted.
Vacation Account
The vacation account lists all monthly balances and additional bookings made in chronologically ascending order. A new booking for a vacation account can be created via the "+" link. To do this, the following information must be specified:
- Date: Selection of a booking date.
- Value: Specification of a duration e.g. 2d. Negative values are also possible.
- Name: Specification of a name for the booking.
Examples:
- An employee has not used 2 days of the vacation days at the end of the year. These vacation days shall be carried over to the next year.
- Two vacation days have been paid to an employee. Then a corresponding negative value is booked.
Via the action menu (three small dots) in front of a manual booking, a booking can be edited or deleted.
Manage Employee Appointments
The administration of appointments for employees is used to record days of absence, e.g. due to vacation, illness or other reasons for absence. Absence times must be recorded in order to be able to determine the actual availability of an employee and thus also a correct determination of e.g. the utilization and billing rate.
Create Appointment
In the detailed view under the "Calendar" tab, the employee's appointments for the current month are displayed below the "Assigned Calendars". You can scroll back and forth month by month via a navigation in the upper right corner. Clicking the "Today" button jumps to the current month. By clicking on the "+" symbol in the upper right corner, the "Create Appointment" dialog opens.
The following properties must be specified to create an appointment:
- Title: The title of the appointment is specified.
- Details: Additional information about the appointment can be entered here.
- Start and End: The start and end date and time are specified (the appointment can be marked as all-day by means of a checkbox).
- Type: The type of the appointment can be selected from a drop-down list.
- Non Business
- Vacation
- Absent Time
- Informative
- Custom
- Availability in %: Here the availability during the appointment can be specified in %. (can only be freely entered for "Type: Individual").
With the action "Save" a new appointment is created under the employee. With the action "Reset" and "Cancel" the entries are discarded and in case of the action "Cancel" the dialog is closed.
Edit Appointment
From the action menu of an appointment, the "Edit Appointment" action can be used to open the "Update Appointment" dialog. All properties of an appointment can be changed via this dialog. See also the description of the Create Appointment dialog.
With the action "Save" the changes to the appointment are saved. With the action "Reset" and "Cancel" the entries are discarded and in case of the action "Cancel" the dialog is closed.
Via the action menu of an appointment, which is offered in each line per appointment, an appointment can be removed with the action "Delete Appointment". A confirmation dialog opens, which must be confirmed with the action "Delete".