Apply labor budget adjustments

Apply a reusable pay adjustment rule when a premium, allowance, reduction, or other policy belongs in the labor budget. Creating the rule alone does not apply it to positions.

Before you begin

Use the narrowest scope that represents the approved planning policy. An adjustment applied broadly can change results across departments.

Apply an adjustment

Before saving, review the fixed-amount handling, who the policy covers, and how overlapping adjustments will be selected. The explanations and worked examples follow the procedure.

The Applied adjustments page initially shows adjustments in effect on the selected Budget date. Open Filters to search or view scheduled, ended, removed, or all adjustments. Changing the budget date reevaluates which adjustments are in effect without changing their recorded dates.

1. Open Labor budget > Applied adjustments.
2. Select Apply adjustment.
3. Choose the approved pay adjustment rule.
4. Enter Starts on and, when needed, Ends before.
5. Choose Scale with FTE or Retain while Position is active.
6. Choose the overlap behavior and enter its overlap priority.
7. Select the exact applied adjustment when replacing or suppressing one.
8. Choose one primary scope, or leave the primary scope fields blank to apply the adjustment across the organization.
9. Add work-schedule or shift eligibility when the policy requires it.
10. Save and wait for the labor budget result to refresh.
11. Verify a representative position on the applied adjustment’s start date.

Ends before is the first budget date the applied adjustment no longer contributes.

Apply the rule again with a later start date when the business policy genuinely changes. Use Set end date when a valid applied adjustment stops. Use Correct dates or overlap priority when one of those recorded values was wrong. Use Remove incorrect applied adjustment when it should never have applied.

If the wrong rule, scope, fixed-amount handling, overlap behavior, replacement target, work schedule, or shift was selected, remove the incorrect applied adjustment and create the correct one.

Verify the complete result

1. Open Labor budget > Overview.
2. Select the applied adjustment’s budget date.
3. Open a representative affected position.
4. Confirm approved and assigned FTE.
5. Confirm whether the base rate came from the position or job code.
6. For an hourly rate, confirm annual hours per FTE.
7. Review each applied adjustment, its coverage, overlap priority, and contribution.
8. Add the base amount and adjustments, then compare your total with the final budget capacity and budget assigned.

If the adjustment is absent, check its date, rule availability, primary scope, job-group hierarchy, work schedule or shift, overlap priority, replacement target, and duplicate setting.

If a recent rate or staffing change is still updating, wait before deciding that the adjustment failed. If required inputs are missing, use Resolve labor budget items that need attention.

Understand rules and applied adjustments

An adjustment has two parts:

An authorized administrator creates reusable rules under Settings > Pay adjustment rules. A labor budget manager applies a rule under Labor budget > Applied adjustments.

Creating a rule does not apply it. Applying a rule to actual compensation does not apply it to labor budget. When the same approved policy belongs in both financial areas, apply it separately in each.

Review Pay adjustment rules before applying a policy whose formula or availability is unclear.

Understand the calculation stages

Pay adjustment rules can affect one of three stages:

1. Projected FTE changes the FTE used only in the calculation.
2. Pay rate changes the planned rate before it is multiplied by calculation FTE.
3. Annual cost only changes annual cost after adjusted rate and adjusted FTE are combined.

A projected FTE adjustment does not change approved position FTE. A pay-rate adjustment does not rewrite the base budget rate. An annual-cost adjustment does not change either rate or FTE.

Example: 10% pay-rate adjustment

A position has a base rate of $80,000, 1.0000 approved FTE, and 0.6000 assigned FTE. A 10% pay-rate adjustment produces an $88,000 adjusted rate.

Example: projected FTE adjustment

A position has 1.0000 approved FTE and an active 0.2000 fixed projected FTE adjustment. The calculation can use 1.2000 FTE while the approved position remains 1.0000 FTE.

Use this target only when the policy is genuinely about calculated capacity. Do not use it as a substitute for an approved structural change.

Choose the scope and eligibility

An applied adjustment can cover the whole organization or use one primary scope:

• Department
• Job group, including job codes in its subgroups on the selected date
• Job code
• Position

You can also limit the applied adjustment to one work schedule or one shift classification. Work schedule and shift are alternative eligibility choices. A position must match the date, primary scope, and any schedule or shift rule before the pay adjustment contributes.

Use position scope for a one-position policy, job code or job group for a role-based policy, department for a local policy, and organization-wide scope only for a policy that truly applies everywhere.

Example: department policy

A 4% planning premium applies only to Operations beginning April 1. Choose department scope, select Operations, and use April 1 in Starts on. Positions outside Operations do not match.

Example: job group scope

A benefit estimate applies to the Clinical job group. Positions whose effective job codes belong to Clinical or one of its subgroups match on the selected date. A job code moved into or out of that hierarchy can therefore change whether its position matches.

Example: schedule eligibility

An allowance applies only to a Night work schedule. Choose the policy’s primary scope and then the Night schedule. A position in the primary scope with a different schedule does not match.

Choose the coverage behavior

Coverage controls how fixed adjustment amounts relate to FTE.

Coverage changes fixed monetary contributions. It does not scale a fixed Projected FTE change or create separate percentage calculations. All matching adjustments share the rule’s stage and method order. Non-compounding percentages use the common base after fixed amounts included in the percentage basis; compounding percentages use the running value.

Retained coverage can apply to a fixed Pay rate or Annual cost amount. A retained pay-rate amount participates in the pay-rate percentages and keeps its hourly or annual basis until conversion. An annual-cost amount participates in the later annual-cost stage. Choose the target that matches the policy.

For example, a $60,000 annual rate at 0.6000 FTE starts at $36,000. A retained $2,000 annual pay-rate increase contributes $2,000 once, giving $38,000 before any percentages. With Scale with FTE, that increase contributes $1,200, giving $37,200. For rounding when coverage differs, see Pay adjustment rules.

Example: fixed amount scaled with FTE

A $10,000 fixed annual-cost adjustment applies to a position with 1.0000 approved FTE and 0.6000 assigned FTE.

Example: fixed amount retained while active

The same $10,000 fixed annual-cost adjustment uses Retain while Position is active.

The retained amount contributes once even if assigned FTE is zero, so it does not create additional vacancy impact. Use this behavior for a true position-retained fixed cost, not for a per-FTE amount.

Example: retained amount before percentages

A $60,000 annual budget has a retained $1,000 amount included in the percentage basis, followed by a 10% annual-cost adjustment. The result is ($60,000 + $1,000) × 1.10 = $67,100. Using the fixed amount after percentages would instead produce $60,000 × 1.10 + $1,000 = $67,000.

Example: retained reduction

A retained $1,000 reduction after percentages reduces a $60,000 annual budget to $59,000. It remains a reduction when the position is active with no assignments; the assigned result stops at zero if there is no cost left to reduce. The calculation identifies any part of the reduction limited by the zero minimum. See Pay adjustment rules for combined reductions.

Control overlapping applied adjustments

FTE Tree finds every applied adjustment active on the selected date that matches the position, then resolves overlaps before calculating the result.

Overlap priority is the priority number entered when applying the adjustment. FTE Tree considers a higher number before a lower number. A narrower scope does not automatically win, so use different overlap priorities when the outcome depends on which matching use of the same rule is selected.

Use these rules to predict the result:

• Additive adjustments from different pay adjustment rules can all contribute.
• A higher overlap priority alone does not replace an applied adjustment from a different rule.
• When the same rule matches more than once and Allow duplicates is off, the matching adjustment with the highest overlap priority contributes.
• If matching adjustments have equal overlap priority, the earlier start date is considered first. Use distinct overlap priorities whenever the business result depends on the selection.
• When Allow duplicates is on, each matching additive adjustment can contribute.
• Replace and Suppress affect the exact applied adjustment selected in Replaces. Overlap priority does not select that adjustment automatically.

Example: broad policy with a department exception

An organization-wide allowance has overlap priority 100. A department-specific use of the same rule has overlap priority 200. When duplicates are not allowed, the department adjustment contributes for matching positions and the organization-wide adjustment contributes elsewhere.

Example: two different additive policies

A 3% benefit load and a $2,000 equipment allowance use different pay adjustment rules. Both are additive and match the position. Both can contribute regardless of their overlap priorities.

Replacement and suppression preserve the original applied adjustment and its activity history. They change which adjustment contributes; they do not erase the earlier record.