Guide to Driver Payroll

Updated Aug 8, 2008 Version 12.9

TripTracker has a very powerful and flexible system for Driver Payroll.

The TripTracker Payroll System will let you generate a gross payroll for each of your drivers and sub-contractors. The Payroll reports will show the driver's pay, tips, and reimbursed expenses. You can calculate the pay based on a flat rate per trip, an hourly rate, and/or a percentage of the trip's charges. This can be given to your payroll service or even sent to QuickBooks.

You can setup different Payroll Methods to match almost any situation. Setup each Driver to have the Payroll Method for the type of trip they are most frequently going to do. For all their other trips, you can switch the Payroll Method on the trip on either the Edit Charges screen (before it is invoiced), or the Invoicing screen itself.

How to Use:

1. Define your Payroll Methods, as shown below.
   
   
2. Define your Reimbursed Expense names on the Data Entry | Your Company screen.
   1. You can change the wording of these in the five Payroll Reimbursement Descriptions fields.
   2. This will show on the Trip Tickets, the Invoice screen's Payables tab, and the Driver Payroll Report.
   
   
3. Setup each Driver.
   1. Assign a default Payroll Method to each Driver.
   2. Set the driver's Hourly Rate and/or Percent Rate.
   3. If these fields are left blank, the Payroll Method's values will be used instead.
   4. Place a zero '0' in either of these fields if you don't ever want them to be paid this way.
   
   
4. Each Reservation will use the driver's default Payroll Method.
   1. You can override this on the Edit Charges screen by changing the Payroll Method, Payroll Hours, and/or Payroll Flat Rate.
   2. If you assign the trip to a sub-contractor, print the Farm Out Trip Ticket. This shows the Payroll information instead of the charges, to let the Farm Out company what they will be paid. They can enter any Charges information directly on the form and fax it back.
   3. For all other trips, have the drivers enter their payroll information and expenses onto the Trip Ticket.
   4. If you subscribe to the TripTrackerGPS system, the drivers can check-in their trips right from their cell phones.
   
   
5. Invoicing will use the trip's Payroll Method, Payroll Hours, and/or Payroll Flat Rate.
   1. If none were set on the trip, then it will use the driver's default method.
   2. The payroll for the trip is finalized when the Invoice is saved, based on the values on the Invoice's Payables tab.
   3. Enter the driver's Payroll Hours, if needed. A note will display above the Payroll Hours to show you if the trip has charged hours.
   4. Enter the driver's Payroll Flat Rate, if needed.
   5. Enter the driver's Reimbursed Expenses, if any.
   6. The 'Total Payroll' shows what will be included on the Payroll report.
   7. Note that this information can be changed later from the Reprint An Invoice screen, if you have authority.
   
   
6. Run the Driver Payroll report on a regular basis, typically weekly.
   1. On the menu choose Reports/Graphs | Accounts Payable | Driver Payroll.
   2. Set the date range to be 'Between' the first date and last date of the pay period.
   3. Select whether you want Employees Only, Sub-Contractors Only, or All Drivers.
   4. Typically, you do not need to enter the Driver IDs, as it will print each driver's information on its own page.
   5. In the Display Mode, select if you want every invoice displayed, or just a summary by driver. If you want both, print one then switch Display Modes and select the 'Choose Another Report' option to print the other.
   6. Click Print Report or Print Preview.
   7. Once you are satisfied with the Payroll report, if you are using the QuickBooks interface, then click 'Send to QuickBooks Pro'. Review the QuickBooks section at http://online-limo.com/webhelp for more information.
   8. The Pay Type of the trip can be flagged to show the Collected Amount on the Payroll report for paid invoices. This could be used to highlight any cash a driver has collected, so it can be factored into their pay. Some companies' drivers keep the cash paid at the time of service, so this feature lets you back out the cash collected from their paycheck.
   
   
7. Review the Payroll History, as needed.
   1. On the Driver maintenance screen, press the Display Payroll History button to view their history.
      1. The first summary shown is by payroll date for the driver.
      2. Select a date to view payroll information per invoice.
      3. Note that the user must have security for Payroll.
      4. If the invoice is selected, then the user must have security for Reprint An Invoice also.
   2. On the Driver Payroll screen, press the Display Payroll History button to view the history for all drivers.
      1. The first summary shown is grouped by payroll date for all drivers.
      2. Select a date to view payroll information for that date for all drivers.
      3. Select a driver to view payroll information per invoice.
      4. Select an invoice to jump to the Reprint An Invoice screen.
   3. On all Payroll History screens, totals are displayed at the bottom of the screen for each column shown.
   
   
8. The Sales Overview report shows all trip-based costs that affect profit.
   1. Every cost is summarized, including Charges, Other Charges, Payroll, Taxes, Payments, and Credit Card Charges.
   2. It will even show Gross Profit. Note that this will not include fixed expenses, like rent, or any other non-trip cost.
   3. Run the report by going to Reports/Graphs, then Sales Information, then All Sales Information.
   4. If you are running any other Sales report, just click the 'Include Sales Overview' box to also print the new Sales Overview report for the same data.
   
   
9. The Daily Overview screen includes the Payroll charges in the Invoices section when calculating Gross Profit.
   1. The total Expenses column includes Tips, Payroll Total, Reimbursed Expenses, Taxes, and Agent Commissions.

How to setup Payroll Methods:

A Payroll Method can include a Flat Rate amount, an Hourly Rate, or a Percentage Rate, or any combination of these three. You can also control the fields against which the Percentage Rate will be calculated.

1. Access the Payroll Methods screen from the Data Entry | Your Company screen's 'Edit Payroll Methods' button at the bottom.
   
   
2. To create a new Payroll Method, click the 'Insert' button, then type the name into the Pay Method column (ie. 'Training Rate').
   
   
3. In the Seq. No. column, put a number from 1 to 9999, which controls the order in which methods are shown on the Reservation and Invoice screens, with the lowest number shown first.
   
   
4. In the Note column, put up to 30 characters of descriptive text.
   
   
5. In the Flat Amount, put in the amount you always want to pay.
   1. If you never want to pay a flat rate, put in 0. Don't put in the '$', though. That will be added for you automatically.
   2. You can override this amount on each trip on the Edit Charges or Invoicing screens.
   
   
6. In the Hourly Rate, put in the amount you always want to pay per hour.
   1. If you leave this field blank, the system will assign the Driver's Hourly Rate, if one was entered.
   2. If you never want to pay an hourly rate, put in 0.
   
   
7. In the Hours Min and Hours Max columns, put in the number of hours to always pay the driver, or leave both columns blank.
   
   
8. In the Percent Rate column, put the percentage you always want to pay.
   1. If you never want to pay a percentage, put in 0. Don't put in the '%', though. That will be added for you automatically.
   2. If you leave this field blank, the system will assign the Driver's Percentage Rate, if one was entered.
   3. Very important - make sure you choose the charges at the bottom of the screen against which the percentage should be calculated.
   4. Note that these charges choices are only shown for the currently selected Payroll Method. Each Payroll Method has their own rules for each of the charges.
   5. All chosen charges are added together as the Base Pay. Note that it will subtract the Agent Commissions from the Base Pay if chosen.

Need help? Just email us at support@triptracker.com