Why were Labor Grades added and how can it benefit the company?
Labor Grades were added to SedonaOffice to provide customers with greater flexibility in assigning wage rates based on both the technician performing the work and the specific labor task being completed.
This enhancement also improves support for prevailing wage jobs. Previously, customers could assign only a single prevailing wage rate to an entire job, regardless of which technician was working on the job or what type of work they were performing. With Labor Grades, different prevailing wage rates can be applied based on the technician and labor task, resulting in more accurate job costing.
What happens to the existing tech/installer records?
The existing Tech/Installer records remain the same except for two new Labor Grade drop-downs located on the Installation Tab.
Non-Prevailing Wage Labor Grade: this is used when a job is not marked as prevailing wage.
Non-prevailing Wage labor grade is set to “N/A” for all existing technicians.
Prevailing Wage Labor Grade: this is used when a job is marked as prevailing wage.
Prevailing Wage labor grade is set to “Unspecified” for all existing technicians.
What happens to the existing prevailing wage records?
Existing Prevailing Wage records are now listed under Labor Grades.
The Prevailing Wage description is now the Labor Grade Description.
The Prevailing Wage rate is set as the Labor Grade Direct and Indirect Wage Rates. These can be adjusted as needed.
The Prevailing Wage checkbox is selected by default.
What happens to the existing Labor tasks? Are they defaulted to direct or indirect?
Existing Labor Tasks will be defaulted as a Direct Labor Type and cannot be changed.
If an existing Labor Task should be Indirect, then the existing Labor Task will need to be Inactivated and a new Labor Task created.
Once time is clocked against a Labor Task, the Labor Type (Direct or Indirect) cannot be changed.
What is the Override Wage Rate?
A new field was added to the Labor Tasks, Override Wage Rate. This field is blank.
Any amount, including 0.00, that is entered in this field will override the technician’s labor grade rates or burden rates.
What if we don’t want to use prevailing wages and set up labor grades and labor tasks?
If you do not need to track prevailing wages, do not designate the job as a prevailing wage job.
If you choose to use Labor Grades but want to keep the setup simple, you can configure the burden pay rates to match the non-prevailing wage direct wage rates.