Workforce

How to use Workforce

What it is. Attendance and staff records for a farm or a godown: who works here, who came in today, and what that adds up to over a month — recorded at the gate on a phone, and exportable as a PDF or a spreadsheet.

When to open it. Daily, at the moment people arrive. Attendance reconstructed on Sunday from memory and a notebook is not a record, and it will not survive a dispute.

Have ready.

• The list of people who work here.
• Two minutes at the gate, each morning.

Step by step.

1. Add each employee once.
2. Mark attendance on the day, at the gate.
3. Keep the wage rates current, so the monthly totals mean something.
4. Read the quick statistics for the shape of the month.
5. Export the PDF or the spreadsheet when it is needed — for a wage dispute, a contractor's invoice, or a lender asking how many people the operation employs.

What it will not do. It is a record, not a payroll authority, and it says so. Minimum wages, overtime, statutory holidays and contract terms differ by state and by crop and this does not know them. It keeps an accurate record of who was present; what you owe them is a question for somebody who knows your jurisdiction.

Every setting in Workforce, explained

Employee record

Who works here. How to choose: Full name as it appears on any identity document they have, so the record matches anything else that gets produced. If it is wrong: A dispute over a name is a dispute you cannot win with a record that uses a nickname.

Attendance

Who was present on a given day. How to choose: Mark it the same day. This is the whole discipline and there is no substitute for it. If it is wrong: Memory is not a record, and a reconstructed attendance sheet is the first thing an opposing party attacks.

Wage rate

What each person is paid. How to choose: Keep it current. A rate that changed in March and was updated in July makes four months of totals wrong. If it is wrong: The monthly totals are wrong in a way that is invisible on screen.

A worked example

A contractor's invoice claims 22 days of work by six people last month.

What goes in:

• Attendance marked daily through the month

What comes out:

• The actual days present, per person, for that month.
• A monthly total that can be set against the invoice.
• An export of both, as PDF or spreadsheet.

This is the whole argument for marking attendance daily. The dispute is not usually about whether somebody worked; it is about how many days, and the side with a contemporaneous record wins that conversation in about a minute.

How to read what it gives you

• It is a record of presence. It is not a payroll calculation and not a statement of what you owe.
• The monthly view is what the record is for. Daily marks are the input; the month is the output.
• Exports exist because the record's value is realised in front of somebody else — a contractor, a worker, a lender, an inspector.

What usually goes wrong

• Marking a week at a time. The point is contemporaneity, and a week marked on Friday is Friday's memory.
• Leaving a leaver on the list. An active list that is not true is a list nobody trusts.
• Letting wage rates go stale.
• Assuming the export settles a legal question. It settles a factual one — who was present — which is usually the disputed part.

Questions people ask about Workforce

How should a farm keep attendance records?

On the day, at the gate, as people arrive — not reconstructed later. The record's entire value is that it was made at the time, which is what makes it credible in a dispute. A phone at the gate is enough; a spreadsheet written up on Sunday is not.

Does this calculate wages?

No. It records who was present and totals the days. Minimum wages, overtime rules, statutory holidays and contract terms vary by state and by crop, and a tool that guessed at them would be confidently wrong in a way that costs somebody money.

Why do small operations lose labour disputes?

Usually not because they underpaid, but because they could not show who worked which days. The facts are on their side and the evidence is not. A contemporaneous attendance record is the cheapest insurance available against that.

Can I export the records?

Yes, as a PDF or a spreadsheet — which is the form it is needed in when attendance turns into a wage dispute, a contractor's invoice, or a lender asking how many people the operation actually employs.