Help

There is no password. On the sign-in page, enter the work email an admin invited, then choose Email me a magic link. Open the link in that email to land in the app. The link is single-use; if it has expired, request a new one from the sign-in page.

A new person cannot create their own account from the sign-in form. An admin sends the invite from Settings, and that email is what the person uses to sign in.

When you are signed in, your email shows in the top bar. Admins also see (admin). Log out is in the same bar.

Planday Reports in the top bar returns to the home page, which lists the checks you can open. Menu groups them:

• Shifts — multiple authorised shifts, and shifts that are not yet approved.
• Leave — annual leave against Holiday shifts, and other absence episodes.
• Hours & pay — staff hours, and Planday compared with Xero timesheets.
• Tools — Ask AI, and Settings.
• Admin — staff schedule and payrun costs. This heading appears only for admins.
• Help — this guide. It stays available on the sign-in page as well.

Most reports share the same controls. Pick a From and To date, or use a shortcut. The shortcuts both set the dates and run the report:

• Last week — the most recent completed Monday-to-Sunday week.
• This pay period (25th–24th) — the pay period that includes today. Periods run from the 25th of one month to the 24th of the next.
• Last pay period (25th–24th) — the pay period that has just finished.

If you type the dates yourself, choose Run report. The button shows Loading while Planday (and Xero, where used) is being read. A red message means that run failed; the dates stay put so you can try again.

Results open in a table. Each column has a Filter box — type part of a name, a home, or a status and the table keeps matching rows. Clear filters restores the full list. Download CSV saves the rows you are looking at, including any filter you have applied. The file name includes the date range.

An empty result means nothing matched that range. That is a clean check, not an error.

Use this when you need to see who was authorised onto more than one shift on the same calendar day. It only counts shifts whose status is Approved.

Overnight shoulder shifts are left out: a shift that runs 00:00–08:00, or 20:00–00:00, is not treated as a second shift on that day. A night shift that crosses midnight therefore does not show up here on its own.

Each row is one person on one date, with the home or service, how many approved shifts they had, and the shift times. Run it for the last pay period before you sign payroll off, then filter by home if you are checking one service.

Use this to find shifts in the date range that have not reached Approved. The statuses you will see are Draft, Open, Assigned, Punchclock Started, and Punchclock Finished.

Punchclock Finished means the shift was worked and clocked out, and still needs approval. Draft and Open are unpublished or unfilled, so they are a different kind of follow-up from a finished punch that has not been authorised.

Columns are date, home or service, employee, start, end, and status. Filter the Status column when you want only the finished punches, or only the drafts.

Use this to check that approved annual leave lines up with the Holiday shifts on the rota. It looks at approved annual leave requests that overlap the dates you choose, for active staff.

For each request the table shows:

• Home or service, employee, and weekly contracted hours.
• Leave start, leave end, and the number of leave days.
• Balance hours — hours taken from the leave balance for that request.
• Available balance — annual leave still remaining today, not only inside the dates you ran.
• Holiday shift hours — hours of shifts tagged Holiday inside the leave window.
• Difference and Match — whether the balance hours and the Holiday shift hours agree.
• Non-Holiday shifts — shifts inside the leave window that are not tagged Holiday. A number here means someone is still on the working rota during leave.

Tick Actioned once you have dealt with a row. The tick is saved, so the next time anyone runs this report that row stays ticked and is shown faded. Untick it if the row needs to come back onto the list.

Include 52-week average rate of pay is off until you tick it. Turn it on before you run the report when you need the average hourly rate from Xero payslips, looking back up to 52 weeks. Weekend supplement pounds are kept and those hours are left out of the average; Holiday is left out. The extra columns are Avg rate (52w), how many weeks were used, and the source. The run is slower because of that look-back, so leave the box unticked for an ordinary leave check.

Use this for sickness and the other non-holiday absences, grouped into episodes rather than one row per shift. It covers Sick, Compassionate, Maternity, Paternity, Dependants, Unauthorised, AWOL, and Unpaid.

An episode runs from the first absence day to the last. Rest days with no shifts stay inside the episode. If the person works a non-absence shift in the middle, the absence splits into two episodes.

Contracted hours is that person’s weekly contract from Planday. Calendar days is the length of the episode including rest days. Absence days, Hours, and Shifts count the absence shifts themselves. Status shows the shift statuses inside the episode. Filter by Type when you only want sickness, or by home when you are checking one service.

Use this for scheduled hours and average weekly hours for every active employee. The page opens on the last 3 months, and that range is also a shortcut button next to the usual week and pay-period buttons.

Draft and Open shifts are left out. Holiday, sick, and other absence hours are listed in their own column and are left out of the weekly average. Bank holiday shifts count as scheduled hours.

After a run, the summary above the table tells you:

• How many active staff were included, and the exact dates, days, and weeks.
• Total scheduled hours.
• Average weekly hours for staff who had some scheduled hours.
• Average weekly hours across every active employee, including people on zero.
• How many people had no scheduled hours, and the total absence hours.

The table is one row per person: home or service, name, shift count, scheduled hours, average weekly hours, and absence hours. Download CSV when you need the full list in a spreadsheet.

Use this to compare the shifts someone worked in Planday with the timesheet in Xero. People often work across more than one department; this report adds up all of their Planday shifts and compares that total with Xero.

An admin has to connect Xero first. Until that is done, the page explains that an admin needs to connect it. After it is connected, everyone with an account can run the comparison.

Choose one of two modes:

• One employee — search by name, then pick them from the list. The page looks for that name in the connected Xero organisations and selects the organisation when there is one match. If the name is in more than one organisation, check the organisation it selected. If it finds nobody, pick the organisation yourself.
• Whole organisation — compares everyone who had shifts, against the Xero organisation you select. Choosing this mode turns on “Show mismatches only”.

Two boxes sit next to the organisation:

• Exclude sick/maternity/paternity — on by default, so those absences are not treated as missing timesheet hours.
• Show mismatches only — hides days that already agree. If everything lines up, the table says so.

Each row is a date, with the Planday shift (department, group, and position), Planday hours, the Xero timesheet rate, Xero hours, and whether they match. The whole-organisation view adds the employee name. A line above the table summarises who was matched, and, for a whole organisation, who in Planday had no matching person in that Xero organisation.

Use this when the fixed reports do not ask the question you have. Type it in plain English — shifts, leave, hours, or whether a pattern of shifts is missing — and it reads live Planday data before it answers.

Questions you have already asked stay in Previous questions on the left. Select one to jump back to that answer. Clear removes the conversation. That history stays in this browser only; it is not shared with other people or other computers.

A useful starting question, which is also shown on the empty page:

What are the average weekly hours for all staff over the last 3 months?

A question about all staff hours returns every active employee, not a sample. For a question about one person, use their name. UK dates are fine. If a very wide question comes back empty or times out, name one employee and a shorter range, then send it again.

Admins can do everything above, and they also manage who can sign in, connect Xero, and open Staff Schedule and Payrun Costs. Your email in the top bar includes (admin), and the Menu gains an Admin heading.

A user can open every report and Ask AI. They can open Settings, and they will see that user management is limited to admins. They cannot invite people, change roles, connect Xero, or open the two admin reports.

An existing admin sets someone else to Admin from Settings. The first admin is granted by the person who runs the site, either by listing their email as an admin or by setting their account role. After that, invites and role changes happen in Settings.

Settings is where admins invite people and look after accounts. Everyone signs in with a magic link sent to their email.

To invite someone:

1. Open Settings from the Menu, under Tools.
2. Enter their work email.
3. Choose User or Admin. User is the right choice for someone who runs the day-to-day reports. Admin is for someone who should manage accounts, Xero, payrun costs, and the staff schedule.
4. Choose Send invite. They receive an email and sign in with the link. They do not need a separate password.

The user list shows email, role, whether the account is Active or Disabled, and the last sign-in.

• Change the Role dropdown to switch someone between User and Admin. The change applies immediately.
• Disable stops them signing in and keeps the account, so you can Enable it later. Use this when someone is away or should pause access.
• Delete removes the account after you confirm. They can no longer sign in. Invite them again if they need access later.

Xero is used by Planday vs Xero, by the optional average rate on leave reconciliation, by Payrun Costs, and by the staff schedule. Only an admin can connect it.

Open Planday vs Xero or Payrun Costs. If Xero is not connected, choose Connect Xero and sign in at Xero. When Xero asks which organisations to allow, tick every organisation you need, including WCN Care Group as well as the care homes. Payrun Costs warns when WCN Care Group is missing and offers Reconnect Xero so you can add it.

If the page says Xero is connected but lists no organisations, choose Reconnect Xero and allow the organisations again. After a successful connection, any signed-in user can run the timesheet comparison. Payrun Costs and the staff schedule stay admin-only.

Use this to check each connected Xero organisation’s payroll totals over recent months, and to see whose gross pay moved sharply. It loads about the last 12 months. WCN Care Group is selected first when that organisation is connected.

Each month is expected to have two posted pay runs: one whose period ends on the 24th, and one whose period ends on the last day of the month. The table shows those two amounts, then the month total (cost and pay) and the Planday hours for that month.

• vs prev — this month’s total cost compared with the previous month.
• vs 3-mo avg — this month’s total cost compared with the average of the previous three months. The month is flagged when that difference is 10% or more.
• A missing 24th or month-end run is marked “Expected 2 runs incomplete”, and the empty side shows Missing. Any extra run is included in the month total and noted on the row.

Include draft pay runs is off until you tick it, so the page starts from posted runs. Draft amounts are labelled DRAFT. Refresh reloads the figures from Xero.

The buttons along the top are the Xero organisations. A number in brackets is how many employee pay flags that organisation has. Under the chart, Employees with significant pay changes lists people whose monthly gross — both pay runs added together — moved by 20% or more and by at least £100 against the previous month. The Month menu filters that list; “All flagged” shows every flagged month. Selecting the employee count on a month jumps the list to that month.

Downloads, from the top of the page:

• Download Excel — this organisation, with the cost chart in the workbook.
• Excel (all companies) — the same workbook for every connected organisation, when more than one is connected.
• CSV — the monthly totals for the organisation you are viewing.
• Employee flags CSV — the pay-change list, respecting the month filter.
• All companies CSV — monthly totals for every organisation.

Use this to rebuild the WCN Group staff schedule workbook from live Planday and Xero data. Visa route, right to work expiry, and notes come from a CoSPilot employee export, so upload a current file each time.

1. Export the latest employee file from CoSPilot. It can be .xlsx or .csv.
2. Open Staff Schedule from the Admin heading in the Menu.
3. Choose that file, then Download staff schedule.

Building the workbook reads every active employee, so it can take a few minutes. Leave the page open until the file downloads. The workbook is named like the WCN Group staff schedule.

The sheet fills in, from Planday and Xero:

• Company, initials, date of birth, job title, start date, length of service, employment type, and contracted hours per week.
• Average hours worked per week over the last 3 months.
• Earnings method, hourly rate, and annual salary.
• Night and weekend shift counts and allowances over 3 months, then the 3-month variable total and an annual remuneration estimate.
• Pension provider: Nest or Now, when a recent Xero payslip deducted that scheme.
• Holiday entitlement, available balance, and the holiday unit.
• Visa route, right to work expiry, and notes, from the CoSPilot file.

These columns are left blank for you to complete: bonuses, commissions, other allowances, employee and employer pension contribution rates, medical insurance, company car or allowance, other benefits, and accommodation.