Track labour cost by job
Set up jobs (or cost centres, or projects) to track hours and labour cost against them. Create them, assign staff, set budgets and colours, and archive the ones you no longer use.
Jobs let you group rostered work so you can track hours and labour cost against a job, site or cost centre. The feature is called Jobs until you rename it, so it might read Cost centres, Projects or anything that suits your business. The screenshots in this guide use a business that calls them Cost Centres.
Who this is for
Owners and managers using the Shiftly web platform. You need access to pay details to open this page.
Before you start
- Open the account menu (your initials, top right) and select Jobs, or whatever your business calls them. You can also open Business settings and select the same card there.
Rename the feature
The page heading is the feature's name. Select it, type your own term and press Enter (or Escape to leave it as it is). The new name shows everywhere the feature appears, such as the account menu, the roster filter and the shift form.
See your jobs
The page opens with four totals: active jobs, Total Hours, Total Cost and Staff. Below them, a table lists every job with its Code, Name, Status, Scheduled and Actuals hours, Cost and Staff. The Unassigned row adds up all work that isn't tagged to a job. Select the arrow on a row to open its report. See See how a job is tracking.
Hours and cost come from approved timesheets.
Create a job
Fill in the details
Select Create New Job (the button uses your name for the feature). Then enter:
- A name and a short Code. Both are required.
- Assigned Staff. Leave it on All staff (default) so anyone can be rostered against it, or pick specific people.
- Budget ($) (optional), a dollar figure to track spending against in the report.
- Colour, used to pick the job out across the app.
When your business is connected to Xero, there's also a Xero Tracking Category field. Choose the Xero tracking option this job matches, or leave it on No Xero mapping.
Save it
Select Create Job (again with your name for the feature). It appears in the list straight away.
The job field on the shift form and on new timesheets only appears once jobs are switched on for your business. There's no switch for this in Business settings, so if you can't see it, contact Shiftly support.
Match jobs to Xero tracking categories
When your business is connected to Xero you can link jobs to Xero tracking options in three places:
- The Xero Tracking Category field when you create or edit a job.
- The Xero Categories button on this page, which lists every job so you can map several at once.
- The Connect jobs step of the Xero setup, which can also create jobs from your Xero tracking options.
See Match jobs to Xero tracking categories.
Edit, archive or restore a job
Use a row's menu:
- Edit changes the name, code, staff, budget, colour or Xero mapping.
- Archive hides the job from pickers. You're asked to confirm, and its history is kept, so past shifts and timesheets stay tagged to it.
- Restore brings an archived job back.
Related
See how a job is tracking
Hours, cost and budget for one job.
Connect your Xero organisation
Includes the Connect jobs step that links jobs to Xero tracking options.
Positions & classifications
Set up the roles you roster against the award.
On the Shiftly website
Job costing
Wage cost by project and centre.
Set up your positions
Add the roles you roster, such as Barista or Chef, link each one to your award, pay above the award rate, and look up what each award level covers.
See how a job is tracking
Open a job's report to see its labour cost, hours, budget and variance in tiles, charts and per-staff tables, then export it as a PDF or CSV.