Batch Hour Entry

What is it and what is it for?

Instead of opening each employee's Hour Entry separately, this screen lets you build a single table for all the employees of a date, a payroll type and (optionally) a supervisor, entering for each one how many hours of each type they worked (regular, overtime, night shift, etc., based on the hour types your company has enabled for batch entry), plus the service, unit and cost centers that apply.

Every employee line starts out Pending and does not create any hour entry by itself. A user with authorization rights must review and Authorize the lines (one, several, or all at once); at that point AdmCloud creates, for each combination of employee and cost center, an already-authorized Hour Entry, and links that line to the generated document. Lines can also be Rejected or sent back to Pending Authorization if they were rejected by mistake.

The main list can be viewed two ways without leaving the screen: All (one row per batch document, with customizable columns) and Pending Authorization (one row per employee, showing each one's hour detail for bulk authorization). Switch between them with the links above the table.

How to use it step by step

1. Create a new document with the "New" button and set its Subsidiary, Date, Payroll Type and, if needed, the responsible Supervisor and the Application Date (the pay period these hours apply to).
2. Add one line per employee: type or search for the Employee; AdmCloud automatically fills in their active Labor Contract and, when the contract has them defined, its location, business line, department, division and project.
3. Enter the hours for each type in the matching columns (for example "25% Overtime"). You must indicate at least one hour type with a quantity above zero per employee.
4. Fill in the Service and Unit if your company distributes these hours against a specific service, and adjust the Quantity and cost centers if the employee worked somewhere different from their contract's default.
5. Check "Lunch" if that employee is entitled to the lunch subsidy that day (this requires the subsidy's concept and amount to already be configured in Payroll Preferences).
6. Save the document. All lines are saved in Pending status.
7. Authorize the lines from the document's detail screen or from the "Pending Authorization" list variant: check the boxes of the employees to approve and click Authorize. AdmCloud creates the Hour Entry (and the lunch subsidy concept, if applicable) for each authorized employee.

Key capabilities

• Individual or bulk authorization: select one or several employee lines (even from different documents) and authorize, reject or send them back to pending in a single action.
• Background processing for large batches: if you authorize more than 5 employees at once, AdmCloud queues the work and processes it on the Processes screen, so it doesn't block your session.
• Customizable columns on the "All" list: choose and reorder which columns to see (subsidiary, number, reference, dates, payroll type, supervisor, status, created by) and save your favorite layouts.
• Dedicated reports: a "Hours Worked Summary by Employee" and a "Detailed" report, both filterable by date, subsidiary, supervisor, location, department, division, business line, project and employee.
• Attachments: you can attach supporting files (for example, the signed timesheet) to each document.
• Custom fields and forms: you can add your own fields to the form, if your plan allows it.

Validations when saving and authorizing

• Recording in subsidiaries marked as read-only is not allowed.
• Payroll Type is required and must be a valid one.
• Application Date is required and cannot exceed the day limit configured in Payroll Preferences for the corresponding pay period (first or second half of the month).
• Duplicate entries are blocked for the same employee, the same date, the same location and the same supervisor while another still-valid (non-rejected) entry already exists with that same detail.
• Each employee line must have at least one hour type with a quantity above zero.
• The employee, labor contract, service, unit, location, business line, department, division and project entered must exist and be active.
• Once saved, the document's subsidiary cannot be changed.
• The Payroll Type cannot be changed once the document has at least one authorized line.
• An already-authorized line becomes read-only: it cannot be edited or re-authorized, and the whole document cannot be deleted or voided while it has authorized lines.
• Already-authorized lines cannot be selected to authorize, reject or send back to pending again.
• The lunch subsidy requires prior setup: if you authorize a line with "Lunch" checked, Payroll Preferences must already have the subsidy's concept and amount defined; otherwise the authorization is rejected with a message explaining what's missing.

Key fields

Availability

• Requires the Enterprise plan with the Payroll module active for your company.
• This feature must also be enabled as a special feature for your account; if you don't see it available, request it from support.
• Access is controlled by the "Batch Hour Entry" permission; that same permission's "Authorize" level controls who can approve, reject or send employee lines back to pending.

Tips and common mistakes