STAFF PAYMENTS
Know What the Team Earned, What You Owe, and What You’ve Actually Paid.
Calculating what a distributed team is owed usually happens once a month, from memory and a spreadsheet, under time pressure. Bikabo builds it continuously out of work that has already been approved.
From Approved Work to Money in Someone’s Account.
Four steps, four records. The one people collapse is the last pair, and it is the pair that matters most: approving a payout is a decision, paying it is an event.
- Approved Work Work that passed review, priced at the agreement that applied.
- Earnings Ledger An entry per approved piece of work, with its rate recorded on it.
- Payout Calculation Everything owed to one worker for a period, less advances and adjustments.
- Payout Approval You confirm the figure. No money has moved.
- Staff Payment The record that money actually went out.
COMPENSATION MODELS
Pay People the Way the Work Actually Works.
Service businesses rarely pay everyone the same way. A writer per piece, a specialist by the hour, an operations lead a monthly retainer. All three can be true at once.
Per unit
For measurable output. So much per item, per page, per record processed.
Per hour
For work where time is the measure.
Per task
A flat amount for a piece of work, whatever it takes.
Weekly
A fixed amount per week, generated per completed period.
Biweekly
The same, on a fortnightly cycle.
Monthly
A retainer for someone who is simply on the team.
Per engagement
A single fixed amount for an entire Engagement, triggered when you decide it is due.
Calculate the Whole Team in One Pass.
A Payout Period groups everyone due to be paid together. Calculate the whole period at once, review what came out, and approve it.
Off-cycle payments still work on their own. A single worker, paid outside the normal run, is an ordinary thing that should not require pretending it is a period.
A payout that works out to nothing creates nothing, and the entries behind it stay unstamped so they carry into the next calculation rather than being stranded against a payout that paid no one.
Advances Are Cash, Not Cost.
Someone needs money before the work is done or the period closes. They request an advance, you approve it, and it comes off their next payout automatically.
An advance moves cash out of the business without being new labour cost, so it changes your cash position and not what the work cost. Treating those as the same thing is what makes a month look more expensive than it was.
Adjustments and Recoveries.
Work that was approved and then had to be redone can carry a financial consequence, and it is always a choice: no deduction, a partial one, or a full reversal.
If the original earning was already paid out, the correction is a recovery against future earnings rather than a reversal of something that has already left. Bikabo picks the right one based on whether the money moved, so nobody has to reason about it under pressure.
Either way it is a new, linked entry. The original earning stays visible, which is what lets a worker see why their balance changed.
Everyone Can See Their Own Position.
A worker sees what they have earned, what advances they have taken, what has been paid and what is still owed. Their own numbers, and only their own.
That removes most of the questions a business owner answers by hand every month, and it removes the argument, because both sides are reading the same ledger.
And This Is the Cost Side of Every Engagement.
The same approved earnings that make up someone's payout are what make up the approved cost on the Engagement they worked on. There is no second set of books and no reconciliation step between them.
Questions About Paying Your Team
From work that has been approved, priced at the compensation agreement that applied at the time. Nobody types a total. The figure is the sum of what actually passed review, less any advances and adjustments already recorded against that person.
Per unit, per hour, per task, weekly, biweekly, monthly, and a flat amount for a whole Engagement. A business that pays some people per piece and others a monthly retainer runs both in the same system.
No, and keeping them apart is the point. Approving says the figure is right. Recording a payment says money left the business. A payout can sit approved and unpaid, which is a real state your cash position needs to know about.
Yes. Partial payments are recorded as they happen and the payout carries a running balance, so nobody has to remember what is still owed against it.
Someone requests an advance, you approve it, and it is deducted from their next payout automatically. An advance is early cash against work to come, not new labour cost, so it moves cash position without inflating what the work cost.
Future work uses the new rate and past work keeps the old one. The rate is recorded onto each ledger entry when work is approved, and agreements are ended and replaced rather than edited, so historical cost stays what it was.
Yes, their own. Assistants and Checkers see their own earnings, their own advances and their own payment history. They never see anyone else’s, and among Admins, seeing the payout book is a separate permission from running delivery.
No. Bikabo does not file payroll taxes, does not produce statutory payslips, does not calculate deductions and does not transfer money to anyone’s bank. It works out what your team is owed for client work and records what you paid them.