AUTHORISATION

When an employee is paid on the basis of hours worked, or work done, pay will vary from week to week. It is the payroll department's responsibility to calculate gross pay each payday. The payroll department can only calculate gross pay on the basis of documentation they receive recording the employee's hours of work or work done.

The employee often prepares this documentation. It should not be possible for an employee to overstate the hours worked, or work done, as this would result in them being overpaid. It is therefore important that any documentation prepared by the employee is reviewed and approved by a responsible person, such as a manager before it is paid. Any overtime worked must also be authorised.

The documentation completed by the employee should be authorised by the employee's supervisor, or other person in a managerial capacity. The records should be countersigned to indicate that they have been authorised

The time at which the authorisation is required may vary, for example:

• ●hourly paid workers who complete timesheets may need to have them countersigned each time they complete a different job
• ●hourly paid workers who complete job cards may need to have them authorised when the job covered by the card is finished
• ●salaried staff completing weekly timesheets may have them authorised at the end of the week. This is particularly important when overtime is paid.

When a defined procedure for authorisation is not followed, the payroll department should refer the documentation back for authorisation before calculating the gross pay.

Most of the documents used for recording an employee's hours worked also record the jobs on which the employee has worked. As well as being used to calculate the employee's pay, the documents are used to show the labour costs of the various jobs. The timesheets must contain the correct job codes so that the labour costs are allocated properly.

Along with job codes, the documentation may include department codes. This records not only the job that was done, but the department for which the work was carried out. This may be important when allocating the cost of idle time, or administration time.