Get a better understanding of how Birdie calculates travel, mileage, banded rates and breaks. This will give you peace of mind that the system is working as it should and if you spot an issue you can identify what may have gone wrong.
Travel rate calculations
Hourly rate: A mapping API calculates the travel time between locations, and Birdie will then apply the hourly rate to that. So if the hourly rate is £9 and the journey takes 20 mins, there will be £3 of pay for that journey.
Mileage calculations
Similarly to the hourly rate, the mapping API will return a distance between visits in miles (travelling by road) which will be multiplied by the mileage rate, if the Care Professional is a driver. For example, if the rate is 25p/mile, and the journey is 3 miles, the Care professional will be paid 75p in mileage for that journey. Birdie does not take into account potential traffic or temporary road closures.
Break calculations
During the configuration of travel rates, you have the option to set up ‘breaks’. This 'break' is a way of defining whether or not travel time & mileage should be paid because the Care Professional is travelling between visits, or whether the journey that the carer is doing is actually considered 'commuting to and from their workplace'.
For example, if visit A ends at 9.00 and visit B starts at 10.00, the time between visits is an hour - regardless of how much of that is waiting time vs travel. If the agency's policy is that they don't pay travel & mileage on either side of a 30-minute break, the Care Professional won't be paid travel & mileage for travel from visit A or to visit B (on the assumption that they have time to go home / do their shopping / see their mum etc in between visits, and therefore travel from visit A and to visit B is 'commuting to and from their place of work' rather than 'travel between visits').
If the Care Professional is deemed to be travelling between visits, the usual hourly rate & mileage rate will apply as above.
Waiting time calculations
Birdie subtracts the travel time, from the time between the two visits. The resulting amount is the waiting time. If paying for Waiting time, the rate used is the travel time rate.
Banded rates calculations
On the pay run, there is one line per band, using the image below, where it says 0.82 hours with a rate of £5.50 this means the total hours from the whole pay run period. Banded rates are not calculated pro rata (e.g. it is not 0.82 x £5.50). It is £5.50 for every visit lasting between 15 and 30 mins, so they had 3 visits lasting between 15 minutes and 30 minutes, 3 x £5.50 = £16.50.
FAQs
Does Birdie round travel timings up or down?
Birdie displays travel time in minutes on our dashboards and output documents, for your ease of use, but the actual calculations for pay and invoicing use the exact duration including seconds
For example, 12 minutes and 27 seconds of waiting time will be shown as 12 within Birdie but 12 minutes and 27 seconds will be the time used to calculate pay
Does Birdie include travel and waiting in cancelled visits payments?
Birdie only includes travel and waiting payments for cancelled visits if the ‘Should Pay Carer’ option is marked when the visit is cancelled
We are working on a solution to exclude travel and waiting payments towards cancelled visits that are paid for that will be available shortly
Birdie also calculates travel and waiting from a cancelled visit to the next visit
When are travel payments calculated?
Travel payments are calculated after visits are confirmed before they appear on the Dashboard. The order in which the visits happened will influence travel between them, so it’s important to ensure that you have confirmed all the relevant visits for a carer before proceeding with payroll
As the calculation happens after visit confirmation, we recommend waiting up to 10 minutes for large payroll operations, to ensure that the system has time to accurately calculate travel for your Pay Dashboard
Please note: Viewing accurate travel payment calculations in Birdie Analytics/DnA Portal does require an overnight refresh
How does Birdie use travel and waiting to calculate National Minimum Wage?
As per HMRC guidance, travel and waiting time is always included in the total hours worked used to calculate National Minimum Wage (NMW). Commute hours and pay will only be included when the travel rate card explicitly indicates they should as per the relevant HMRC entry here. Breaks are always excluded as per HMRC guidance