I only need Invoicing, not payroll.

PC-Plod will work in three modes:

1. Invoicing only
2. Invoicing with presentation of Payroll input
3. Invoicing and full Payroll

Drilling Rig Image If you do not want PC-Plod to process your payroll for you, you may choose to use mode 2 which will prepare a detailed report of field staff showing hours worked, bonuses, etc. - thus providing the input for your exisitng payroll system. The report prints one page per field employee and is suitable for distribution to employees to augment payslip details.

By populating the pay details in the Employee File you can even make this report show a detailed calculation of Gross Pay as a dollar figure.

The usual procedure for installing PC-Plod involves starting with mode 2 then progressing to mode 3 once you are confident with the feel of the system.

Mode 3 opens access to the HR and OH&S extensions.

Using, or Not Using, Plod’s various features

Plod+Pay includes an extensive range of modules and features, some of which you may, or may not, want to use.

Plod Entry

This is fundamental, so you will want to use this. Accessed via Main Menu/Plod Entry. Before you can enter Plods you will need to have set up:

Customers
Jobs
Rigs
Chart (to establish Products and Prices)
Employee File – optional. Required for Payroll or if you use “PayHours” while in Invoice Only Mode.

Plod No Fudge

A special feature used in those cases where you have accidentally distributed books of Plods with duplicate numbers. Activated by setting a flag on the Plod Entry screen – you need to set your Fudge Factors on the Preferences screen.

Invoicing

This is fundamental, so you will want to use this. Accessed via the RED buttons on the Main Menu. Before you can run Invoicing you will need to have set up:

Ref. Files (to establish your Types, SubTypes, States, etc)
Base Record (to establish you Company Details and Period Start/End dates)
Logo
Customers
Jobs
Rigs
Employee File – optional. Required for Payroll or if you use “PayHours” while in Invoice Only Mode.
Chart (to establish Products and Prices) (to establish Products and Prices)
Plod Entry

Rig Activity

In some cases you or the customer will want to know how much of the available time has been spent actually Drilling, as opposed to Mobilisation or Pulling Rods, or waiting on their geologists, or Safety Meetings, etc.

This feature is found in the Invoicing Group on the Main Menu. If you wish to use it you will need to:

Read the “Rig Activity section in this manual.
Plan your strategy and setup the appropriate Products on your Chart.
Enter the appropriate details, including the non-chargeable ones, from the Plods.
Use the Rig Activity screen.

PayHours

Optional. If you are not running Payroll (ie you are using “Invoice Only Mode”) then you may elect to use “PayHours” which produces reporting to provide hours details for your manual or third-party payroll system.

If you ARE using PayHours or Payroll then you must:

“Pay Processing” on the Preferences screen should be set to “NoPay”
Have a populated Employee File
Enter “Type=1” Proforma details during Plod Entry. Type=1 Proformas are the DR, TT, etc entries showing which employees worked which hours.

If you are NOT using PayHours or Payroll then:

You do not need to enter Type=1 Proformas.
You do not need a populated Employee File

Payroll

Optional. If you are NOT using Payroll then consider PayHours (above) to determine if you need to populate an Employee File and enter Type=1 Proformas.

If you are using Payroll then the BLUE buttons on the Main Menu apply. You will need to set up:

All the prerequisites for Invoicing (above)
Employee file
GLacc File – (To establish the links between Pay Types and your General Ledger)
Tax Tables
Pay Periods (On the Periods File accessed via Main Menu/Base Record)
Accruals (To establish how your Leave Accruals are calculated)
Classifications (Sets the rules for the various Classifications)
Funds (Defines the various Super and Deduction funds)
JobRig Bonuses (if you use bonuses)

Training

Optional. Training is an extension to the Payroll, but you can run Training without Payroll providing you have a suitably populated Employee File.

If you are using Training then the BROWN buttons on the Main Menu apply. You will need to set up:

Employee File
Providers File (Identifies your commonly used Course Providers)
Courses File (Defines the various courses or competencies undertaken by your employees)
Training Profiles (Defines the default training requirement for each Classification)

Performance

Optional. Use the “Perf.” Tab on the Employee file to record and view comments tracking an employee’s history over time.

Confidential Notes

Optional. Use the “Conf.” Tab on the Employee file to record and view confidential comments relating to an employee.

Amortise Rods

Optional. Amortise Rods allows you to create a special Journal for import into MYOB or QuickBooks that will apply an amortised cost for rods on nominated Jobs. See “Rod Amortization” in this manual. To activate Amortise Rods you should:

Set the amortisation rates on the appropriate Job records
Access Amortise Rods from Main Menu/PlodTrans

Bit Usage

Optional. This feature allows you to track which bits are used on which Jobs. To activate this you need to place special entries in your Ref Files and Chart. (See “Bit Usage” in this manual).

Incidents

Optional. Incidents is an extension to Payroll and requires a populated Employee file. By recording all your incidents you can produce various levels of statistics. Using ManHours reporting opens up an even higher level of statistics. Access Incidents via Main Menu/Incidents

ManHours

Optional. An extension to Payroll that allows you to monitor the labour consumed at Overall, State, Job levels and apply this against Incident recording to give an impressive array of mainly OH&S statistical reporting.

To effectively use ManHours you need to ensure that ALL labour is being entered and costed via the Payroll. (The tricky bit is to ensure you are correctly trapping the hours actually worked by salaried employees).

Incident Stats

Optional. This relies on having both Incidents and ManHours in use and up to date.

Security

Plod Security controls who can gain access to what functions and data in Plod+Pay. Security is optional. If you do NOT create any Users (Main Menu/Security) then Security will NOT be active. As soon as you use Main Menu/Security to create the first User then Security becomes active. You must ensure that the first User created is the system administrator with a Security Level of 99.

Security is documented elsewhere in this manual.

MYOB or QuickBooks

Posting financial figures to your General Ledger is optional. Use Main Menu/Preferences/General Tab to nominate your GL system as None, MYOB or QuickBooks.

Expat Pays (“Company pays tax”)

To run your payroll as an off-shore, company-pays-tax type expat-payroll use Main Menu/Preferences/Invoice-Pay Tab and set the Expats fields and Tax Exchange Rate. You may apply “Company-Pays-Tax” for individuals on an otherwise normal payroll by using the CoyPaysTax PayFlag.

GST, VAT, etc

By default GST will apply at 10%.

You can override the GST rate and description for individual Jobs by setting the override values on the Job record. Note that:

To defeat GST for an individual Job, set the GST Rate on the Job to 0.0000.
You may change the GST Description (eg GST, VAT, NT, NonTax, etc)

You can override the GST Rates and Descriptions for the whole file by using the Preferences “GSTrate” and “GSTdesc” at Main Menu/Preferences/ Invoice-Pay Tab