Overview
Staffing budgets let you set how many staffing hours a location is funded for, and then hold your rota to it.
Your budget is made up of staffing allocations — named lines such as a weekly budget for a particular role, or separate day and night cover. Each one has its own budgeted hours and the roles it covers.
Once a budget is live:
Your rota shows a budget marker on every day, so you can see at a glance where you are over.
The Staff budget panel breaks down booked against budgeted hours for each allocation.
A rota that goes over budget can't be published, until you either reduce the hours or get extra hours approved.
Extra hours can be added or requested straight from the rota, with a reason.
Actual timesheet hours that run over budget are reported, never blocked.
What's New
Staffing budgets setup: a new step in Location settings where you set the budgeted hours for each staffing allocation.
Budget markers on the rota: a per-day indicator showing whether that day is within budget.
Staff budget panel: booked, budgeted and remaining hours for every allocation, with a progress bar and an at-a-glance status.
Add or request extra hours: ask for more hours from the rota with a reason. Approvers add them immediately.
Budget requests page: review requests and see every budget adjustment across your locations.
Email notifications: approvers are emailed when a request comes in, requesters when it is decided.
Publish protection: an over-budget week can't be published, and a published shift can't be edited in a way that pushes it further over.
How a Staffing Budget Is Made Up
Your budget is a set of staffing allocations. Each allocation has:
A name — for example "Housekeeper Weekly Budget".
A budget type — Day, Night or Week.
Budgeted hours — the total hours budgeted across the week.
Staffing options — the roles that this budget covers.
Day and night times come from your location's own settings. The budget form shows them as you edit, for example "Day shifts run 07:45 to 20:00. Night shifts run 20:00 to 07:45." Whether a shift counts as day or night is decided by when it starts.
Setting Up a Staffing Budget
You'll need the relevant permission to manage staffing budgets.
Go to Location settings for the location, and under Feature setup open Staffing budgets.
Under Set staffing budgets, add an allocation.
Give it a Name, choose the Budget type (Day, Night or Week), and enter the Budgeted hours for the week.
Under Staffing options for this budget, add the roles this budget covers. Use + Add role for more than one.
Save.
At the top of the page, an Overview table summarises everything you've set up — Name, Budget type, Days it applies to, Budgeted hours and Roles — so you can check the whole budget without opening each allocation.
There's also a Budget requests button here, which takes you to the review page.
Seeing Your Budget on the Rota
Where a budget is live, each day on the rota header carries a budget marker. Days that are over budget are flagged in red.
Selecting one opens the Staff budget panel for that day, which lists every allocation with:
Hours booked against budgeted — for example "95 / 80 hrs"
A progress bar
A status of At budget, Under budget or Over budget
Note: Under budget is flagged too, not just over. It's there to show where you may be understaffed against what you've planned for, as well as where you're overspending.
Choosing which shifts count. At the top of the panel, Staffing levels calculated on switches between:
Published only — just what you've already committed to.
Published, draft & unfilled — everything currently on the rota, including drafts and unfilled slots. This is the one that matches what the publish check will use.
The panel also links to the audit trail for that week, and to Set up budgets.
Adding or Requesting Extra Hours
If a week needs more hours than the budget allows, choose Add hours to budget at the bottom of the Staff budget panel.
If a week needs more hours than the budget allows, choose Add hours to budget at the bottom of the Staff budget panel.
What happens next depends on your permissions:
If you can approve budgets, the hours are added to the location's budget effective immediately.
If you can't, your request is submitted for approval and shows as pending until it's decided.
Fill in:
Period — which budget the hours are for, for example "Housekeeper Weekly Budget".
Extra hours / week — the additional hours you need, not a new total.
Reason — one of: New temporary resident; New resident 1:1 care; Increased resident dependency; Event or activity; Sickness / short-term cover; Expected overrun; Other.
Then choose Add hours.
Note: You can raise more than one request against the same budget — for example 1:1 care and a separate expected overrun. They're kept as separate adjustments rather than merged.
Once approved, the extra hours raise the budget immediately, and a week that was previously blocked can be published.
Reviewing Budget Requests
The Budget requests page reviews requests for extra budgeted hours. Approved hours raise the budget immediately.
There are two tabs:
Upcoming — approved requests that haven't started yet.
All — every budget adjustment across your locations, covering both requests and hours added directly by an approver.
Filter either tab by status: Pending, Approved or Rejected.
Emails. Approvers are emailed when a request is submitted, with a link to the review page. Whoever raised the request is emailed when it's approved or rejected, including the reviewer's note and a link back to the relevant rota week.
Publishing a Rota That's Over Budget
If any day in the week you're publishing is over budget, publishing is blocked, and you'll see a message telling you that one or more days exceed the staff budget.
The per-day markers and the Staff budget panel show you exactly which days and allocations are over.
To publish, either reduce the booked hours, or add or request extra hours.
After a rota is published, you can still edit shifts. Changes that keep hours the same or reduce them always go through. A change that would push an allocation further over budget is blocked.
Note: This check applies to everyone at a location with a live budget — it isn't something a colleague can bypass.
Timesheet Hours vs Budget Report
Under Reporting, the Timesheet hours vs budget report shows where actual approved timesheet hours ran over budget.
At the top you'll see:
Overruns — budgets exceeded in the period.
Total hours over — across all overruns.
Most frequent allocation — the budget that goes over most often.
Filter by Location and Time period, and use Download CSV to export what's on screen.
Note: Timesheet overruns are reported, never blocked. If actual hours come in over budget it shows here — it will never hold up timesheet or payroll approval.