Turn labour cost from a number you find out about into one you control in real time.
What if you could see scheduled, actual and budgeted labour cost side by side – before the pay run, not weeks after it?
First, Affinity's labour cost engine calculates the true, fully-loaded cost of every shift – for salaried and timesheet staff alike, including on-costs and overheads, as work happens. Then analyse it your way – in your own BI tools, or in Affinity's built-in Costing IQ dashboards – putting schedule vs actual vs budget, and cost per unit of output, in front of the managers who can act on it.
Labour is your biggest controllable cost – and the hardest to see
For most finance and operations teams, labour cost only becomes visible once payroll has run. By then the overspend has already happened.
You find out too late
Costs surface after the pay cycle closes. There's no chance to adjust a roster or approve overtime before the money is spent.
Roster, budget and actuals don't talk
The schedule lives in one system, the budget in a spreadsheet, and actual cost in payroll. Nobody sees them together.
Variance is buried
Working out true cost-per-site or cost-per-unit means stitching reports together by hand, long after a decision could have changed the outcome.
From hours worked to insight you can act on
The Costing IQ dashboards are the visible tip of a complete labour cost engine. Four stages turn raw time into real-time, decision-ready numbers.
Capture
Time is captured in self-service timesheets and schedules, or imported from time clocks, rostering, POS, ERP and job systems – giving both rostered and actual cost.
- Up to 12 cost elements per entry
- Cost centre, position, project, job, client
- Scheduled / rostered cost as well as actual
Calculate
Payroll rules turn each entry into true cost in real time – including award interpretation, on-costs and overheads.
- Costs salaried (auto-paid) and timesheet staff alike
- On-costs: super, KiwiSaver, payroll tax, ACC, leave
- Optional overheads, multi-position rates, back pay
Budget
Set budgets for rates, hours or quantities against any cost element, over any period.
- Total, annual, monthly, weekly or daily
- Up to 3 versions: forecast, approved, adjusted
- Compare in dollars, units or quantity
Analyse in Costing IQ
Managers see scheduled, actual, budgeted and sales figures together, in real time, with variance highlighted.
- Drill down by any cost element
- Filter by period or budget variance
- In self-service, your BI tools or warehouse
Your data, your way – feed your own systems, or use ours
The real power is that Affinity produces this costing data in the first place. From there it's your choice: feed it into your own finance, manufacturing or BI systems and your data warehouse, or use Affinity's built-in Costing IQ dashboards. The Affinity tool is one option, not the only one – and most customers do both.
Calculated by Affinity
Affinity's engine calculates fully-loaded labour cost – actuals, on-costs and overheads – in real time and reconciled to payroll. One trusted source of truth for every downstream view.
Feed your own systems & BI
Connect BI tools like Power BI and Tableau directly, interface the data into your finance, manufacturing or other workforce systems, or sync it into your data warehouse – refreshed as often as you need, from daily to every few minutes. Export to Excel any time.
Explore Reporting & DataOr use Affinity's Costing IQ tool
Finance and operational managers explore the numbers in configurable Costing IQ dashboards inside Affinity Self Service – filtered to what's relevant to them, with no payroll access required.
Explore Self ServiceCosting IQ in action
Slice cost by element, period or budget variance. Compare schedule, actual, budget and output – whether that's sales, units produced, tonnes or boxes – for any date range. Because the data is real-time, your view never has to wait for a pay cycle.
Schedule vs actual vs budget
| Date | Weekday | Schedule | Actual | Budget | Sch vs Budget | Act vs Budget | Act vs Sch |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 02/03/2026 | Monday | $380.39 | $365.20 | $580.00 | 65.58% | 62.97% | -3.99% |
| 03/03/2026 | Tuesday | $295.15 | $131.15 | $580.00 | 50.89% | 22.61% | -55.57% |
| 04/03/2026 | Wednesday | $557.44 | $419.66 | $580.00 | 96.11% | 72.35% | -24.72% |
| 05/03/2026 | Thursday | $426.29 | $283.70 | $580.00 | 73.50% | 48.91% | -33.45% |
| 06/03/2026 | Friday | $524.65 | $360.65 | $580.00 | 90.46% | 62.18% | -31.26% |
| 07/03/2026 | Saturday | $312.50 | $298.40 | $280.00 | 111.61% | 106.57% | -4.51% |
| Total | $2,496.42 | $1,858.76 | $3,180.00 | 78.50% | 58.45% | -25.54% | |
Daily schedule, actual & budget
Decide in advance, not in hindsight
Everything managers need to keep labour cost on budget, in one place.
Real-time visibility
Cost is calculated as work happens. Report any date or time range – your view never has to match a payroll cycle.
Variance at a glance
Schedule vs budget, actual vs budget and actual vs schedule are colour-coded so overspend jumps out instantly.
Drill down anywhere
Open up any cost component by cost centre, position, project, job or client to find exactly where cost is moving.
Cost per unit of output
Layer in any output measure – sales, units produced, tonnes, boxes – to see labour cost per unit, not just a raw dollar figure.
Proactive myPA alerts
Get notified when actuals hit X% of budget, overtime passes a limit, or cost-per-unit exceeds target – before it becomes a problem.
Connect and share
Connect Power BI or Tableau, interface costings into your workforce systems, or sync to your data warehouse – refreshed as often as you need, from daily to every few minutes. Export to Excel any time.
Built for the people who own the number
Two views of the same real-time data.
Finance managers
- See fully-loaded labour cost – gross, on-costs and overheads – mapped to GL accounts.
- Track actuals against forecast, approved and adjusted budget versions.
- Report labour as a percentage of output – sales, units produced or tonnes shipped – for true margin visibility.
- Trust the figures: costings reconcile to processed payroll automatically.
Operational managers
- Compare the roster you scheduled against what it actually cost.
- Catch overtime and unbudgeted hours while you can still act on them.
- See cost-per-unit and cost-per-site to manage productivity, not just hours.
- Get alerted the moment a site or job is tracking over budget.
The shift
From costs you explain after the fact to costs you steer in advance.
| Activity | Without Affinity Costing | With Affinity Costing |
|---|---|---|
| When you see cost | Weeks later, after payroll | Real time, as work happens |
| Schedule vs budget | Blind until actuals land | Live, side by side |
| Variance analysis | Manual, in spreadsheets | Automatic and colour-coded |
| On-costs & overheads | Estimated or ignored | Fully loaded and accurate |
| Knowing about overspend | After it has happened | myPA alerts before the limit |
| Approach | Reactive: explain the variance | Proactive: prevent the variance |
Frequently asked questions
Where does the cost data come from?
From timesheets and schedules in Affinity Self Service, and from imported sources such as time clocks, rostering, POS, ERP and job systems. Time can be recorded against up to 12 cost elements – cost centre, position, project, task, job, client and more – so every dollar traces back to where the work happened.
Do the figures include on-costs and overheads, or just gross pay?
Your choice. Affinity's costing shows actual payroll cost, and can layer in on-costs (super, KiwiSaver, payroll tax, ACC, leave accruals) and optional overheads (equipment, premises, management) calculated as a rate or percentage. You decide what each view and each budget includes.
How do budgets and variances work?
Budgets can be set for rates, hours or quantities against any cost element, on a total, annual, monthly, weekly or daily basis – down to a time range. You can hold up to three versions (forecast, approved, adjusted). Variances against budget are highlighted live in the dashboard and can trigger myPA alerts when actuals hit a set percentage of budget.
Do managers need access to payroll to use it?
No. Costing IQ lives in the Affinity Self Service platform, so finance and operational managers see the cost analytics relevant to them without touching the payroll system. Access is controlled by self-service security.
How can our teams access the cost data?
Several ways. The primary value is that Affinity produces the data – from there you choose how to consume it. Finance and operations teams can connect BI tools like Power BI and Tableau directly, interface the data into other workforce systems, or sync it into your own data warehouse, refreshed as often as you need – from daily down to every few minutes. Or managers can explore configurable Costing IQ self-service dashboards inside Affinity, with no payroll access needed. You can also export any filtered view to Excel.
Can we measure cost per unit of output, not just sales?
Yes. Any output measure can be loaded against the cost data – sales is just one example. Track tonnes of product, units produced, boxes shipped or any other quantity to see true labour cost per unit of output, and compare it against budget over any period.
Ready to manage labour cost in real time?
See how Affinity turns timesheets into live, decision-ready cost analytics for your finance and operations teams.
Costing works alongside Reporting & Data and Award Interpretation on one AU/NZ-built platform.