This article will walk you through the steps necessary to begin using the Labor Cost Dashboard, as well as explain how the different numbers and calculations are figured.
Feature Video Walk-Through
Preview Mode
How to Get Started
Cost Dashboard Calculations
Settings Page
Feature Video Walk-Through
Preview Mode
It is possible to get a feel for Labor Cost Dashboard and its capabilities without inputting your direct data. When you first navigate to the dashboard, you will be in preview mode. There will be a flag across the top of the screen alerting you to this.
When you scroll down to the Overview widget, you will also see a warning symbol that the data is not fully accurate.
The data is not accurate, because you haven't entered your actual labor costs, but you will be able to see which clients are more expensive than others.
We enabled this mode in the hopes of providing more insight into how powerful this feature can be if used to its full capabilities.
How to Get Started
The first time you update your costs or input your data, you will be guided into an onboarding process which will require you to enter specific labor information.
Why? ShipHero tracks critical jobs automatically within the platform (such as picking and packing) but not all processes. For this reason to provide accurate cost information the on-boarding labor information is required.
NOTE: The on-boarding process can only be completed by users with admin permissions.
The on-boarding process varies slightly depending if there is more than one warehouse configured. The example below is for an account with more than one warehouse.
Navigating to the Labor Cost Dashboard
- Log into your ShipHero Appdot account.
- At the top of the screen, click on New & Updated Features.
- This will redirect you to the new Shipping.ShipHero.com User Interface.
- On the lefthand side of the screen, click on Cost Dashboard.
Onboarding Steps
Entering Onboarding Information
Within the flag at the top of the screen that indicates the information is not fully accurate is a line of highlighted text that says Update Labor Information. Click on this to begin customizing the Labor Cost Dashboard for your organization.
If you are clicking on Update Labor Information for the first time, you will be walked through the onboarding steps and screens to ensure you have properly input all the necessary data.
Set Pay Period
First, you must select the pay period you want to analyze and select the warehouse(s) to include in the calculations.
Set Labor Cost by Warehouse
For each selected warehouse you will need to complete the following information to complete the labor costs:
- Full-Time Payroll: Total actual payroll for full time employees.
- Temp Payroll for that Specific Week: Total actual payroll for temp employees.
-
Billed Labor to be Deducted from the Total Labor Cost
- Billed labor refers to labor related to special projects which is tracked and billed separately. By deducting this billed labor from your total labor cost, your Labor Cost Dashboard calculations will be much more accurate.
- Average Hourly Wage: You should enter the average cost for all your warehouse employees who work shipping or inventory related jobs.
NOTE: All costs and rates must be in the same currency.
ShipHero will use this information to know your actual costs for specific weekly periods and compare them to the tracked jobs within the platform. If there is no information for a certain weekly period, ShipHero will use the last Labor cost configured in the platform.
To keep this information as accurate and up-to-date as possible, ShipHero will notify you if it detects missing frequent updates to labor cost information and suggest updating it:
NOTE: If there is a new warehouse or a warehouse without labor information, its data will not be displayed on the dashboard until the Labor Cost information is completed.
Set Bulk Ship Time
Next, you will need to enter how much time your team is taking to ship a bulk ship order. You can include different times for bulk ship orders per client as well, in case you don’t want to use the average for those clients.
After the labor information is set you need to wait up to 15 minutes to see the updated costs.
NOTE: The system will flag you that something isn't right if the numbers don't match. This validation step is in place to ensure you are getting the most accurate information from the system.
After you have entered these numbers, you are finished with onboarding. You will automatically be redirected to the Cost Dashboard.
Cost Dashboard Calculations
The cost dashboard is composed of a variety of widgets which display specific information related to your warehouse. By default, the information shown on the dashboard is for the last 7 days and includes data from all warehouses. This can be adjusted by using the filters.
NOTE: Filters are persistent in the URL so you can bookmark specific views and even share those URLs with others.
Costs Views
You have 3 different views to review your costs details. You can see costs by:
- Shipments
- Line Items
- Units
To switch between these 3 views you can select the views within the header.
Depending on the Costs Views that you select, texts will vary: “per shipment”, “per line item” or “per unit” showing details for the selected view.
NOTE: The Warehouse Performance (Orders Only) and Insights from yesterday are the only widgets not affected by this view.
Overview Widget
- Average Cost per Shipment = “Picking Cost per shipment” + “Packing Cost per shipment” + “Inventory cost per shipment” + “Other cost per shipment”
- Average Time per Shipment = Tracked jobs time divided by the total number of regular shipments
- Picking Cost per Shipment = Tracked Picking time per shipment multiplied by all labor costs
- Packing Cost per Shipment = Tracked Packing time per shipment multiplied by all labor costs
- Inventory Cost per Shipment* = Tracked Inventory movements time per shipment multiplied by all labor costs
* Inventory movements include tasks like Replenishment, Putaway and other inventory movements.
- Other Costs per Shipment: This value contains different costs grouped into one related to warehouse activities not tracked by ShipHero.
To see the detailed information around any of these particular costs, go to the tables further down on the page and explained below: Cost and time per job, Cost and time per shipment and Cost and time per warehouse.
This widget shows the average cost and time to ship each shipment.
You can filter this information by Warehouse, client and time using the dashboard filters at the top:
NOTE:
- For all labor cost calculations, the ShipHero algorithm will apply an adjustment to calculate the actual costs accounting for breaks, management costs, etc.
- Additional details regarding these calculations are shown on the detailed tables by client and warehouse.
Bulk Tab
In this tab, you will see all the costs and information relating to Bulk shipments.
- Bulk Ship Cost per Shipment = “Picking/Packing cost per shipment”* + “Other costs per shipment”
- Average Time per Shipment = “Bulk time per shipment” considering picking/packing and inventory movements.
- Picking/Packing Cost per Shipment = Bulk time per shipment multiplied by all labor costs
-
Inventory Cost per Shipment = “Inventory movements time per shipment”* x “Average hourly labor cost” / Proportional to the number of bulk shipments
* Inventory movements include tasks like Putaway, etc.
- “Other costs” per Shipment: This value contains different costs grouped into one related to warehouse activities not tracked by ShipHero.
To see the detailed information around all these particular costs go to the tables explained below: “Cost and time per job”, “Cost and time per shipment” and “Cost and time per warehouse”.
NOTE:
- For all labor cost calculations, the ShipHero algorithm will apply an adjustment to calculate the actual costs accounting for breaks, management costs, etc.
- Additional details regarding these calculations are shown on the detailed tables.
Calculating Orders & Cost Per Client
- This graph allows you to compare the total shipments and cost per shipment across clients.
- This graph will show you 30 top clients by filter applied, by default it shows with the “Highest total shipments”. You can apply others filters such us: “Lowest total shipments”, “Highest total cost”, “Lowest total cost”, “Highest cost per shipment” and “Lowest cost per shipment”.
Warehouse performance
This graph represents the “Total orders“, “Average cost per order“ and “Average time per order“ across all warehouses.
- Total Orders: The number of unique orders that were picked and/or packed within the interval of time. If for the same order we detect different events in two different intervals of time (like picking in one hour and packing in another hour), the order would be counted twice.
- Average Time Per Order: The sum of the duration of all the events (picking, packing, replenishment and other activities) within the interval of time, divided by the “total orders”. If the interval of time is hourly, we group the events by hour (all the events between 2pm and 3pm will be counted in the 2pm group). If the interval of time is daily, we sum all the events within a day.
- Average Cost Per Order: the average time per order, multiplied by the workers rate. This number includes “other activities” costs into the calculation.
- The X-axis (horizontal) shows the intervals of time. If we’re filtering data for less than a week, we display hourly data. If we’re filtering data for more than a week, we display daily data.
- The units of the Y-axis (vertical) can be changed using the dropdown at the top right of the widget.
Insights
This widget displays valuable insights from the previous day in all the warehouses. (Insights has a few different pages, navigate via arrows at the bottom of the widget.)
- Top Shipping Client
- Highest Cost per Shipment
- Lowest Cost per Shipment
- Highest Picking Cost
- Lowest Picking Cost
- Highest Packing Cost
- Lowest Packing Cost
- Most Productive Time
- Least Productive Time
- Total Shipments
The arrows represent if the value is higher (up arrow) or lower (down arrow) than the average, and if that’s a good (green arrow) or bad (red arrow) thing.
Customers with no shipments are not considered in the Insights.
NOTE: While the rest of the widgets display data according to the filter selection, this widget always displays the insights from yesterday and for all the warehouses.
Cost & Time per Job
In this table you can see costs and times per job or event.
- Total Cost & Time: The sum of all costs and all recorded times of clients.
-
Picking & Packing: Costs and times tracked by ShipHero for picking and packing jobs.
*Columns are listed by SIB, MIB and the total picking and packing costs. - Inventory: Costs and times tracked by ShipHero related to inventory movement.
- Other Costs: Other warehouse related costs.
- Bulk Ship: Costs and times consumed by bulk ship jobs. These numbers are calculated using the manual information Bulk Ship Time per Order and Average Hourly Labor Cost.
- Each row displays Client information.
- By default you will see all clients but you can also filter by client.
- Within the table you will see an arrow next to the client name. Clicking the arrow will show you the same information but expanded by warehouse.
Cost & Time per Shipment
In this table you will see costs and times per shipment.
- Total Cost & Time: Sum of all costs and all tracked times of a specific client.
- Shipment Average: Average cost of all shipments (including regular and bulk).
- Packing Average: Average cost of Packing per shipment.
- Picking Average: Average cost of picking per shipment.
- Bulk Ship Average: Average cost of Picking/packing a bulkship shipment.
- Inventory Average: Average cost of inventory movements per shipment.
- Other Costs Average: Average cost of other warehouse costs per shipment.
- Regular Shipments: Total number of regular shipments.
- Bulk Shipments: Total number of bulk ship shipments.
- Total Shipments: Total number of shipments.
- Each row displays Client information.
- By default you will see all clients but you can also filter by client.
- Within the table you will see an arrow next to the client name. Clicking the arrow will show you the same information but expanded by warehouse.
Cost & Time per Warehouse
In this table you can see costs and times per warehouse. All columns are the same as the “Cost and time per shipment” but by Warehouse.
- Each row displays per Warehouse information.
Tables
If you would like to export the information from these reports, you can sort and select the columns you want to see on the exported report. You can then export the report as a .CSV.
To select columns and export the report:
On the right hand side of the table you wish to export, look for the Columns and Export dropdown menus.
Click on the Columns button. The list of available columns will appear. Pick and choose the columns you'd like to view and/or export from this list.
To export, click on the Export drop down and select Export CSV.
The Settings Page
From the Settings page, same as in the onboarding process, an admin user can set the time per order for bulk shipping, the hourly wage, and input their actual labor costs.
NOTE: ALL data will be updated on the dashboard if you update the bulk ship cost per order. The same applies to the hourly labor cost. It will affect past data calculations. However, if you update just the labor costs, it only apply to the selected time period (start to end date). It will not affect past data calculations.
NOTE: Updates can take up to 15 minutes to be reflected in the calculations.
How to Delete Labor Costs
- Navigate to the Settings screen.
- Scroll down the page the labor costs table, and highlight the labor cost you would like to edit or delete.
- You will see a trash can icon.
- Click on the trash can icon.
- Confirm that you wish to delete the selected labor cost by clicking on the Delete button.
- Note that this action cannot be undone.
NOTE: Currently to make changes to Labor Costs, you will need to delete the entry and re-enter it.