This activity is used to create a Rate Agreement which includes defined rates for e.g. a union, or prevailing wage rates for a given location. The rate agreement can be linked to an employee and is used in the calculation depending on for example transaction parameters.
The rate agreement needs to be connected to a category with required settings for prevailing wage to be used correctly. If 'Use Prevailing Wage' is set to No, the agreement needs to be connected to the employee to be used in the calculation, while the prevailing wage agreement ('Use Prevailing Wage' is set to Yes) can be matched by the header parameter, usually 'Location', without being connected to the employee. For this to work, the location parameter needs to be set as 'Use on Rate Agreement Header' and 'Use On Job' in Job Cost Parameter page. At last, the specific job also needs to be prevailing wage activated.
For any Job Cost Parameter used on header level, each parameter value can only be used one time, i.e. in one Rate Agreement. The header parameter value is inherited to the Rate Agreement Details. Wage Class in the header decides what values will be available to select in the Wage Code in the details.
For each transaction that is included in Job Cost Calculation, a number of Job Cost Details will be created dependent on the parameter match. The parameters are defined in Job Cost Parameters. Up to 10 dynamic parameters can be defined, which is to be used in the Rate Agreement Details to make sure each transaction will get the correct number of Job Cost Details created in the calculation. The Validity Period also works as a parameter which is compared to the date on the transaction.
The Rate Agreement Details are based on different Job Cost Types, defined in Job Cost Types page. Each row also needs to be defined with a fixed Rate or a Percentage and a Percentage Calculation Basis. The rate on each created Job Cost Detail will either get the fixed rate or a calculated value dependent on the percentage and the percentage calculation basis. The percentage basis needs to be defined with a rate, and not a percentage.
Payment Interval can be set as Hourly or Weekly. If hourly is used, the fixed or calculated rate will be applied for each reported hour on the transaction. Weekly on the other hand, means that this rate should be added as a fixed rate for the whole week, independent on the number of reported hours. The Job Cost Details are always created with an hourly rate, why the rate specified in the rate agreement needs to be recalculated dependent on the number of hours reported in the week. Only Job Cost Types with Indirect 'Job Cost Payment Type' can be set as Weekly.
When Percentage rate is defined, Override Basis can be selected. If this is set to 'Yes' it means that the Percentage Calculation Basis will be replaced in the Job Cost Details. An example is if overtime is defined as 150% of the basic rate. When reporting overtime in this case, the overtime rate should be used instead of the basic rate and the basic rate then needs to be overridden.
It is possible to connect specific rates to the employee. This is useful if there is one employee who for example negotiated a better fringe benefit than others in the company. The specific rates are connected to the employee in the Employee file and overrides any rates with the same Job Cost Type in connected common agreements.