When you open the area's Rota builder, the toolbar shows a live total for the week on view: the scheduled hours, and (for admins) the estimated labour cost. It updates as you add, move and assign shifts.
What the bar shows
Hours — total paid hours scheduled in the visible week (paid hours = the shift span minus any unpaid break).
Cost — the estimated labour cost, shown as a £ figure. If a budget is set it appears as cost / budget.
unpriced shifts — an amber badge meaning at least one assigned shift has no pay rate, so the real cost is higher than shown. Fix it by setting that person's pay rate.
When the cost goes over budget, the figure turns red. The budget shown is your weekly cap scaled to the week on view.
Who can see costs
Money is shown to organisation admins only. Other managers who can open the builder see the hours total but not the cost or budget figure. This keeps wage information confidential.
Setting labour budgets
Budgets are set per area on its rota settings, in the Budget card (admin-only). There are two fields:
Weekly labour budget cap (£) — the figure the cost bar compares against.
Daily labour budget (£) — a per-day labour figure for this area.
Leave a budget blank and the cost bar simply shows the cost with nothing to compare against. The same per-area cost-versus-budget figures also roll up onto the organisation Rota overview.
- 1Open the area's Rota tab to see the live hours and cost in the toolbar
- 2To set a budget, open the area's rota Settings
- 3In the Budget card, enter a Weekly labour budget cap and, optionally, a Daily labour budget
- 4Save — the builder now shows cost / budget and turns red when over
- An amber 'unpriced shifts' badge means the cost is understated — set the missing pay rate on the Pay rates page.
- Only admins see the cost and budget; other managers see hours only.
- The weekly cap is scaled to whichever week you're viewing, so part-week views compare fairly.