Work Types

Work types are employment classifications that control how Flowstate calculates workforce costs. Every employee and vacancy is assigned a work type, and each work type carries an overhead percentage that is applied on top of base salary to compute the fully loaded cost.

Common work types include Full-time Permanent, Part-time, Fixed-term Contract, and Intern. Each can have a different overhead rate to account for the varying cost of benefits, taxes, equipment, and insurance across employment categories.

Why Work Types Matter

Without work types, Flowstate would treat every person as having the same cost structure. In reality, a full-time permanent employee typically costs 25-40% more than their base salary when you factor in benefits, employer taxes, equipment, and office space. An intern or fixed-term contractor may carry little to no overhead.

Work types capture this difference so that your financial forecasts reflect true cost, not just salary.

Configuring Work Types

1. Navigate to Settings > Work Types
2. Click Add Work Type to create a new classification
3. Fill in the required fields (see data model below)
4. Click Save

You can edit or deactivate existing work types at any time. Deactivated work types remain in the system for historical reporting but cannot be assigned to new employees or vacancies.

Data Model

Field	Type	Required	Description
name	string	Yes	Display name for the work type (e.g., "Full-time Permanent")
description	string	No	Longer description of the employment category
overheadPercentage	number	No	Overhead multiplier applied to base salary (default: 0). A value of 0.3 means 30% overhead.
isActive	boolean	No	Whether the work type can be assigned to new employees/vacancies (default: true)
sortOrder	integer	No	Controls display ordering in dropdowns and lists (default: 0)
excludeHolidays	boolean	No	When true, public holidays are excluded from working day calculations for this work type (default: false)

Understanding Overhead Percentage

The overheadPercentage field is the single most important setting on a work type. It is a decimal multiplier added on top of base salary to calculate the fully loaded cost of an employee.

Formula:

Fully Loaded Cost = Base Salary x (1 + overheadPercentage)

Example:

Work Type	Base Salary	Overhead %	Fully Loaded Cost
Full-time Permanent	$100,000	30% (0.3)	$130,000
Part-time	$50,000	15% (0.15)	$57,500
Intern	$40,000	5% (0.05)	$42,000

TIP

Work with your finance team to determine the correct overhead rates for each employment category. Common items included in overhead: employer payroll taxes, health insurance, retirement contributions, equipment, office space allocation, and software licenses.

WARNING

Changing an overhead percentage affects all future cost projections for every employee and vacancy assigned to that work type. Existing historical data is not retroactively recalculated, but all forward-looking forecasts will reflect the new rate immediately.

Excluding Holidays

The excludeHolidays flag controls whether public holidays (as defined by the employee's geography) are subtracted from their available working days.

• false (default): Public holidays reduce available working days. A full-time employee in a geography with 10 public holidays has fewer billable days.
• true: Public holidays are not subtracted. This is useful for work types where people are expected to work through holidays (e.g., on-call rotations, shift workers).

Assigning Work Types

Work types are assigned at the individual level:

• Employees: Each LiveEmployee record has a workTypeId field linking to a work type
• Vacancies: Each LiveVacancy record also has a workTypeId field so that open positions carry accurate cost projections before they are filled

When you change an employee's work type, their cost projections update automatically in all active scenarios and forecasts.

Best Practices

1. Create distinct work types for each employment category. Do not use a single "Employee" type with an averaged overhead. The whole point is to capture cost differences.
2. Review overhead rates quarterly. Benefits costs, tax rates, and office expenses change. Keep your overhead percentages current.
3. Use sortOrder to prioritize common types. Put "Full-time Permanent" first so it appears at the top of dropdown menus.
4. Deactivate rather than delete. If a work type is no longer used, set isActive to false. This preserves historical data integrity.

Required Permissions

Managing work types requires the settings_entity_config_* permission group. Users without this permission can view work types but cannot create, edit, or delete them.

Related Pages

• Work Types API Reference -- REST API endpoints for programmatic management
• Getting Started: Work Types -- Conceptual introduction to work types
• Getting Started: Cost Attribution -- How overhead flows into cost calculations
• Configuration Overview -- All configuration entities
• Exchange Rates -- Multi-currency settings that interact with cost calculations