# Arbitrate shifts for payroll

Payroll Arbitration turns each worked shift into a pay and charge record. Run it over a week, let it accept the shifts that ran to time, review the ones it flags, correct times or rates where needed, then mark records paid and invoiced, which locks them. It is open to Admin and Manager, and covers your own employees; agency officers only where your deployment has switched that on.

## What do I need before I start?

**An Admin or Manager login.** **Arbitration** is under **Scheduling** for those two roles only; anyone else who opens it reads *Arbitration requires Admin or Manager role.*

**Shifts that have finished.** A shift still to come, or one booked on but not yet booked off, is skipped and picked up by a later run. Cancelled shifts and no-shows never get a pay record.

**Pay and charge rates.** Each record takes the employee's pay rate and charge rate from their **Payroll** tab at the moment it is written, falling back to the site's standard rate where the employee has no charge rate. Set them before you run.

## How do I run arbitration for a week?

1. Go to **Scheduling → Arbitration**. The page opens on the last seven days.
2. Move the range with the arrows either side of the dates, and choose **7 days**, **14 days**, **28 days** or **31 days** from the menu beside them. **Reset** goes back to the last seven days.
3. Press **Run Arbitration** and choose **Use Actual Times** or **Use Expected Times**:
   - **Use Actual Times** pays what book-on and book-off recorded, and flags any shift more than 15 minutes out at either end.
   - **Use Expected Times** pays the scheduled times for every shift that finished. A shift booked on or off more than 15 minutes out is still flagged for review.
4. A message reports what the run did, and the table fills with one row per shift.

Running again over the same range does not overwrite records that already exist, so you can run it as often as you like. The rules it applies — what counts as on time, what is skipped and what is dropped — are set out in [Scheduled vs actual vs arbitrated times](/docs/concepts/scheduled-actual-and-arbitrated-times).

![Payroll Arbitration for 07 Sept – 13 Sept 2026 (7 days), with Export and Run Arbitration buttons at the top right. A row of status counts reads Auto Arbitrated 29, Manual Advised 1, Manual Complete 0, Dropped 0, Drop Confirmed 0, Paid 1, Invoiced 0, Paid & Invoiced 0. Five tiles follow: Total 31, Workers 8, Sites 3, Total Pay £4,926.40 and Total Charge £7,268.00. Under a search box, an All Employees menu, an All Sites menu and a Refresh button, the table's first rows are Monday 07 Sept: Siobhan Mullan at Trafford Park Logistics Hub, flagged and Manual Advised, expected 06:00 – 18:00, actual 06:25 – 18:25 marked 12h (±25min), arbitrated 06:25 – 18:25, pay rate £13.10, charge £19.75, total pay £157.20; Marcus Ademola at Meadowhall Distribution Centre, Auto Arbitrated by System, 07:00 – 19:00, £158.40; and Priya Raghunathan, Paid, arbitrated by Alison Hartley, £158.40. Auto Arbitrated and Manual Advised rows have a tick, a pencil and a menu; the Paid row has only the pencil and the menu.](/docs/img/arbitration-week.png)

## What do the statuses mean?

| Status | What it means | What you can do |
|---|---|---|
| **Auto Arbitrated** | Ran within 15 minutes of schedule, or had no times and was paid as scheduled | Accept, change times, drop, mark paid or invoiced |
| **Manual Advised** | Flagged — book-on or book-off more than 15 minutes out | Accept, change times, drop |
| **Manual Complete** | Somebody has reviewed it | Mark paid or invoiced |
| **Dropped** | Will not be paid: the employee declined it, or you dropped it | Confirm the drop |
| **Drop Confirmed** | The drop is final | Nothing |
| **Paid** | Exported to payroll — locked | Mark it invoiced |
| **Invoiced** | Billed to the client — locked | Mark it paid |
| **Paid & Invoiced** | Both — locked | Nothing |

The status chips above the table count each status in the range; the tiles total the workers, sites, pay and charge.

## How do I review a flagged shift?

Work down the **Manual Advised** rows. For each one, either:

- press the tick (**Accept**) to accept the record as it stands, or
- open the **⋯** menu and choose **Use Actual Times** or **Use Expected Times**, or **Drop Shift** if it should not be paid at all.

Accepting, or choosing either set of times, moves the record to **Manual Complete** and clears its flag. A dropped record needs **Confirm Drop** before it is final.

## How do I correct one shift by hand?

1. Press the pencil (**Edit Shift**) on its row. The **Arbitrate Shift** dialog opens.
2. Change what needs changing:
   - **Pay Rate** and **Charge Rate** for this shift only;
   - **Minimum Hours Paid** and **Minimum Hours Charged**;
   - **Override Multiplier**, if this shift should not use the usual pay multipliers;
   - **Break Time To Be Paid** and **Break Length In Minutes**;
   - **Include In Payroll** and **Include In Invoice**, to leave the shift out of one or the other;
   - the **Payroll** and **Charge** start and end times in the table at the bottom. **Use Payroll Length For Charging** makes the charge times follow the payroll times.
3. Set **New Status** — **Manual Arbitration Complete** once you are done — and add **Notes** if the change needs explaining.
4. Press **Save**.

![The Arbitrate Shift dialog for Siobhan Mullan, number 3108, at Trafford Park Logistics Hub, service Manned Guarding, status Manual Advised, with New Status set to Manual Arbitration Complete. The left column has Use Payroll Length For Charging unticked and Include In Invoice ticked; the right has Ad Hoc Overtime Rate unticked, Pay Rate 13.10, Minimum Hours Paid 0, Charge Rate 19.75, Minimum Hours Charged 0, Include In Payroll ticked, Current Multiplier(s) 1, an empty Override Multiplier, Break Time To Be Paid ticked and Break Length In Minutes 0. Below, the times table shows Expected 2026-09-07 06:00 to 18:00, 12:00; Actual 06:25 to 18:25, 12:00; and Payroll 06:25 to 18:25, 12:00, each editable time with minus, swap and plus buttons.](/docs/img/arbitration-edit-dialog.png)

To reach one shift from the roster instead, right-click a completed shift and choose **Arbitrate shift**. Arbitration opens on that week with the dialog already open.

If somebody else saved the same record while your dialog was open, your save is refused with *Record was modified by another user*. Reload and make the change again.

## How do I close a pay run?

1. Arbitrate the range and clear every **Manual Advised** row.
2. Press **Export** to download the range as `arbitration-<from>-to-<to>.csv`, with expected, actual and arbitrated times, hours, rates, totals, variance and notes for each shift.
3. Once payroll has been run, choose **Mark Paid** from each record's **⋯** menu. Once the client has been billed, **Mark Invoiced**. A record marked both reads **Paid & Invoiced**.

Marking a record paid or invoiced locks it, and writes a permanent snapshot of the record as it was at that moment, so a later correction can never rewrite what a closed pay run said.

## Can I change a record after it is locked?

Only an Admin, and only with a reason. Press the pencil on a **Paid** or **Invoiced** row: the dialog asks for a **Reason for changing a paid record** — at least five characters — and **Save** stays greyed until you give one. The reason is kept in the audit trail. A Manager sees *Only an Admin can change it* instead. Accepting, changing times from the row, or dropping a locked record is still refused with *Record is locked*.

## Does it cover agency officers?

Only where your deployment has switched on officer arbitration (the `ENABLE_OFFICER_ARBITRATION` setting, off by default). With it off, a run reads no agency roster shifts and writes no officer records, so the pay run — and any invoice built from it — covers your own employees only.

## If it goes wrong

| What you see | What it means |
|---|---|
| *Arbitration requires Admin or Manager role.* | Your role cannot open the page. |
| The table is empty after a run | No shift in the range has finished yet, or they were all cancelled or no-shows. Move the range back. |
| **Total Pay** shows **–** on a row | The record has no pay rate. Set the employee's rate, then run again — a record whose pay never computed is recalculated on the next run. |
| *Record is locked* | The record is paid or invoiced. Change it from the pencil, with a reason. |
| *Record was modified by another user* | Someone else saved it first. Reload. |
| *No arbitration record for this shift yet. Run arbitration for … to create it.* | You came from the roster's **Arbitrate shift**, and no run has covered that shift. The page is already on its week: press **Run Arbitration**. |

## Related

- [Scheduled vs actual vs arbitrated times](/docs/concepts/scheduled-actual-and-arbitrated-times)
- [Export reports and payroll files](/docs/organisation/export-reports)
- [Audit trail](/docs/organisation/audit-reports)