Using Pay Templates in ClickTime Australia | Streamline Payroll & Award Compliance

Creating Pay Templates

Pay Templates in ClickTime Australia let you automate payroll calculations in line with Australian award interpretations. By defining rules for specific days, times, and pay categories — including ordinary hours, weekend rates, night spans, and public holidays — you can ensure compliance, improve payroll accuracy, and simplify shift costing. This guide explains how to create, customise, and apply pay templates, handle shifts that span pay cycles, and generate detailed payroll costing breakdowns.


What a Pay Template Is — and What It Actually Does

A Pay Template in ClickTime is a set of pay rules that automatically calculates employee pay according to Australian award conditions. It ensures that every hour worked is assigned to the correct pay category, rate, and export code, without manual intervention.

Think of it as a smart engine that reads an employee’s timesheet and breaks it into the correct pay components..


Core Purpose of Pay Templates

Pay Templates exist to:

  • Ensure payroll compliance with Australian awards and state/federal rules

  • Automatically segregate hours into correct pay categories (ordinary, weekend, night span, public holiday, overtime, etc.)

  • Improve shift costing and budgeting accuracy

  • Handle complex scenarios, including shifts that cross midnight or cross into the next pay cycle


What a Pay Template Contains

A Pay Template is made up of multiple rules, and each rule defines:

  • Which days it applies to

  • What time range it covers

  • Which pay category/export code to use

  • How the rate is calculated, using one of:

    • Multiplier (e.g., 1.5× base rate)

    • Additional amount (add $X to base rate)

    • Fixed amount (override with a fixed hourly rate)

Rules must cover the full 24 hours of each day to ensure complete segregation.


How Pay Templates Actually Work (Behind the Scenes)

When an employee submits a timesheet, ClickTime:

  1. Reads the start and end time of the shift

  2. Matches each minute of the shift to the correct rule in the Pay Template

  3. Splits the shift into segments based on rule boundaries

  4. Assigns each segment to the correct pay category/export code

  5. Exports the data to payroll with the correct breakdown



Handling Shifts That Cross Pay Cycles

If a shift crosses into the next day but the pay cycle ends, ClickTime intelligently groups the hours into the correct cycle.

Example:

  • Pay cycle: Mon–Sun

  • Employee works Sunday 23:00 → Monday 06:00

ClickTime will:

  • Count 23:00–24:00 as Sunday (Sun Rate)

  • Count 00:00–06:00 as Night Span, but still attach it to Sunday’s payroll because the pay cycle ends on Sunday

This ensures the employee is paid correctly within the correct pay period.


Exporting & Payroll Integration

When exporting timesheets:

  • Pay Templates determine how hours are split

  • Export Codes determine how they map to payroll items

  • The export file shows a fully segregated breakdown of all hours

You can also generate a Payroll Costing Breakdown Report (Excel) for detailed analysis.

​
CREATING A PAY TEMPLATE

You can assign different pay templates to staff members. For example, Casual staff can be assigned to the Casual Pay template, and the same goes for Part-Time, etc.

To add a new pay template:

1.      Go to app setting > Payroll setting

2.      Click on the ‘pay templates ‘tab on the left-hand side

3.      Select ‘Add New’

4.      Select ‘Pay rate template ‘from the drop-down menu 





Defining Rules for Your Pay Template

Rules determine day, time payrates will apply, in addition to which Pay Category to be used for the rule . Here's how to define rules:

1. Click on  Add New Rule  or similar.
2. Choose the  days of the week  the rule applies to.
3. Set the  start and end times  for the rule.
4. Choose from three pay value options for each rule:
  1. Multiplier:                  Increase the employee's base hourly rate by a factor (e.g., 1.5x).
  2. Additional Amount:  Add a fixed dollar amount to the base hourly rate.
  3. Fixed Amount:          Set a specific fixed payment for the time period.
5. Select or create the Payroll category / export code for this rule.
6. Ensure that the  rules cover the entire 24 hours  for each day of the week. This ensures accurate and comprehensive compensation calculation.
7. Add as many rules as you like to suit your requirements.
8. Save the pay template




Notes
Public Holiday Rule

Keep in mind that when creating a rule for a public holiday, such as applying a different pay rate and assigning a specific pay category like 'PH' or 'PHoliday' for double-time pay, it must be added as a separate rule. This means you cannot combine a public holiday rule with any other days, such as Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and so on.

Exporting and Segregating Timesheets

When exporting timesheets to your payroll system, Pay Templates and export categories work in harmony to segregate employee hours worked according to the defined rules. For example, let's consider the following Pay Template:



And let us assume we have a weekly Pay Cycle Starting Monday to Sunday 
Suppose an employee has worked the following hours during the week:

Day
Date
Site/ Job
timesheet hours
Total Hours
Mon
23/10
Bankstown Airport
00:00 - 07:30
 (7.30 Hrs)
Tue
24/10
Haymarket
10:00 - 11:00 
(1.00 Hrs)
Sat 
28/10
00 Market St
12:00 - 13:00 
(1.00 Hrs)
Sun 
29/10
1st festival mall,
23:00 - 06:00
(7.00 Hrs)


The system will segregate the employee's timesheet based on the Pay Template rules and export categories defined, resulting in a breakdown like this:

Day
Date
Site / Job
Payroll Category/ Export Code
Description/ Notes
Mon*
23/10
Bankstown Airport
Night Span
6.00 hours  for work hours (00:00 - 06:00)
Mon*
23/10
Bankstown Airport
Base Hourly
1.30 Hours for work hours (06:00 - 07:30)
Tue
24/10
Haymarket,
Base Hourly
1.00 hour  for work hours (10:00 - 11:00)
Sat
28/10
100 Market St
Sat Rate
1.00 Hour for work hours (12:00 - 13:00)
Sun*
29/10
1st festival mall
Sun Rate
1.00 hour for work hours (00:00 - 01:00)
Sun*
29/10
1st festival mall
Night Span
6.00 Hours for work hours  (0.00 to 06:00)


Please notice how the hours have been segregated for Monday and Sunday according to the Pay Template rules:

Monday Hours Segregation: 
The system has split the timesheet into two parts:
  6.00 Hrs for the Night Span, covering hours worked from 00:00 to 06:00.
 1.30 hrs for the Base Hourly, covering hours worked from 06:00 to 07:30.

Sunday Hours Segregation:

Sun Rate: The system segregates 1.00 hour, covering the time worked from 23:00 to 24:00, categorized under the 'Sun Rate' pay category.
Night Span: It also segregates 6.00 hours, which technically falls under Monday's working hours (00:00 to 06:00), categorized under the 'Night Span' pay category.

You might wonder why the system has included Monday's work in the Sunday timesheet record. This approach is designed to accommodate the pay cycle structure. In this scenario, where the pay cycle ends on Sunday, the system groups Monday's hours with Sunday to ensure that the employee is paid for the entire duration of the current pay cycle, which spans from Monday to Sunday.
This intelligent handling of shifts that cross pay cycle boundaries helps employees receive their rightful compensation for all hours worked within the specified pay cycle.
This methodology simplifies payroll processing, ensuring that employees are accurately compensated based on their actual work hours while adhering to the structure of the pay cycle.


Payroll Costing Breakdown Report
ClickTime provides you with a convenient option to generate a detailed breakdown report of the employee timesheet in Excel format. To access this report, follow these steps:

  1. Go to the Export screen 
  2. Select the desired period or pay cycle you are interested in.
  3. on the left side of te screen, filter and select the employees you want to include in the report.
  4. Click the [Export selected items] button.
  5. A new popup window will appear.
  6. From the first drop-down titled "Export to," select "Payroll Costing Breakdown Report."
This report provides you with a comprehensive breakdown of each employee's timesheet data, simplifying payroll management and offering valuable insights for cost analysis.
Click on the below sample of the Excel Breakdown Report


Use multipliers

When creating rules, you'll see there is the option to use multipliers or flat hourly rates. We recommend using multipliers where possible. This is because multipliers tend to remain consistent across employee classifications and over time, whereas rates change more frequently (ie EOFY, birthdays, promotions). Multipliers typically won't require as much updating, and from a payroll perspective, this means fewer pay items are required in your payroll software.



Pay Template Rules
1. Deletion of Pay Templates:
   * Pay templates cannot be deleted if there are active or inactive employees assigned to the template.
   * Pay templates can be deleted only when there are no employees assigned to them.

2. Inactivation of Pay Templates:
   * Pay templates can be made inactive even if there are inactive employees assigned to the template.
   * Pay templates cannot be made inactive if there are any active employees still assigned to them.
     In such cases, users need to remove or reassign the     employees to a different template.
3. Reactivation of Employees:
   * When an employee is made active again, they will be associated with their last assigned pay template.
   * If the last assigned pay template is not active, the employee will be assigned to the default
     pay template,  which is "Fixed Hourly Rate All Days."




Customizing Pay Templates for Each Employee
Check this help article on how to customize the pay template based on the worksite for  individual employees  


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