QuickBooks HelpQuickBooksHelpIntuit

Shift swapping via the Employee Portal in QuickBooks Online Advanced Payroll

SOLVED•by QuickBooks•Updated over 1 year ago

To enable shift swapping

Go to Payroll Settings, Rostering, and turn on “Employees can swap shifts that have been assigned to them”.

You can set how many hours prior to the shift starting that they can swap the shift and you can chose if manager approval is required. Once the above has been enabled, the shift swap workflow is as follows:

  1. Employee 1 receives a notification for a new shift that has been assigned to him.
  2. Employee 1 can either accept, decline or swap the shift. The shift is on a very special day for him so he chooses to swap the shift with another employee. To do this, Jack clicks on Swap. Jack chooses, from a dropdown list of eligible employees, the employee he wants to swap the shift with and then enters a comment for them to see.
  3. Employee 2 is notified that there is a shift swap that he needs to action. He logs into his employee dashboard to view the details of the shift.
  4. Employee 2 decides to accept the swap. Once he clicks on Accept Swap, the shift status updates to Awaiting Approval.
  5. Their manager receives a notification of a pending shift swap that requires approval. They log into the roster and click on the swap shifts icon to view the details of the swap.
  6. The manager reviews the details and is happy to approve the swap. They click on ‘Approve’.The employees receive a notification confirming the swap has been approved and the shift is automatically reassigned in the roster to Lachlan.

Managers can still control the process by:

  • Knowing who has swapped their shift and with whom.
  • Approving the shift swap before it is applied to the roster.
  • Tracking shift swaps over periods of time using the shift swapping report.

There are 2 notification settings that managers can switch on to receive email alerts:

  • A daily reminder that notifies the manager of all pending shift swaps: this details the shift date, the employee initiating the swap and who it is being swapped with.
  • An instant notification for when a shift swap requires manager approval.

At a business level, you can set the cut off period where an employee can no longer swap a shift. If the setting prescribes that a shift can be swapped up to 48 hours before the shift commences, employees will be prevented from swapping a shift the day before the shift commences.

This can be done via Payroll Settings, Rostering.

Another business level setting is choosing what level of manager approval will apply regarding shift swapping. The options are:

  • No manager approval required at all

In this scenario, when an employee accepts a shift swap the shift will automatically be reassigned in the roster to the employee who accepted the swap.

  • Manager approval only required where the swapped shift cost is higher than the original shift cost

The manager will be notified only when the shift cost, as a result of the swap, becomes higher than the original shift cost. If this is the case, the manager will need to approve the swap before it is confirmed. Otherwise, if the swapped shift cost is equal to or lower than the original shift cost, the shift will automatically be reassigned in the roster to the employee who accepted the swap.

  • Swapped shifts always require manager approval

When an employee accepts a shift swap the shift will need to be approved by the manager before it is reassigned in the roster to the employee who accepted the swap.

These approval settings are configured via Payroll Settings, Rostering.

When a manager rejects a shift swap, they will need to enter a reason. Both employees will then be notified and the shift will remain assigned in the roster to the original employee.

Was this helpful?

You must sign in to vote, reply, or post
QuickBooks Online Payroll Advanced

Sign in for the best experience

Ask questions, get answers, and join our large community of QuickBooks users.

More like this