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People & pay

Pay & overtime

The org → site → person pay-policy cascade, escalating daily and weekly overtime bands, bank-holiday premiums (× rate or +£/hr), paid vs unpaid breaks, and the recognised bank-holiday calendar.

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Pay & overtime is where you set the rules that turn raw clocked hours into pay-ready figures: overtime thresholds and multipliers, bank-holiday premiums, and how breaks are treated. It’s built as a cascade so you set sensible defaults once and only override where reality differs.

The pay-policy cascade

A pay policy can live at three levels. The most specific one that applies to a person wins, so you rarely repeat yourself.

Organisation defaults flow down to each site, and a person can override both. Most specific wins.
Organisation
Your business-wide default policy, set here on Pay & overtime — the baseline everyone inherits.
Site
A location that pays differently (e.g. a London venue) overrides the org default for its staff. Set it in Locations → Edit site → Pay & overtime for this site.
Person
An individual on a bespoke arrangement overrides both. Set it in the person’s Edit sheet under Overtime & breaks.

Inherit or customise (overrides)

On a site or person, each rule — Overtime, Bank-holiday premium and Breaks — is its own block with an Inherit / Custom switch. Left on Inherit, the block shows the value it’s inheriting (“Inherited · 1.5× after 8h”, “Inherited · Unpaid”) and changes automatically if you later change the org default. Flip to Custom to reveal the same controls described below and pin a bespoke rule for just that site or person.

Overtime bands

Turn on Pay overtime, then build a ladder of bands. WagePilot handles two windows — per day and per week — because UK teams use both.

An escalating ladder: standard to 8h, 1.5× from 8h, then 2× from 10h. Each multiplier applies to the hours past its threshold, up to the next band.
  1. 1

    Enable overtime

    Toggle Pay overtime on to reveal the Daily and Weekly band editors.

  2. 2

    Add a band

    Tap Add band under Daily overtime (or Weekly). Each band has an “After hours” threshold and a multiplier — e.g. 8 hours at 1.5×.

  3. 3

    Escalate

    Add more bands to escalate: 1.5× after 8h, then 2× after 10h. Each multiplier applies only to the hours past its threshold, up to the next band. Remove a band with the ✕.

  4. 4

    Weekly bands

    Weekly bands work the same way but on the week’s total, and they only top up hours not already paid as daily overtime — so nothing is double-counted.

  • Daily overtime is worked out per shift as the timesheet is built — hours past a daily threshold are paid at that band’s multiplier and stored on the entry.
  • Weekly overtime is reconciled across the whole week at report time, because a week’s total isn’t known until the week is done.
A 9-hour paid shift with an 8-hour daily threshold: 8h at standard rate, 1h at 1.5× — calculated automatically.

Bank-holiday premium

If you pay extra on UK bank holidays, turn on Bank-holiday premium. WagePilot already knows the standard England & Wales bank holidays, so when someone clocks in on one the premium is baked into their rate for that shift automatically — no manual flagging.

Two ways to pay it: a × rate multiplier scales the whole hourly rate, or a flat +£/hr uplift is added on top.

How it’s paid

× rate
A multiplier on the hourly rate (e.g. 1.5× on bank-holiday hours). Set the multiplier in the box below.
+ £/hr
A flat cash uplift added to the hourly rate (e.g. +£2.00/hr) on bank-holiday hours.

Overtime on the uplift (+ £/hr mode only)

Compounds
Overtime multiplies the whole uplifted rate — the +£/hr also earns overtime.
Added flat
Overtime multiplies only the base rate, and the +£/hr is paid once per hour on top.

Set whether breaks are paid with the Breaks are paid by default toggle. When breaks are unpaid, they pause the earnings clock and are subtracted from paid hours automatically — so a clocked 8-hour shift with an unpaid 30-minute break becomes 7.5 paid hours everywhere (live cost, timesheet and export) with no manual maths.

The recognised bank-holiday calendar

The Bank holidays card lists every date recognised for pay: the built-in UK calendar (England & Wales) merged with any dates you’ve added, grouped by year. The next upcoming date is highlighted with a “Next” tag; past dates are dimmed. Built-in dates are read-only; dates you add are tagged Added and can be removed.

  1. 1

    Add a missing date

    Under Add a missing date, pick the date and optionally name it (e.g. “State funeral”), then tap Add. It applies to your organisation only — not other businesses.

  2. 2

    Remove one

    Added a date by mistake? Tap the bin on any row tagged “Added”. Built-in dates can’t be removed.

Common questions

How do I pay 1.5× after 8 hours a day and 2× after 10?
Turn on Pay overtime, then under Daily overtime add a band at 8 hours × 1.5, and a second band at 10 hours × 2. Each multiplier applies only to the hours past its threshold, up to the next band, so hours 8–10 pay 1.5× and anything beyond 10 pays 2×.
What’s the difference between × rate and + £/hr for bank holidays?
× rate multiplies the whole hourly rate (e.g. 1.5× £12 = £18). + £/hr adds a flat cash uplift on top (e.g. £12 + £2 = £14). Use + £/hr when your premium is a fixed amount rather than a proportion. In + £/hr mode you also choose whether overtime compounds the uplift or is added flat.
A bank holiday is missing — how do I make sure staff are paid the premium?
Add it in Pay & overtime → Bank holidays → Add a missing date. WagePilot ships the standard England & Wales bank holidays, but one-off days are announced ad hoc and future years may not be shipped yet. Adding the date makes the premium apply for your organisation, and it only changes pay if Bank-holiday premium is enabled in your policy.
Does adding a bank holiday affect other businesses?
No. Dates you add are scoped to your organisation only. The built-in UK calendar is shared, but your additions are private to you, and only owners and managers can change them.