At AMS, we are proud of our market-leading workforce software. In today’s market, there are so many options for managing your people and their pay that it can be hard to know which system is right for your organisation. But payroll is so much more than running a pay; it is a sum of all the parts – this may include rosters, timesheets, employment agreement interpretation, applying leave and tax calculations.
We recognise and combine all of these components and more and have created an end-to-end solution, our Roster to Pay Workforce software.
In this blog, we explain AMS Pulse, our workforce solution, how it works, and what makes it stand out from the rest as an end-to-end solution for a completely automated outcome.
AMS Workforce Solutions
AMS Pulse comprises three components, the AMS payroll system, AMS rostering and award interpretation engine and our self-service portal. These components work together to deliver a seamless, compliant, reliable user experience in every part of the roster-to-pay environment.
With over 30 years of delivering effective payroll solutions to large organisations in New Zealand, the AMS difference is that we recognise that payroll accuracy often starts upstream, and we provide an end-to-end roster-to-pay offering that is tightly integrated, provides a single view of all roster-to-pay related data in real-time and is designed specifically for the NZ market.
Payroll providers who cater to small and medium-sized organisations have the luxury of clients who can manually take care of many processes, from editing timesheets to backpay. This is a viable solution when you deal with a smaller number of staff. AMS Pulse is designed for large organisations with complex compliance requirements that must ensure every staff member is paid correctly and compliantly. This is why our end-to-end roster-to-pay product is the solution of choice for many health and government organisations.
We work from the start of payroll to the end
We discovered long ago that most errors occurring within a payroll start with the original data entry, the hours rostered and worked, and the Employment Agreement calculations. This is especially so in complex working environments like health, education, and central government, where there are numerous Collectives, Individual Employment Agreements and employees who work in different roles that command various awards and even different pay rates.
In AMS Pulse, the solution to these challenges is our rostering and award interpretation software. The AMS Timesheet Award Interpreter is a proven, versatile and user-configurable business rules engine that can deliver 100% automated award interpretation. The engine is specifically designed to interpret the most complex of Employment Agreements (EAs) and Awards and apply the rules to employee worked hours.
This software utilises a sophisticated and truly innovative design that supports intelligent, flexible software to support 100% interpretation of EAs and awards.
Over decades, we have built the AMS intelligent rostering and automated award interpretation rules engine to simplify even the most complex organisation. When used in a roster-to-pay environment, based on actual start and finish times rather than set shift durations, it delivers a guarantee of consistency; the same interpretation of an award is applied every time, to every employee, based on their individual EA and awards.
How does the system work
AMS rostering is built around an intelligent rostering engine making it easier to plan and implement rosters across organisations. This includes seeing the estimated cost of a shift based on the individuals being rostered and being able to compare this to the actual cost once the shift is complete. The rostering engine also helps ensure compliance with the ability to visualise skills compliance, practising certificates, and last shift worked (for fatigue management).
AMS Pulse Roster to Pay includes electronic timesheets where employees see and verify their work hours. Managers use the same portal to review, change and approve the shifts worked by their staff. Upon approval, the information flows to the Award Interpreter for evaluation.
The Award Interpreter then applies all the EA award rules to the shift worked, there is no manual interpretation required, and the ensuing calculation is correct and reliable. This remains true when changes are made to previous periods, for example, when a shift is missed from a pay period, or a payment is backdated. Our system corrects the actual shift impacted by a change and manages the domino effect of other modifications within the period, such as where overtime becomes applicable. Additional award rates are automatically applied as required. This data flows to payroll, where all tax and holiday pay calculations are made. The Award Interpreter is an easy-to-understand rules engine managed by your team and does not require programmatic changes when EAs change.
AMS also enables the importing of Roster Assignments from other systems, allowing organisations to harness the power of AMS Roster-to-Pay without changing its existing roster system. Roster Assignments can then be integrated to create timesheets which feed into the Award Interpreter.
The AMS date effective solution
In simple payroll terms, the AMS date effective solution is the ability to back-date and forward-date transactions and configurations. It means you can make the ‘effective’ date of a change in the past, present or future - and still have an accurate pay outcome.
In most payroll software, a change like this can only be affected in the current pay period range. Changes outside that period require manual calculations to manage the historic adjustment or maintain a list of future changes.
The AMS date effective solution allows employee changes (future or past) to be made at any time and applied on the day the change becomes effective. This can be in the middle of a pay period, days, or months previously or at any point after the change is entered into the system. Similarly, configuration and rule changes are effective and dated to the day they must be applied, and the software does all the heavy lifting. This makes implementing change simple, easy and compliant.
A practical application of date-effective change is back pay, including the backdating of a collective settlement. Payments that have already been made are automatically recalculated with the corresponding taxation element and Holidays Act recalculations. This includes gross earnings, overpayment recovery and adjusting leave rate payments.
AMS self-service portal
The AMS self-service portal is our interactive, simple-to-use portal available anywhere. It allows employees to make changes to their personal profiles, submit timesheets, apply for leave, and many other functionalities. The portal also allows employees to check their rosters and managers to approve changes or requests remotely.
As AMS roster-to-pay software is an end-to-end solution, data is stored and reported on from a single source, making reporting and accuracy of data real-time. Other processes that require a rostering solution from one vendor and payroll from another require bespoke integrations that delay data transfer from one source to another. The lack of real-time data can result in inaccuracies, leading to numerous issues, inaccuracies and additional costs.
AMS leads the market with their support for compliance
AMS have the highest level of subject matter expertise. Being a New Zealand provider and having public sector customers means that supporting New Zealand legislation is fundamental to our successful delivery for our customers.
Our software manages leave in weeks, in line with the Holidays Act. We actively participate in legislation forums; AMS Product Manager was on MBIE’s Payroll System Functionality Working Group and is currently on MBIE’s Holidays Act Core Design Group.
We offer a standard configuration for compliance. However, our software is flexible enough to be implemented to account for all the variations an organisation has.
With a range of solutions available from cloud-based (AMS Pulse) to Outsource Services, with modules that seamlessly work together to fully automate any workforce landscape, we are the clear choice for organisations that value compliance, efficiency and employee wellbeing.
To find out more about our market-leading software, contact us today.
