Aspect Software

 

Back-office software for Restaurateurs

 
 
 

Employee Scheduling

 

(Revised 04-12-2000)


 

This document describes the steps required to enter an employee schedule. The first two steps are one-time procedures. The remainder of the document describes how to enter an employee schedule.


 

Subject

Description

Schedule Names


This option is used to enter names for the employee schedules that will be entered each week.

Before employees schedules may be entered in Aspect, names must be entered for each schedule that will be created. For example, most restaurants have bar, wait, busser, host, kitchen and manager schedules. Up to twenty-four schedule names may be entered. Labor totals will be calculated for each schedule.

To enter schedule names, select Settings / Payroll Setup / Schedule Names. Press the INS key or select Edit / Insert Record to add schedule names.

Default budgets may be entered for each schedule. When a schedule is entered, the actual cost of the schedule will be evaluated against the budgets that are entered.

Schedule Positions


This option is used to enter schedule positions such as Grill, Prep, Dish, etc.


These positions are used to make it easier to enter an employee schedule.

After you have entered schedule names, positions must be created for each schedule. For example, a kitchen schedule might include the following positions: Grill, Prep, Dish, Line, Expediter, etc. A wait schedule might include only a single position named Wait.

Positions let you create a schedule more quickly. A default job code and clock in / out time are assigned to each position. So when you enter a shift, you only need to specify the position. Aspect will fill in the job code and clock in / out times for you. Aspect will also fill in the correct pay rate based on the job code. You can override any of these entries if necessary.

Note: Entering schedule positions is a one-time thing that must be done before you can begin entering employee schedules. You are not actually creating a schedule when you enter schedule positions.

Opening An Employee Schedule

After schedule names and schedule positions have been entered as described above, you are ready to begin entering an employee schedule. Select Payroll / Edit Weekly Schedule to enter a schedule. The default date of the schedule should be the end of the upcoming payroll period. Correct the date if necessary and select OK.

Note: If the date is incorrect, select Settings / Payroll Setup / Payroll Settings and correct the starting date of the current pay period.

Selecting A Schedule


The first time you enter a schedule, you need to tell Aspect which employees belong on the schedule.


Make sure to press the Save button so you will not have to do this the next time you enter the schedule.

After opening a schedule, Aspect displays a grid containing all active employees that may be included on the schedule.

Normally, you will want to limit the display to show only the employees on a particular schedule. For example, you might limit the display to show only bartenders or wait staff. To do this, select Edit / Display Options or press the binoculars on the toolbar. Scroll through the list of displays and highlight the display named "Schedule - Worksheet" where Schedule is the name of the schedule that you wish to work with. For example, highlight "Bar - Worksheet".

If this is the first time that you have entered schedules, you will need to tell Aspect how to determine which employees belong on a particular schedule (in this case, the Bar schedule). To do this, press the Custom button and turn on the check box labeled "Only employees who can work" and select Bar from the drop-down list. You are telling Aspect to only display employees who can work the Bar job code. Press the Save button and Ok.

Entering Shifts

To enter a shift, double-click an empty box on the schedule. After selecting a position for the shift, Aspect fills in the job code, rate, time in and time out for you.

Press the Tab key to move through the fields in the window and adjust the time in and out if necessary.

Press the Ok button to save the shift.

Double-click on the box for the next day and continue adding shifts for the employee until all shifts have been scheduled. Notice that when you enter the next shift, Aspect automatically fills in the position based on the last position that you entered for the employee.

Note: If Aspect does not automatically fill in job code and time in/out when you select a position, check the default settings you entered for the position in Settings / Payroll Setup / Schedule Positions. Aspect may also fail to initialize the rate properly if an employee is not set up on to work the selected job code on your POS system.

Entering Double-Shifts

To add a second shift for an employee on a particular day, double-click on the employee's name. Aspect will open a new window showing scheduled shifts for the employee.

To add a shift in this window, press the Insert button and enter a date for the shift. Notice that you can schedule two shifts on the same day by entering two shifts, each with the same date. An employee can be scheduled for up to 3 shifts on a single day.

Press Ok to close the window and return to the schedule. If you added a double shift for the employee, you will notice that the employee now has two lines in the schedule. You can add additional double shifts for the employee directly from the schedule.

Reviewing Total Hours & Pay

After shifts have been entered for each employee, you can see the total number of hours and total pay scheduled each day by selecting Edit / Display Options.

Scroll through the list of displays and click once on the display named "Schedule - Totals" where Schedule is the name of the schedule you wish to view. Next, press the Custom button and turn on the checkbox labeled "Only employees scheduled on" and select the correct schedule from the drop-down list. Press the Save button to save the display settings and then the Ok button to return to the schedule. Aspect will now display the totals hours and pay for each employee. Total hours and pay for each day are displayed at the bottom of the screen.

Entering Budgets

To enter budgets, select Edit / Budget. Aspect will open a new window showing totals for the schedule you have entered, your budget and the variance between the two figures. Budgets are entered by day for each schedule. For example, you will enter a Bar budget for Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, etc.

To enter or change a budget, double-click the line containing the budget and enter budgeted pay for the schedule on the selected day. Press the Tab key to enter budgeted hours and select Ok to save the budget.

You can change the display from budgeted pay to budgeted hours and visa versa by selecting Edit / Display Options and double-clicking on a different display.

Printing The Schedule

When you are ready to print the schedule, select Edit / Display Options and double-click on the display named "Schedule - Schedule" where Schedule is the name of the schedule you wish to print. For example, double-click on "Bar - Schedule". Only employees that have shifts on the selected schedule will be displayed. To print the schedule, select File / Print.

Saving The Schedule


Use this feature to automatically save your work every few minutes.

It is important to note that changes made to the weekly schedule are not saved until you exit the schedule. This means that a system crash or power failure can cause you to lose a significant amount of work.

To prevent this, use the auto-save feature to automatically save your work every few minutes. To enable the auto-save feature, select Edit / Auto Save or press the right mouse button on any record and select Auto Save.

The Auto Save window is used to specify how often the schedule should be saved. For example, a value of five will cause the schedule to be saved every five minutes. Enter a value of zero to disable the Auto Save feature.

Importing A Schedule

If you are starting with a blank schedule, you may wish to import a previous schedule and modify it for the upcoming week.

To do this, select Edit / Import Previous Schedule. Select the schedule to import and the ending date of the week to import from. You may also choose to add to or replace the existing schedule. If you choose to replace the existing schedule, the current schedule will be completely deleted and replaced with the imported schedule.

Important: If you choose to replace the existing schedule, the entire schedule will be erased and replaced by the import, even if you have filtered the display to include only particular employees. For example, if you are working on a Bar schedule and you import from a previous week with the "replace existing schedule" option turned on, you will replace not only the Bar schedule, but the Wait, Kitchen and any other schedules as well. This is true even if you only import the Bar shifts from a previous week. Be sure not to erase another person's work when you import!