Bill Agreement Header

The bill agreement header defines the basic attributes of the bill agreement and groups together the bill rate rules that determine the rate at which a client will be billed for time worked by a payee of the agency.

The agreement header defines the following characteristics of an agreement:

• validity dates of the agreement

• hierarchy level and hierarchy value to which the agreement applies

• status of the agreement

• country that owns the agreement

• bill rate type of the agreement.

Each of these is described below.

Validity Dates

An agreement has a validity start and end date, defining the period for which the agreement is valid. The validity dates of an agreement cannot overlap with that of another agreement assigned to the same agreement hierarchy level and hierarchy value (for more information, see Hierarchy Level and Hierarchy Value below). The end date of the validity period can be left blank if an agreement is to remain valid indefinitely.

In order for an agreement to be applicable to a job order, the validity period of the agreement must span the entire length of the job order.

Hierarchy Level and Hierarchy Value

The hierarchy level determines the level of the agreement hierarchy to which the agreement belongs. The hierarchy value is the actual object to which the agreement is assigned at the selected hierarchy level. For example, if the agreement is assigned to the brand level of the agreement hierarchy, the hierarchy value is the name of the agency brand to which the agreement applies.

Hierarchy Group

An agreement can also be assigned to a hierarchy group, which is an additional, customisable category that can be used in conjunction with hierarchy levels and hierarchy values to match agreements to job orders. For example, in addition to being assigned to an agreement hierarchy level and hierarchy value, a bill agreement may also be assigned to a hierarchy group. To determine which bill agreements can be assigned to a job order, the system searches the agreement hierarchy based on a combination of hierarchy level, hierarchy value and hierarchy group to find a matching bill agreement.

If a match is not found based the combination hierarchy level, hierarchy value and hierarchy group, the system will perform a second parse of the hierarchy for a match based on hierarchy level and hierarchy value only.

It is not mandatory to assign an agreement to a hierarchy group and you can only assign an agreement to a hierarchy group if hierarchy group functionality is enabled in Maintenance> Hierarchy > Country > Hierarchy Group for the country to which the agreement header is assigned.

Status

An agreement header has a status flag that determines if the agreement is pending or released. A pending agreement is one that is not currently active. This state allows an agreement to be configured but prevents it from being applied by Rates and Rules until the agreement is ready to be used. Once an agreement is configured correctly, the status flag on the corresponding agreement header can be changed to Released, thereby allowing Rates and Rules to apply the agreement were applicable.

The status of any new agreement created defaults to Pending.

Country

An agreement must be assigned to a country within the country/brand/region/office hierarchy. This determines which maintenance items, such as pay codes, can be applied to the agreement. For example, if the agreement is assigned to the country of Sweden, all pay codes assigned to the country of Sweden can be selected within the agreement.

Note that this is not the same as assigning the agreement to a country within the agreement hierarchy (see Hierarchy Level and Hierarchy Value above).

Note also that the selected country cannot be changed once an agreement has been saved.

Bill Rate Type

The bill rate type determines if the bill agreement is a rate-based agreement or a manual agreement. A rate-based agreement is one whereby the agreement defines the bill rate, which cannot be changed on the job order in Recruitment Manager.

A manual agreement is one whereby the agreement defines a default bill rate that can be changed manually on a job order in Recruitment Manager.

When the rate type is set to Manual in the agreement header, an option can be set to prevent users, who do not have the relevant security permission, to edit the bill rate below the default bill rate, as defined by the bill agreement. However, users without the security permission will still be able to edit the rate to a value greater than the default rate.

Use Supplementary Rates for Oncosts

A Use Supplementary Rates for Oncosts flag can be enabled on a bill agreement header to indicate that bill oncosts for pay items, which are paid as a result of interpretation against the pay agreement, can be calculated using the supplementary rates method of oncost calculation. Where this method of oncosts calculation is used, the pay rate of a supplementary pay code is used in the calculation of an oncost instead of the pay rate of the pay code that was actually paid.

The supplementary rates oncost calculation method will only be used if the option is enabled on the agreement header and all of the following conditions also apply:

• the Use Supplementary Rates for Oncost Calculation option is enabled for the oncost rate that is used in the oncost calculation

• the pay code that was paid is linked to a supplementary pay code on the corresponding timesheet end date and that supplementary pay code exists in the rates matrix for the corresponding job order.

For more information about the supplementary rate oncost calculation method, see Pay Code Maintenance.