Margin Insight

What is Margin Insight : Margin Insight shows you where your margin is heading while the pay or billing period is still open. It combines the hours your officers have already worked with the hours still on the schedule, then calculates projected pay, billing, and margin for the period.

Use it to spot overtime, non-billable hours, and margin pressure early enough to fix the schedule, instead of finding out after payroll and invoicing close.

Note : In the portal, Margin Insight is set up through Financial Snapshot settings. Both names refer to the same feature.

This feature is available to TrackTik BackOffice customers.

To be able to have it enabled in your portal, you would need to reach out to your client success manager.

Purpose of Margin Insight 

Here is a list of what the feature can do for you 

• You can see projected pay, bill, gross margin and non-billable overtime (NBOT) for the current period before it closes.
• Switch between a Scheduling lens ( hours, overtime, coverage ) and a Financial lens (NBOT, margin, revenue impact).
• Find dates, accounts and sites that cross your thresholds using the calendar, heat matrix and spreadsheet views.
• Drill down from a portfolio or account down to the shifts and people behind the results.
• Rerun a snapshot after schedule changes and ocmpare runs to measure the impact
• Review completed historical periods

Note : Running a snapshot does not change any schedules, shifts, payroll or billing records. It only creates reporting data. 

How Margin Insight works : Each snapshot looks at one reporting period ( for example, for a specific month) and splits it at the date you run it.

It can be for a already passed period, incoming dates or for a whole period. 
The feature pull the data from the actual worked hours, scheduled hours and projected pay, billing and marging calculated with your pay and bill rules.

Example : An officer is scheduled 10:00 p.m.–6:00 a.m. and has already worked 32 hours this week. Relief arrives an hour late, so the officer works 9 hours and reaches 41 hours for the week. That one shift produces 9 billable hours, 8 regular pay hours, 1 overtime pay hour, and possibly an overnight premium. Margin Insight rolls up thousands of records like this so you can see their effect on the period.

Two types of margin leak :

• Unbilled overtime -  the hour is billed at the standard rate, but the overtime premium isn't covered by the contract. Usually a pricing or contract question for finance and account managers.
• Paid, never billed — hours an officer is paid for that never reach an invoice (for example, two officers overlapping on one post). Usually a scheduling or coverage question for schedulers.

How to create a Financial Snapshot template

1. Go to Settings > Backoffice Configurations > Financial Snapshot.
2. Click on New Template.
3. Enter a clear Description (for example, Monthly – East Region – Bill & Pay).
4. Select a Frequency: Weekly, Bi-Weekly, or Monthly.
5. Select a Reference Date. This is the earliest period the template can be run for.
6. Select a Scope: Bill, Pay, or Bill & Pay. Bill & Pay is required for NBOT calculations.
7. Choose a Region. Select Include Sub-Regions to include everything below it, or pick a single Site.
8. Click Save.

We would recommend to use the following configuration : 

• Frequency : Monthly
• Reference Date : Start of the earliest period you want to review
• Scope : Bill & Pay
• Region : Main region 

Note : If your schedules are only published one or two weeks ahead, a Weekly template may be more useful. You can create several templates with different frequencies and scopes.

How to run a Snapshot 

1. Go to Settings > Backoffice Configurations > Financial Snapshot.
2. Select your template and click Run.
3. Select the period start date. It must match the start of a period for that template. For a monthly template, select the first day of the month.
4. Click Save.
5. Watch the status change from Pending to In Progress to Completed.

Each run is listed under the template with its period, run date and status so you can go back to earliers runs.

A snapshot is a point-in-time picture. It does not update by itself. Rerun the template when : 

• Schedulers have changed upcoming shifts and you want to see the effect
• More of the period has been worked (for example, at the start of each week)
• Late time punches or shift approvals have been processed

How to view results in Margin Insight 

1. Open Margin Insight.
2. Select a Snapshot Template and a Run. The most recent run is marked Latest.
3. Use Group By and Show (Pay, Bill, Both) to change the view.
4. Use the Scheduling / Financial toggle to switch lenses.
5. Switch between Spreadsheet and Graphics views, and click any row or cell to drill down.

Troubleshooting tips 

• If a run is stuck in pending/In progress : Large scopes take longer to calculate. Wait a few minutes and refresh the page. If after a moment the run is still isn't completed, please contact the support team with the template name, period and run time.
• If the results look wrong or empty for the period : Check the period start date you picked. For monthly templates it must be the first of the month. The portal does not yet validate this date. You can also check the template scope. NBOT and margin need Bill & Pay.
• If the end of the period looks too low : Future hours come from the schedule. If shifts aren't published yet for the rest of the period, projected pay and billing will be understated. Publish further ahead, or use a Weekly template.
• If you can't run a snapshot for an earlier period : The template reference date is later than the period you want. Create a new template with an earlier reference date.
• If the numbers didn't change after the schedule was fixed : Snapshots don't refresh automatically. Rerun the template, then select the newest run (marked Latest). Scheduled automatic runs are not available yet.
• If some regions, sites or accounts are missing : You only see data for regions you have access to. Check your role and region assigments. You also need to check the template region and whether include sub-regions is selected. 
• If NBOT doesn't match our finance team's figure : Your finance team may use a different NBOT definition (premium only vs. full overtime hour), and overlapping shifts can also create non-billable hours. See Key terms below. Export the figures with their source records to compare line by line.

Key terms 

• Pay (projected) - Projected payroll cost for the period
• Bill (projected) - Projected billing for the period
• Gross margin - Projected bill minus projected pay
• NBOT % / hours - Overtime that isn't covered by billing 
• NBOT margin cost - The dollar cost of non-billable overtime
• Paid not billed - Hours paid to officers that don't appear on an invoice
• Average bill rate - Average billed rate across the hours in scope

Note: NBOT is an estimate based on your configured pay and bill rules. Companies define NBOT differently. For example, if an officer earns $10/hour and $15/hour for overtime, some count only the $5 premium as non-billable, others count the full $15. Check how Margin Insight calculates it before comparing with your own reports.