Get started with the Hours Account in Svenn and learn a flexible and efficient way to manage employee work hours.
Hours Account allows you to set a standard number of expected working hours for each employee, while employees record their actual working hours through the system. It helps you keep track of their workload and balance it effectively.
Employees can easily register their work hours, which are then added to their personal hours account. You can compare the actual hours worked against the set standard. If an employee works more hours, they accumulate extra hours, and if they work fewer hours, they have a deficit.
This feature increases transparency as employees can view their hours account anytime, promoting trust and transparency in the organization. It also enhances productivity by identifying patterns and trends in work hours, ensuring that your team's capacity is utilized effectively for maximum productivity.
Enable Hours Account
To enable the Hours Account module for your account, simply click on the "Turn On" button available in the App Marketplace for Hours Account V2.
When enabled, all users will automatically get a weekly working hours setup generated on their user profile and be able to use the Hours Account on the web as well as on their mobile phone in the Svenn App.
The next step is to examine the "weekly working hours" configuration.
Weekly Working Hours Setup
Before using the Hours Account, each employee's weekly working hours capacity should be set up.
The work hours for a week are broken up into separate days, and you tell each employee how long they should work on each day. All the days add up to a total, which is the expected amount of work the chosen employee “should work” each week.
We use "Should work" to figure out each employee's Hours Balance so that both Admin and the employees can see how much work needs to be done and how many hours are still expected to be completed.
Hours Account:
On the web, you'll see a new "Hours Account" tab in the time tracking section. Click on this tab to see the Hours Account screen.
If you're an admin in Svenn, this Hours Account tab gives you a complete summary of the hours worked by your employees for the time frame you pick, depending on your selected filters.
Registered
In the "Registered" section, you can see the total hours and absences registered during your chosen time frame. This shows you the actual hours your employees worked.
Should work
The "Should Work" card tells you how many hours an employee should have worked, based on their weekly working hours setup in their user profile settings. This helps you see each employee's expected work hours.
Hours Account
The "Hours Account" card compares planned work hours to actual ones for the selected time period. If employees work more, they get extra hours. If they work less, they show a shortage.
You can also check individual employee hours in the table below. This helps you see if any employees are working too little or too much, so you can manage workloads better.
Plus hours - Example
To provide a clearer example, let's consider Emma and her weekly work hours:
Name: Emma
Weekly work hours: 40 hours
Emma registered 50 hours for the week, indicating that she worked some extra hours. In this case, Emma's Hours Balance will be calculated as follows:
Registered Hours: 50 hours
Should Work: 40 hours
Hours Balance: +10 hours
The Hours Balance of +10 hours indicates that Emma has accumulated 10 extra hours beyond her expected work hours for that week. This provides a clear overview of her additional work efforts and allows for effective tracking of her workload.
Minus hours - Example
To effectively manage the deficit in work hours for employees, let's explore how we can utilize the Hours Balance.
Employee: Maria
Weekly Work Hours: 40 hours
Maria has registered 30 hours for the week, indicating that she has some shortfall of hours. In this case, Maria’s Hours Balance will be calculated as follows:
Registered Hours: 30 hours
Expected Work Hours: 40 hours
Hours Balance: -10 hours
The negative hours balance of -10 indicates that Maria has a shortfall of 10 hours from her expected work hours for the week. This valuable information provides a clear overview of her work efforts and allows efficient workload management to address the imbalance.
Turn of work hours for specific users
If you have employees who have flexible or irregular work arrangements and you do not want their registered hours to affect the Hours Balance calculation, you can ensure that their Hours Account capacity is set to 'Turn of Work hours' in their user profile.
Enabling the 'Turn of Work hours' setting for these employees means that they do not have a specific weekly hour requirement, and any hours they register will not be taken into account when calculating the Hours Balance. This allows for more accurate tracking of the work hours of other employees while ensuring that those with flexible arrangements are not included in the calculation.
Use fixed Monthly Work Hours instead
If you have contractors who need to work a set amount of hours each month, use the "Use Monthly Work Hours" option instead of setting up weekly hours.
Turning on "Use Monthly Work Hours" lets these contractors work flexibly but still finish their assigned hours each month.
For employees with Fixed Monthly Hours, you'll get the best overview if you set the filter period for a month or more.
When you turn on 'Monthly Work Hours', you have to set the number of hours the employee should work in a month on their details screen. The system will then divide these hours by the number of working days in a month to set the daily work capacity.
Saturday as working day
If your employees typically work on Saturdays and you use monthly work hours, make sure to turn on the 'Saturday as working day' option in the Hours Account.
Turning on 'Saturday as working day' means Saturdays are counted as working days. This helps distribute the employee's workload evenly throughout the month.
This way, you can monitor their hours balance accurately, giving you a clear idea of their work and ensuring they complete their monthly hours.
Absence
Any hours an employee takes for absence, vacation or holidays get subtracted from the employee's “Should work”
Your Hours Account tab will show any absences, vacations, or holidays you have entered on your Account. These hours will be taken into account when calculating your hours balance.
Providing a more accurate and efficient way of managing employee schedules and leave.
Let's consider an example to better understand the workflow:
Example:
Let's say Anna needs to work 40 hours a week. But she only logged 32 work hours and took 8 hours of sick leave as an absence.
Here's how Anna's hours balance is figured out:
Name: Anna
Weekly Work Hours: 40 hours
Logged Hours: 32 hours
Absence: 8 hours
Hours Balance: 0 hours
In this situation, the absence counts as logged hours. So, the weekly work hours stay at 40 hours. Anna's logged hours are 32 and she took 8 hours of sick leave. So, they don't make her hours balance negative. That's why Anna's hours balance is 0 hours for that week.
Adjust Hours Balance
Admins have the authority to make changes to any employee's Hours Balance.
To make changes to an employee's Hours Balance, go to the employee's adjustment tab and click "Create an adjustment."
When you click the "Create Adjustment" button, the Adjustment screen appears with three different options for making adjustments. This streamlined process enables you to manage and correct any discrepancies in the employees' Hours Balance.
Add Hours Balance
With the 'Add Hours Balance' option, you can add hours to an employee's hours balance.
For example, let's say Maria works 40 hours a week but only registered 35 hours, so her Hours Balance shows -5 hours.
If you want to balance out Maria's hours, you can make this adjustment:
Adjustment Type: Add Hours Balance
Adjusted Hours: 5 hours
New Hours Balance: 0 hours
By choosing "Add Hours Balance" and adding 5 hours, Maria's hours balance will go back to zero, meaning she's met her expected work hours for the week.
Reduce Hours Balance
By selecting the 'Reduce Hours Balance' option, the adjustment hours will be deducted from the employee's current Hours Balance.
For instance, let's say your company has a policy where only 50 plus hours can be carried forward from the current year to the next year. While reviewing the employees' hours balances, you notice that Emma has an excess of 60 hours in her balance. To adjust her hours as per company policy, you can make the following adjustment:
Adjustment Type: Reduce Hours Balance
Adjusted Hours: 10 hours
Current Hours Balance: 60 hours
New Hours Balance: 50 hours
By choosing "Reduce Hours Balance" and specifying a 10-hour adjustment, Emma's hours balance will be reduced by 10 hours. As a result, her new Hours Balance will be 50 hours.
Payout
When an employee has extra hours in their hours balance and you want to compensate them by making payments for those hours, you can easily do so by selecting the 'Payout' option when creating the adjustment.
By selecting the 'Payout' option, the adjustment hours will be deducted from the employee's current hours balance and marked as a payout. Hours marked as payout are eligible for payment.
Edit Adjustment
As an admin, you can go back to the adjustment tab anytime to see all the changes made for employees. This lets you edit or delete any past adjustments.
The system lets you have total control over adjustments and makes any fixes you need.
You can also download reports in common formats like CSV and Excel. This helps you keep detailed records and use the adjustment data in other systems or workflows if needed.
Overtime and Hours Account
When you record overtime in your time entry, it will not be included as plus hours in your hours balance. This is because overtime hours are already accounted for separately in your time entry.
By distinguishing overtime hours separately, it ensures that you don't have to make double payments for those additional hours—once as overtime and again as part of your hours balance.
FAQ
What happens if I already have Hours Account v.1 enabled and I enable the new one, Hours Account v2?
If you are currently using the Hours Account feature and wish to transition to Hours Account V2, the process is straightforward and can be completed with just a few clicks.
To initiate the migration, simply navigate to the App Marketplace and locate the Hours Account V2 integration card. By clicking on it and turning it on, your current hours account module will be disabled, and you will seamlessly transition to the new view of the hours account.
Once you've migrated, the system will begin calculating hours balances for employees starting from their employment date, in accordance with their capacity settings.
If, for any reason, you prefer to revert to the old hours account temporarily, you have the option to do so for a shorter period until it is completely discontinued. This provides flexibility in case you need additional time to adjust to the new system or have specific requirements that are better suited to the previous version.
I hired a new person, but he won't start until the beginning of next month. How do I make sure that the hours balance doesn't start before his start date?
To ensure the Hours Balance doesn't start before the new employee's start date, you'll need to input the correct start date in the employee's profile in your system. Here's a simple guide on how to do it:
- Go to the Employees section on web
- Find and click on the profile of your new hire.
- Go to the tab “Employment”
- Look for a field named 'Start Date'
- Enter the date the new employee is expected to start work.
- Save the changes to the profile.
Once this is done, Svenn will start tracking and calculating the Hours Balance from the start date you've set. So, no hours will be counted before that date, ensuring the new hire's Hours Balance begins correctly.
Someone left the company. How do I stop the Hours Balance from being calculated so that his data doesn't change the hours balance for the rest of the company?
If an employee leaves your company and you want to stop counting their Hours Balance, just update their end date in their profile page. Once you enter their end date, the system will stop calculating their Hours Balance automatically.
Here's a simple guide on how to do it:
- Go to the Employees section on web
- Find and click on the profile of the employee
- Go to the tab “Employment”
- Look for a field named 'End Date'
- Enter the date for when the employee leaves.
- Save the changes to the profile.
Once you've done this, the system will stop calculating the hours balance for that employee from the end date you set.
What happens to the Hours Balance to inactive users?
The Hours Balance calculation remains unaffected by an employee's status within the Account. Instead, it is solely determined by the dates specified as their employment start and end dates.