Some benefits are not a fixed monthly amount, they depend on how many days the employee actually worked. Meal vouchers, transport allowances and similar benefits are paid per day, so the total changes every month. With a variable based on days worked, you configure the daily amount and the rules once, and Factorial counts the qualifying days from Time Tracking and calculates the amount automatically in each payroll cycle.

How variables based on days worked are calculated

This type of variable pays the employee a set amount for every qualifying day in the payroll period:

Typical use cases are meal vouchers (for example, €8 per day worked) and any other benefit that should be proportional to the days the employee actually worked.

You never enter the number of days or the total amount manually. Every time a manager approves a timesheet, Factorial recalculates the full month from the latest approved data and updates the line in the payroll cycle. In an open cycle, the amount can therefore keep refining as more days are approved.

What you see in the payroll cycle

In the compensations view of the payroll cycle, each line shows the calculated amount and a breakdown of how it was reached, for example 1–28 February: 18 qualifying days × €8 = €144. This makes the calculation traceable for you and for the employee.

Create a variable based on days worked

First of all, make sure the Meal benefit compensation is enabled:

1. In your sidebar go to Settings
2. Access the Compensation section
3. Select Payroll concepts configuration
4. Scroll down to Earnings - Benefits in kind → Meal benefit
5. Enable the toggle

From the employee's profile

1. Go to Organisation
2. Select the employee in question
3. Head into the Contracts tab
4. Click on Fix conditions
5. Select the Effective date and the Start date
6. Click on Next
7. In Role, level and salary, click on Add additional compensation
8. Define the additional compensation, in this case Meal benefit
9. Choose Variable based on days worked as the compensation type.
10. Select the payroll concept the variable should be reported under (for example Meal benefit).
11. Enter the amount per day and its currency, for example €8.
12. Choose whether the variable is paid in the current month or the previous month. See Choose when the variable is paid.
13. Set the rules that define which days qualify — minimum hours, eligible days, work location and absences. See Define which days qualify below.
14. Save the variable.

This process can also be done in bulk from Organization:

1. In your sidebar, go to Organisation
2. Check the boxes of the employees whose contracts you want to edit
3. In the bar down below, click on the arrow next to Edit contracts
4. Select Add compensations in contracts
5. Set the conditions as you did in the employee's profile
6. Click on +Create at the upper right corner

Define which days qualify

These rules determine whether a given day counts as one worked day. They are evaluated for every day in the period.

Minimum hours

Set the minimum amount of time the employee must track for the day to qualify.

• With a minimum of 6 hours, a day with 7 hours tracked qualifies; a day with 4 hours does not.

Eligible days

Select which days of the week can qualify, for example Monday to Friday for a meal voucher. Days outside your selection never qualify, even if the employee tracked time.

You can also include bank holidays. 

• When bank holidays are selected, a bank holiday with tracked time counts as a qualifying day.

If you leave this field empty, we will consider all days as eligible days.

Work location

Filter the variable by where the employee worked, for example, pay the meal voucher only for office days.

The location used is the one registered at clock-in. If an employee clocks in at the office and later works from home, the whole day counts as office.

If you leave this field empty, we will consider all locations as eligible locations.

Absences

By default, only days with tracked work time qualify, and absences do not count. If you want specific absence types to qualify, for example vacation or sick leave, add them as eligible absence types.

Eligible absences ignore the minimum hours rule. On a day covered by an eligible absence the employee has no tracked time, so the day qualifies on the strength of the absence alone. Absence types that are not selected never qualify.

Choose on which period the variable is calculated

A variable based on days worked can be calculated in either of two ways:

The period of an existing variable cannot be edited. To switch between current month and previous month, delete the variable and create it again.

The cut-off date

When you pay in the current month, the cycle's cut-off date decides which days belong to which cycle.

• The cycle window runs from the day after the previous cut-off date through this month's cut-off date, included.
• Days worked after the cut-off date roll over automatically to the next cycle.
• If you do not customize it, the cut-off date is the last day of the month, so the window matches the natural calendar month.

Resolve late approvals

A late approval is a day inside the cycle window that a manager approves after the cut-off date, when the cycle is already locked. These days are not paid automatically, you, HR, decide where they go.

When late approvals exist, a banner appears in the payroll cycle showing the number of employees affected and the total amount. Select the banner to open the detail view, where you can see each late approval and its recalculated amount.

From there you can resolve them in bulk using the global action buttons, or one by one from the actions menu (⋮) on each row:

• Include to current cycle — pay the days in the current cycle.
• Defer to next cycle — move the days to the next cycle. The line disappears from the current cycle and appears in the next one, with its amount recalculated and the original work period preserved.

Review and correct amounts

Calculated lines are read-only. This keeps the original calculation intact as an auditable record of what was paid.

To correct an amount, add a separate manual adjustment under the same payroll concept, positive or negative, as needed. Factorial sums all entries under the concept, so the payroll cycle reflects the net amount. The original calculated value is never modified.

If you change the amount per day, past compensations keep the amount they were calculated with. Compensations in open cycles are recalculated automatically with the new amount.

FAQ

1. What happens if an employee has no qualifying days in a month?
   No line is generated. An employee who is absent for the whole month with no eligible absence types configured simply has no entry in the payroll cycle.
    
2. What happens if a timesheet is rejected?
   No compensation is generated. If the employee corrects and resubmits the timesheet and the manager approves it, the amount is generated normally.
    
3. How is a night shift counted?
   The shift is attributed to the day it started. An employee clocking in at 22:00 on Monday and out at 06:00 on Tuesday generates one qualifying day for Monday, not two. The rules configured for Monday apply.
    
4. Can a day be paid twice?
   No. Every time a timesheet is approved, Factorial recalculates the employee's full month from scratch, so re-approving the same timesheet never creates a duplicate line.
    
5. What happens if a manager approves a timesheet after the payroll cycle has closed?
   The amount is never lost. It is registered in the next open cycle, which may mean the employee receives it one period later than expected.
    
6. Can I use variables based on days worked if my company only uses shift planning?
   Not yet. Qualifying days are counted from Time Tracking clock-in and clock-out records. Support for Time Planning as a data source is planned for a later phase.