Overtime report from your payroll and holiday records
Who worked more than their contracted hours this month, and what will that overtime cost at next April's rates?
Upload the month's payroll and your holiday record. Ask Orrery matches staff across the two files, works out contracted hours, hours worked and overtime per person, and costs it at today's rates and at the expected April 2027 rates.
When people use it: Each month after payroll closes, and before April when rates change.
How it works, step by step
Upload both files
Upload the payroll and the holiday record on the Ask Orrery page. Spreadsheets are read as tables, with column letters and headings, so names and rates are found wherever they sit.
Ask for the overtime report
Ask in plain English for the report you want. Ask Orrery says how it matched names across the files and which people it could not match, so you can check them. It saves the result as a report you can open, edit the title of and save as PDF.
What April does to it
The April 2027 National Living Wage range sets the floor for next year. Overtime paid at plain time rises with it; overtime at a premium rises more.
Overtime against the market for staff
Persistent overtime is usually unfilled posts. Check how many employers compete for the same care workers near you.
What you upload
- The month's payroll or rota export, with hours and rates per person
- Your holiday record, with contracted hours a week
Files are stored privately for your account, never shared with anyone and never used to train AI. You can delete them at any time. Spreadsheets, CSV, PDF and Word files all work, in your own layout.
Try it with sample files
Made up files for a made up provider, Example Care Group, so you can see what Ask Orrery does with them.
Questions you can ask
- “Using my Example House September payroll and holiday report, build an overtime report: contracted hours per person, hours worked in September, hourly rate, overtime hours, and what that overtime would cost at the new rate in April 2027.”
- “Chart overtime hours by person for September, highest first.”
- “Which roles carry most of the overtime, and how does that compare with the agency hours we buy?”
Ask the data in plain English
A real question and answer from Ask Orrery, the assistant inside the platform, using the Example Care Group sample files above (October 2026). It works from your files and Orrery's data, and shows its sources.
The answer: 44 of the 78 hourly staff worked overtime in September 2026, 856.52 hours in all. That is about £11,991 of basic pay at September rates. At an assumed April 2027 National Living Wage of £13.18, it would be about £12,456, roughly £465 more. I worked these totals out by hand from your payroll, so check them against your own spreadsheet.
The report lists each person's contracted hours, hours worked, hourly rate, overtime hours and cost at both rates. It also has a chart of the ten largest overtime totals.
- Concentration: the ten highest people account for 582 of the 856 hours, about 68%.
- Contract mismatch: Ella Varghese and Abi Zielinski are contracted for 20 hours a week but worked 153 and 142.5 hours. That usually points to unfilled posts or contracts that no longer match the rota.
- Possible pay issue: Sam Vaughan, aged 21 and over, is paid £12.40 weekday. That is below the £12.71 National Living Wage in Orrery's sources, so please check it.
How I built it:
- Hours worked are weekday plus weekend hours.
- Contracted hours are weekly hours × 52 ÷ 12, less holiday, sick and training hours.
- Rates rise by the same percentage as the National Living Wage (£12.71 to £13.18), with a floor of £13.18 for anyone aged 21 and over.
- Overtime is costed at plain time. The two salaried managers are excluded.
Limits:
- The April 2027 rate is a Low Pay Commission projection (£13.02 to £13.34), not confirmed.
- Costs exclude employer National Insurance, pension and any overtime premium.
- I found no separate holiday file, so I used the holiday columns in the payroll.
- I had no April 2027 rate for 18 to 20 year olds, so they got the same percentage rise.
I can rerun it at £13.02 or £13.34 if you want the range. Related guides: /app/guides/overtime-report?council=england and /app/guides/nlw-april?council=england.
Ask, chart and report, in plain English
Ask Orrery answers from Orrery's data and your own files, draws charts on request and builds reports you can save as PDF. These are real examples made with the sample files.
- Contracted hours a month are weekly hours times 52 divided by 12; four weeks undercounts by about 8%. Ask Orrery says which it used.
- Holiday and training hours are paid but not worked: decide whether they count towards overtime before you compare months.
Answer this with your own files
Subscribers get every guide, chart and projection for all 153 councils, Ask Orrery with private uploads of their own files, and every council report.
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