Labor Control & Forecasting

 

We provide a variety of scheduling and time tracking settings and tools to help you budget and control labor costs.

 

Here is what you will find in this article:

 

Prevent early clock ins

Prevent early clock ins from breaks

Clock-out reminders

Automatic clock outs

Labor forecasting

Manually add sales

Reports

Prevent early clock ins

 

This feature prevents employees from clocking in before a time parameter you set in your account. It will prevent employees from clocking in on all devices: tablets, the mobile app, the web time clock, and some integrated POS systems.

 

Follow the instructions to enable this feature:

 

1. Sign in to Homebase
2. Select Settings
3. Select Schedule Enforcement
4. Check the box that says “Prevent early clock in X minutes before the shift is scheduled”
5. Enter the number of minutes you will allow your employees to clock in their shifts
6. Save Changes

Prevent early clock ins from breaks

 

This feature prevents employees from clocking in early from their breaks. Once an employee goes on break, they will not be able to clock in until the designated break time you assigned in your account (10 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour, etc) is over.

 

Follow the instructions to enable this feature:

 

1. Sign in to Homebase
2. Select Settings
3. Select Schedule Enforcement
4. Check that box that says “Prevent early clock in from breaks”
5. Save Changes

Clock out reminders

 

This feature sends a text and push notification to employee phones and mobile apps to remind them to clock out approximately 10 minutes after their shifts have ended. 

 

Follow the instructions to enable this feature:

 

1. Sign in to Homebase
2. Select Settings
3. Select Schedule Enforcement
4. Check the box that says “Clock out reminder”
5. Save changes

Automatic clock-outs

 

This feature automatically clocks out employees after a time frame you choose in your account. 

 

1. Sign in to Homebase
2. Select Settings
3. Select Schedule Enforcement
4. Check the box that says “Automatically clock out employees X mins after their scheduled shift ends”
5. Select a time frame from the drop down
6. Save Changes

Labor forecasting

Track your scheduled labor. Make sure you're hitting your targets with the weather and sales forecast, Labor % Target, and By Department features:

1. Sign in to your Homebase account.
2. Select Schedule in the left menu
3. Select the date range in the top left corner.
4. Select Week in the drop-down box next to the date range.
5. In the lower right corner, click the up arrow to expand the budget forecast toolbar.
6. Select Tools in the upper right corner.
7. Select Show/Hide.

• You can select to show or hide hours, wages, and people.

 

The Budget Forecast Toolbar:

Weather - The latest weather forecast. 

Sales - Your estimated sales, as the average of the last 2 weeks for each particular day.

• If you have connected your point-of-sale system to Homebase, we pull in your POS sales.
• Non-POS merchants are able to enter their sales manually.
• We allow you to edit all sales values to estimate your labor ahead of time.

Labor % Target - Enter a labor as % of sales target for each day or for the week and we'll show you how you’re doing.

By Department - Your scheduled labor by department.

 

Target labor and target sales by hour:

You will need to be connected to one of our POS integrations to actively pull sales.

Using this tool, you have the ability to more precisely schedule your team based on historical data for each day. Enter a desired target labor cost to calculate the required headcount or a target sales number per employee per hour. 

1. Select Schedule in the left menu
2. Select Day View in the upper left corner.
3. Select Tools in the upper right corner.
4. Select Sales vs Scheduled Headcount.

• The graphs will appear below the schedule builder.

 

Manually add sales

 

Homebase allows you to download our pre-created excel file to manually enter your sales. This allows for easier labor budgeting when building schedules:

1. Sign in to your Homebase account
2. Select Settings in the left menu
3. Select POS Connection in the left navigation.
4. Select Connect next to the Cash Register or Other.
5. Select Enter your sales beneath the cash register.
6. Select Download our CSV/Excel template with all available columns.

• Do not delete the Date or Value fields.
• Fill out fields and save as a .csv file.
• Upload by selecting Enter your sales and Click or drop your CSV here.

 

Reports

Homebase offers a wide variety of reporting for customers. Access these Reports from the web for any and all of your locations. 

**Not currently available on the mobile app.

 

Access your reports

1. Sign in to your Homebase account.
2. Select Reports in the left menu
3. Select individual reports in the left navigation.

 

Reports

• Reports Overview 
• Scheduled vs actual hours
• Hours vs. sales
• Shift feedback
• On-time arrival
• Hourly Labor costs
• Labor by role
• Labor cost summary
• Departments
• Certifications

 

Definition of reports

Reports Overview - scheduled vs actual over time, estimated wages, comparison of hours, and wages as percent of sales

Scheduled vs Actual hours - A chart of weekly or monthly Scheduled hours vs Actual hours 

Hours vs. Sales - Scheduled labor vs sales

Shift feedback - Employee shift feedback

On-time arrival - Employee on-time arrival reporting with customizable reporting dates

Hourly Labor costs - Charted hourly sales vs scheduled labor vs est. paid labor by day

Labor by role - Labor cost by role, color coded, by a weekly date range.

Labor cost summary - Sales vs Labor breakdown by hour, or day.

Departments - Weekly sales, shifts, labor expense, and labor as % of sales by department

Certifications - Employee certifications and expiration date