How to Use Roster Cost Forecasting

What It Does

Calculates predicted costs for each rostered shift based on your configured award rules
Breaks down forecasted hours and costs by category (ordinary, overtime, paid breaks, leave, and more)
Shows totals per day and across the full roster period
Updates automatically as you add, move, or remove shifts

Where to Find It

Open Roster from the main navigation. The Forecast summary appears at the top of the roster grid in both views:

Shift View — forecast totals are displayed per shift template column and across the full period
Employee View — forecast totals are displayed per employee and across the full period, with per-employee cost and hour summaries

In both views:

Total hours and total cost display in the summary row for each day and for the full period
Values are rounded — hours to whole numbers, costs to whole dollars
Cost figures are only visible if your account has Financial Details permission enabled

Viewing the Forecast Breakdown

Click the expand button (chevron arrow) to reveal a detailed breakdown. The expand button floats at the centre of the visible date columns and stays on screen as you scroll horizontally, so you can always reach it.

When expanded, the breakdown is organised into two sections — Hours and Cost — each separated by a full-width horizontal rule. Detail rows appear directly beneath their section summary, making it easy to scan from top to bottom.

In the period summary column (left side), each row shows its category label with a left-aligned label and a right-aligned bold total. In the individual day columns, values are displayed without labels — each row lines up with the corresponding label on the left.

Hours Breakdown

Category	What It Means
Ordinary	Standard (normal time) hours
Overtime	Hours exceeding the ordinary threshold
Paid break	Break time that is paid
Leave	Hours attributed to approved leave
Min engagement	Extra hours added to meet minimum shift engagement requirements
Rate penalty	Hours associated with rate-based penalty conditions (shown for reference)
Currency penalty	Currency-based penalty units (shown for reference — not added to the hours total)
Allowance	Allowance units triggered (shown for reference — not added to the hours total)

Cost Breakdown

When Financial Details are enabled, you also see:

Category	What It Means
Ordinary	Cost of ordinary hours
Overtime	Cost of overtime hours
Paid break	Cost of paid break time
Leave	Cost of leave hours
Min engagement	Cost of minimum engagement top-ups
Rate penalty	Additional cost from rate-based penalties
Currency penalty	Additional cost from currency-based penalties
Allowance	Cost of triggered allowances

Day-by-Day View

The breakdown is available both at the period level (left column) and for each individual day in the roster grid. Expand the forecast row to compare costs across days — values are rounded to whole numbers so you can quickly scan and compare.

Employee View Forecasting

In the Employee View, forecasting works the same way with a few additions:

Each employee row shows their individual forecast hours and cost
The Forecast row aggregates totals across all visible employees
When you filter employees by department, the forecast totals update to reflect only the filtered employees
Forecast data loads in the background — you may briefly see a loading indicator while costs are being calculated

Tips

Forecast updates live — costs recalculate as you edit shifts
Compare days — use the expanded day-by-day breakdown to identify the most expensive days in a roster
Budget check — review the period total before publishing a roster to stay within labour budgets
Overtime visibility — spot overtime costs building up across the week before they happen
Filter to focus — use department filters in Employee View to see forecasted costs for a specific team