Table of Contents
In this chapter, we cover how to set up standard rates of pay for your Tutors, how to include Tutor costs within the overall class budget, confirming Tutor attendance / hours worked and how to generate Tutor pay from onCourse.
Before you work through this section, you need to ensure you have already set up a class with a timetable. You will also need to ensure you have created a Tutor record.
onCourse allows you to map standard pay rates to Tutor types. These are used by default, but can be overridden per class as needed. Some standard Tutor type names are included by default, but these can be changed or deleted as needed.
Example 26.1. How to create Tutor pay rates
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To open the window go to > > .
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Select one of the existing wage types to edit and modify or create a new wage type by clicking the button.
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Give a name and a public label to the wage role, for example 'VET Tutor Step 1'. The public label shows as the role in the class interface.
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Set the expense account for the wage
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Click on the button within the pay rate window to add a payrate for this Tutor type.
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In the drop down sheet, define how this type of Tutors wage is calculated from the options available e.g. 'Per timetabled hour'
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In the rate field, define the dollar amount per your selected type the Tutor is to be paid e.g. $55 per hour.
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On-costs allows you to take into account any additional expenses related to employing these staff, such as superannuation, leave loading, payroll tax and workers compensation costs. A common on-cost used calculating additional employee costs in Australia is 20%
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Setting the start date for this pay rate allows you to keep track of historical payrate increases, and ensures that if a Tutors pay calculation falls across a change in pay conditions, all sessions delivered before the change will be calculated at the old rate, with sessions delivered after the change in rate to be calculated at the new rate. By default this field is set to a historical date five years past for the first entry you create, but you can change it to the date of you choice.
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Click and and close the record. You will be returned to the list screen where you can add or edit another pay rate.
Caution
If your payrate doesn't start until today, but the class start date is prior to today, no automatic pay rate will be found when you add the Tutor to the class. You can still create a manual pay line in the class. Also, if the payrate changes during the class progress, i.e. class spans June and July, and at the start of the financial year a new pay rate applies, that class budget information will only show the original pay rate in the cost calculations, but the actual payslip calculations will be correct as to the timing of each session and the pay rate that applied as each session was delivered.
Once you have defined the default payrates for the various classifications of Tutors you employ, you can use these to automatically add wages costs to your class budgets. You can do this by adding Tutors to classes.
Tip
If you do not know who the individual Tutor will be in advance to your class scheduling, we recommend you set up a Tutor named something like 'To Be Advised' whom you can assign to classes. This will allow you take wages into account in your initial class budget and viability calculations. When you know the name of the individual who will be running the class you can replace TBA with the actual Tutor, and make any changes to their pay rate as required.
Example 26.2. Assigning a Tutor and payrate to a class in one step
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In the class window, navigate to the Tutor tab. Here you can add one or more Tutors, Coordinators, Assistants or other staff to the class.
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Click on the to add a new Tutor to the class or double click on a Tutor already added to the class to add a wage to their record.
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In the Tutor edit sheet, type in the surname of the Tutor you wish to add to the class. This field will look up Tutors you have already created in the database. You can not add new Tutors from here.
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When you select the Tutors role, the automatic pay rate set for this role will be added. You can override the wage at this point for this individual Tutor for this class.
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Click to add the Tutor to the class.
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Continue to add additional Tutors to the class, and define their wages as required.
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If you have added a coordinator or other assisting staff member to the Tutor list of the class you can choose to remove them from publicity (printing in the brochure and showing on your onCourse website) by unchecking the option 'Show this Tutor in class information'
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If you need to edit the Tutor wage once you have set it, you will need to go to the class budget tab to make changes. Double click on the wage you wish to edit and check the option 'override assigned role's pay rate'.
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Once you have clicked on 'override assigned role's pay rate', you will then be able to adjust the role, account code and rate.
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If you did not have a wage added when the Tutor was added to the class, e.g. for a historical class, you can add the wage on the budget tab. Go to and select the Tutor from the list.
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You can also add Tutors to the class directly from the timetable, during the session set up of edit process. If you add Tutors here, you will need to manually add the Tutor pay rate from the budget tab.
You don't need to do all the above if you already have the Tutor added to the timetable in your class. Instead you can go directly to the Budget tab and add a new budget line, filling out the relevant Tutor pay details as you go.
You can also add additional lines to the tutor payroll for other pay types. You are limited to one line per type (per timetabled hour, per session, per enrolment ect) for each tutor. This allows you to add the standard tutors pay rate, and perhaps and assessment allowance per enrolment or a set up/pack up allowance per session. To add the additional pay rate type:
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In the class record, go to the budget tab and select the add budget item
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Select add wage and select your tutor's name.
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If this is the second or subsequent line for your tutor, you will need to select the 'override tutor wage' option
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Add the specifics for the new wage line item ensuring you choose a different type to any existing pay lines
Example 26.3. How to record a Tutor as being Unavailable for a Given Class
Sometimes Tutors cannot make it to their classes, whatever the reason, you can flag that Tutor as not available in the following way:
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In onCourse, go to "Tutor"
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Double click on a record to open a Tutor profile
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From here click on the "timetable" tab
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Click on the "list" option and in the bottom square, there is the "availability rules" section (see screenshot)
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Click on the + sign on the top right hand side of the "availability rules" section and you can edit the busy period as well as the option to select "all day" which, as the name suggests, will block the whole day for that Tutor.
Not only is attendance used for students, it can also be used to record whether your Tutors showed up and if they stayed for longer or shorter than their rostered time. You do not have to use this function in order to pay Tutors, but it can be very useful. Tutor attendance can be set for each session on the class Attendance tab.
Example 26.4. Setting Tutor attendance for Tutor pay
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Open a class record and navigate to the attendance tab.
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For each session, click on the attendance icon and set the appropriate attendance. Click once for attended, twice for not attended. Three clicks will set the session back to unmarked.
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To set the attendance to partial attendance, or absent with reason, right click on the attendance icon and select one of these options. When you select one of these values a drop down sheet will appear with fields for additional information to be set. Either of these options need to be approved for Tutor pay in the window.
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To set partial attendance, you need to enter in the sheet how many minutes of the scheduled session minutes the person was in attendance for. Approving this Tutor pay variation means the person will be paid for the full session. Leaving it unapproved means they will be paid only for their time in attendance.
onCourse generates Tutor pay records in bulk, for a given point in time, based on the attendance records for Tutor. While generating Tutor pay records the admin user is given choices as to whether unmarked or unapproved attendance should be included.
Example 26.5. Generating, editing and finalising Tutor pay
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Before Tutor pay can be created you'll need a fully setup class, with timetable, Tutors and wages.
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Open list of classes
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Highlight classes for which Tutor pay is to be generated
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Select the "Generate Tutor pay for xx classes " menu item under the cogwheel icon
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Select whether unmarked or unapproved attendance is to be taken under consideration when generating Tutor pay. This only applies to per session or per timetabled hour pay. Other types of pay (such as fixed rate) does not rely on attendance marking or approval at all. In those instances where a fixed rate is to be paid, a pay run can be generated anytime after the Class has commenced.
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Press save and wait until a new list view, showing all newly created Tutor pay records is displayed.
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Once Tutor pay records have been created they can be edited. Each Tutor pay record has a list of items grouped by class and based on the relevant attendance/wages/sessions for that class.
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Additional Tutor pay items can be added, they will be listed in at the bottom of the list.
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Tutor pay can be modified until its finalised, which happens once the record has been exported using > > .
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Another way to finalise a Tutor pay record select it and choose "Finalise Tutor pay" from cogwheel menu. The finalised Tutor pay records display status "Paid/Exported"
Caution
Tutor pay can have following statuses: New, Completed, Approved and Paid/Exported. Only a status of "Paid / Exported" prevents the editing of the record.