Overview

This pay system is designed for sessional/peripatetic music teachers. It is based on the principle that teachers will give a certain number of lessons each year (or semester or term).

If instead, you calculate pays each pay period based on attendance records, see Calculate Pays from Roll Marking.

At the time of enrolling, a specific number of lessons is entered for that student.  (A default number of, say, 16, will be entered - but that number can be changed if a student enrolls later than the normal commencement date.)

Based on the fact that the student will be charged for a certain number of lessons (say 16), we can also assume that the teacher will get paid for that number of lessons.

It doesn't matter when the lessons are given.  We can assume that they will be given at some stage.

Therefore, we can calculate an amount that the teacher should be paid for a specific period.

Example

Smallville Secondary College charges students half-yearly.  Each student is charged for 16 lessons per half-year.  The lesson fee for a 30 minute individual lesson is $26.00 and the teacher receives $23.67 of this in their pay packet (the remainder being taken up by superannuation & work cover).

Mr Smith has 8 students that commence with him at the beginning of the year.  They are all enrolled for a 30 minute individual lesson.

Mr Smith will give each of these students 16 lessons between February and July (the first 6 months of the school year).  Therefore we can calculate that his total earnings in that period will be:

16 lessons x 8 students x $23.67 per lesson = $3,029.76

Smallville Secondary College pays its teachers monthly.  In the period February to July, Mr Smith will receive 6 pays.  If we divide Mr Smith's total earnings by the number of pay periods (6), we can calculate a Standard Monthly Pay of $504.96.

If there are no changes to Mr Smith's enrolments, he should receive $504.96 every month from February to July.

At the beginning of Term 3, the school commences a new billing period and so the pays must be calculated again at this time.  If Mr Smith gains 4 more students at the beginning of Term 3, we can calculate his total earnings for the period August to January to be:

16 lessons x 12 students x $23.67 per lesson = $4,544.64

Again, if we divide this total by 6 pays, we can calculate a Standard Monthly Pay of $757.44.  Therefore, this is the amount that Mr Smith should be paid every month from August to January.

Of course, life is not quite as simple as this - and adjustments will probably need to be made throughout the semester!  Mr Smith will get some new students, some will discontinue, and others will change their lesson type.

However, the principle is still the same.  For each of these adjustments, Mr Smith will still be paid (or have a deduction made) of a certain amount and we can factor this in to his Standard Pay.

The end result of this is that the teachers can count on a standard income, with minimal fluctuations during school holiday periods.  And of course, it doesn't make any difference to the school because they are still only being paid for the lessons they teach.  It's just being averaged out.

Before You Start

It is important, first of all, to make sure that data has been entered correctly into the system, otherwise the Staff Salaries module won't work properly.  You need to make sure that:

  • All staff details are entered before entering Subject Codes and Tuition Fees.
  • Each staff member that needs to be paid for tuition needs to be recorded as a "Sessional/Peripatetic" teacher in the Employment Type field in the Contacts file.
  • All current staff must be recorded as "Current Staff" in the 'category' field of the Contacts file.
  • Subject Codes and Tuition Fees must be entered/updated before entering Student enrolments.
  • Tuition Fees must include both a 'Lesson Fee' and a 'Staff Pay Per Lesson Fee'.  (They can be the same - but in that case, you would need to put the same amount in both fields.)
  • Tuition Fees must include the number of lessons per billing period.  (This can be varied for late enrolments, but the standard number must be entered here.)

For more on the setup, see Set Up Salaries.

The Pay Process

Before attempting to run the pays from Music Monitor, you will also need to know:

  • The number of pay periods in this billing cycle.
  • The pay dates in this billing cycle.

When you are sure that all data is correct, you can do a pay run.  There are a number of steps that should be worked through in order and these are listed on the Menu buttons when you enter the Salaries file.

Each number in the list is a button that opens a page of help information for that specific step.

See the process at Finalise a Teacher's Pay Procedure Checklist.