Managing employment details, contracts & pay
This guide explains how to set up and maintain your staff members' employment contracts in Florence: adding a new starter, adding and editing contracts, changing pay, hours and leave, controlling who can access contract and pay data, and what happens behind the scenes when you make those changes.
Before you start: the key ideas
A few concepts make everything else easier to follow.
Staff member – the person. One person can have more than one contract at the same time.
Contract – a set of employment terms for that person: their pay rate, contracted hours, worker type, the roles they do and the locations they cover, plus their leave and any pay uplifts.
Pay rate code – the pay "template" set up for your company. Each pay rate needs its own contract. Roles that are paid the same rate can share one contract; a role on a different rate needs a separate contract.
Contract period – a dated "version" of a contract. Every time you edit a contract from a date onwards, Florence keeps the old terms as history and starts a new period. This means you always have an accurate record of what the terms were on any given day (important for payroll and leave).
Contracted hours – the hours per week the person is expected to work on that contract. If they have other contracts, these hours are added on top — the number on each contract is not their grand total.
Worker type / tier – Permanent, Bank, or Agency. This affects how pay and leave are calculated.
Leave allowance – annual leave, sick leave, etc. Annual leave is pro-rata to contracted hours, so it recalculates when contracted hours change.
Pay entitlements (uplifts) – extras on top of the base rate, e.g. a fixed amount per hour, a multiplier (like 1.5×), or an override rate for certain conditions. E.g. when a worker exceeds a 40hr week they are paid at x1.5 rate.
Effective date – the date a change starts to apply. Most edits are applied from a date you choose onwards, rather than rewriting the past.
Primary (payroll) location – the one location a contract's pay is administered against, even if the person works across several locations.
1. Adding a new starter
Go to Staff and choose Add staff.
Enter the person's details. Some additional personal details (date of birth, address, national insurance/social security number, etc.) are needed to generate contracts, so it's worth completing these up front.
[Optional] New staff begin in Draft, then move to Pending approval. A manager needs to approve the worker before they can be activated and appear on any schedule. Please speak to your Account Manager if you'd like this enabled on your account.
Once the person exists, go to their Employment details and add a contract (next section). A staff member with no contract can't be assigned roles or shifts — they won't appear as active until a contract is in place.
A new starter isn't "finished" until they have at least one active contract — that's what links them to a pay rate, roles, locations, hours and leave. You cannot be rostered without an active contract.
2. Adding a contract (the Add contract wizard)
From the staff member's Employment details → Contracts, choose Add contract. The wizard walks through these steps:
Worker type – Permanent, Bank or Agency. This affects how pay and leave are worked out.
Hours and roles – set the contracted hours per week, choose the role(s) this contract covers, set whether breaks are paid, and set the contract start date.
If the person already has hours on another contract, Florence shows a reminder of the combined total (e.g. "already has 20 hrs/week on another contract – that'd make 37.5 hrs/week in total").
Locations – choose which location(s) the contract covers, and set a primary (payroll) location.
Pay rate – choose the pay rate code and enter the hourly rate (gross, before deductions). Pay rate codes are set up for your company during implementation — speak to your Account Manager with any questions. Remember: one pay rate per contract.
Leave allowances – your company default allowances are added automatically (e.g. holiday, statutory). Remove any that don't apply, or add more. You can also edit the figures — for example, reducing the allowance for a part-time worker, or setting a remaining balance for someone joining partway through the year or migrating from another system.
Pay entitlements – any uplifts (company defaults are pre-filled here too, e.g. Christmas overtime, bank holiday double time). Remove entitlements that don't apply, or click Edit to adjust one (e.g. changing a bank holiday uplift from time-and-a-half to double time).
Review – check everything, then confirm to create the contract.
Good to know
A location + role can only be on one contract at a time. If you pick a combination that's already covered by another contract, Florence blocks it and asks you to remove the clash.
If no leave allowances or pay entitlements are set up for your company, you'll see a prompt to contact your account manager to configure them.
The contract's primary (payroll) location is always visible at the top of the contract page — this is a quick way to confirm where a worker's pay is being administered, even if they work across multiple locations.
3. Adding another role or pay rate to someone
Because each pay rate lives on its own contract, the way you "add a pay rate" is simply to add another contract for the same person (using Add contract / Add role). For example:
A carer who picks up bank shifts at a higher rate → give them a second contract on the bank pay rate.
Someone doing two different roles at the same rate → these can sit on one contract (add both roles in the Hours and roles step).
Someone doing two roles at different rates → they need two contracts.
Their contracted hours across contracts add together for their overall commitment.
4. Editing a contract
From the contract, choose Edit contract. You'll first pick what you want to edit (worker tier, contracted hours, roles, locations, leave allowance, pay entitlements), then:
Choose an effective date — "When would you like to apply these updates from?" The change applies from that date onwards. Everything before it stays exactly as it was.
Florence works through only the relevant follow-on steps (for example, it only shows the leave recalculation if you changed hours, or the shift-resolution step if you removed a role/location).
A final Review edits screen summarises every change ("Contracted hours updated from X to Y", "Role removed", "3 shifts moved to open", etc.) before you confirm.
What editing a contract actually does (the important bit)
Your history is preserved. Rather than overwriting the contract, Florence "closes off" the current terms the day before your effective date and opens a new period from the effective date. Payroll and leave for past dates are unaffected.
You can't back-date past finalised payroll. The earliest date you can edit from is the day after the last shift that's already been through a finalised payroll run. This protects pay that has already been paid.
Watch for scheduled changes. If the contract already has a change queued for a future date, editing will warn you: "This contract already has a change scheduled for [date]. Continuing will overwrite that scheduled change." Similarly, if terms changed on dates within your chosen range, Florence warns that saving will replace everything from your chosen date onwards, including those changes.
Future shifts are kept in step. Changing the worker type or roles/locations updates the person's future approved shifts so pay is calculated correctly, and triggers a re-match so the rota stays accurate.
If the worker already has shifts rostered against the contract, changing the pay rate can create a new contract rather than a new period on the existing one — Florence automatically ends the current contract and opens a new one with the updated rate. If you edit a contract with no rostered shifts yet, the change is applied as a new period within the same contract as described above.
5. What happens if I change contracted hours
Two things follow automatically when you change contracted hours:
a) Scheduled shifts that no longer fit ("Conflicting shifts") If you reduce hours, some already-scheduled shifts may push the person above their new weekly contracted hours. Florence flags these: "[Name] has 3 scheduled shifts that will push them above the new weekly contracted hours. Please rectify this in the rota." These aren't removed for you — you resolve them on the rota.
b) Leave is recalculated (pro-rata) Annual leave is proportional to contracted hours, so the allowance is recalculated for the new hours (the standard calculation is contracted hours × 5.6 weeks, unless a specific figure is set). You'll see a clear before/after of the allowance, remaining and used.
If the new allowance is higher, the balance simply goes up.
If the new allowance is lower and the person has already taken more than the new allowance (they're "overdrawn"), Florence asks how to handle it:
Allow the leave – no deduction: honour what they've already taken; nothing is recovered.
Deduct value from next payroll run: recover the value of the over-taken hours in the next payroll run (Florence shows the hours and the £ value).
The following year's allowance is updated to match the new hours too, keeping future years consistent.
6. What happens if I change the leave allowance
Leave allowances are tied to the contract. You can remove allowances that no longer apply or add new ones from your company's set.
An allowance that has leave already booked against it can't simply be removed — you'll need to handle that booked leave first.
Because annual leave is pro-rata, changing hours (section 5) and changing the allowance are linked — Florence keeps the numbers consistent and always shows you the before/after and any overdrawn choice before you commit.
7. Removing a role or location (resolving "orphaned" shifts)
If you remove a role or a location from a contract, any shifts already scheduled under it are left without cover. Florence stops and asks you to resolve conflicting shifts, choosing one action for them:
Move to open – unassign the person; the shift goes back to open shifts for someone else to pick up.
A different contract – reassign the shifts to another of the person's contracts (you choose which).
Cancel the shifts – remove them from the rota.
You can't finish the edit until these are resolved, so nothing silently falls off the rota.
8. Ending a contract vs offboarding someone
There are three distinct actions — pick the one that matches the situation:
Terminate contract – ends one contract (e.g. they're dropping a role but staying employed). You record a reason (resignation, end of contract, redundancy, etc.) and an optional note, set the last working date, then reassign scheduled shifts (cancel or move to open) and review the remaining leave balance. Leave allowances shared with other active contracts are not affected.
Terminate employment (offboarding) – ends the person's employment entirely: they come off the rota and can no longer pick up any shifts. Same steps (reason, reassign shifts, final leave balance), but applied across the board. Their final leave balance is calculated on their final day for their last payroll.
Delete contract – removes a contract entirely. This is for correcting mistakes, cannot be undone, and is different from terminating (which keeps the record and end-dates it). You can only do this before a shift has been booked against that contract.
9. Controlling access to contracts & pay
Contract and pay rate details are sensitive, so you can control who's allowed to view or edit them:
From the staff list or a contract, open the three-dot menu and choose user permissions.
Use this to decide which location managers or admins can access the Contracts & Pay page, make edits, or view pay rate details.
This is worth reviewing per role — for example, you may want most location managers to manage rotas without seeing pay rates.
10. Quick reference — common questions
Question | Answer |
Can one person have several contracts? | Yes — e.g. permanent + bank, or different roles/rates. Their contracted hours add together. |
Why won't it let me put two roles on one contract? | They're on different pay rates. Different rates need separate contracts; same rate can share one. |
Why is a location/role greyed out or blocked? | That location + role is already on another of the person's contracts. It can only live on one at a time. |
Why can't I set my change to start earlier? | You can't back-date before the day after the last finalised-payroll shift — that pay is already settled. |
I reduced hours — why is Florence warning about shifts? | Some booked shifts now exceed the new weekly hours. Adjust them on the rota. |
Did changing hours change their holiday? | Yes — annual leave is pro-rata, so it recalculated. Check the before/after and the overdrawn choice if shown. |
What's the difference between deleting and terminating a contract? | Terminate = end it properly with a date and reason (kept as history). Delete = remove it entirely (mistakes only; can't be undone). |
Where can I see who's paying a worker's payroll? | Check the primary (payroll) location shown at the top of their contract — this is the one location their pay is always administered against, however many locations they work across. |
Who can I ask to restrict who sees pay rates? | Use the three-dot menu → user permissions on the contract or staff list to control access per role. |
If leave allowances or pay entitlements aren't set up for your company, contact your account manager to configure them before adding contracts.