What is your payroll telling you about your home?
Caregiver pay is a large part of what it costs to run an Adult Family Home. Five questions to help you see what your caregivers really cost and where money slips away.
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Why this matters
Caregiver pay is a large part of what it costs to run an Adult Family Home. Your payroll records already hold the numbers that show what each home, each shift and each overtime hour costs. Many owners only look at those numbers at tax time. Looking at them each month turns payroll from a chore into one of the clearest pictures of how your home is doing.
The questions
Five questions about what your payroll can tell you
Answer each one for your own home. Nothing is sent anywhere. It is just for you.
What share of your income goes to caregiver pay?
Do you look at it each month, or only at tax time? Watching it monthly helps you spot changes before they become problems.
Could you name last month's overtime total?
L&I says overtime pay must be at least 1.5 times the regular hourly rate for all hours worked over 40 in a week. Overtime is sometimes needed, but it is worth knowing what it costs you.
Does each home pay its own way?
If you run more than one home, can you see the caregiver cost for each home on its own?
What would one shift change save?
Example with made-up round numbers: a caregiver paid $20 an hour works 48 hours a week. The 8 hours over 40 cost $30 each, or $240. If another caregiver covered those 8 hours at the regular $20, they would cost $160. That is $80 a week, or about $347 a month, for one caregiver.
Is payroll part of your monthly books?
When payroll flows into your bookkeeping each month, your profit number is real, not a guess.
Answer the questions above to see where you stand.
Walk through it with usThe bigger question
The numbers you need to run your home well are already in your payroll. The question is whether you are looking at them.
Sources
Where this comes from
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Our complimentary AFH Payroll Health Review walks through caregiver schedules, tracking hours, overtime, how payroll connects to L&I, and what your caregivers really cost. You get a written summary within about two business days.
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