HUMAN & SOCIAL SERVICES PAYROLL · 501(c)(3) AGENCIES

Direct care runs around the clock. WageTime proves where every dollar landed.

A human services agency pays direct support staff through awake nights and on-call weekends, holds clinicians to productivity targets, and splits salaries across federal grants. WageTime codes each hour to a service line and a funder, and pays every shift on its own rule.

Built on infrastructure processing $35B+ in payroll & taxes · 2.8M+ employees paid
SOUND FAMILIAR?

Productivity targets, sleep-time math, wage floors, and five funders on one paycheck.

Human services is the largest category of public charities by count, and the work is Medicaid-funded direct care delivered around the clock (NCCS). That makes the payroll behind it some of the most scrutinized anywhere: the wage a rate promised has to reach the worker, the overnight has to be paid right, and every hour has to land on a service line and a grant a funder can audit.

THE PRODUCTIVITY TREADMILL

Only some of the hour is billable

Your clinicians and case managers are measured on billable service, but the day is full of unbillable work: progress notes, no-shows, drive time between homes, supervision, and training. If those hours aren’t coded apart from direct service, you can’t read productivity, you can’t build a clean cost report, and the grant that funds documentation time looks like it funded nothing.

THE OVERNIGHT MATH

Awake, asleep, and on-call all pay differently

A group home covers awake overnights, sleep-time shifts, weekend doubles, and holiday coverage, and each one pays on a different rule. Do it in a spreadsheet and the differentials drift, the on-call stipend gets forgotten, and a worker who covered two homes at two rates never gets the weighted-average overtime the week actually earned.

THE 80 PERCENT QUESTION

The funded wage has to reach the worker

The Medicaid Access Rule tells states to spend at least 80% of homemaker, home health aide, and personal care payments on direct-care worker compensation, and states are already asking what you paid. If your only record of wages, benefits, and employer taxes by worker is scattered across a payroll export and a spreadsheet, the report you owe becomes a reconstruction.

FIVE FUNDERS, ONE CASE MANAGER

Allocation is a monthly rebuild

One case manager is on a SAMHSA block grant, a CSBG award, a TANF contract, and unrestricted dollars, and the mix changes when an award closes. Every period someone rebuilds the split in a spreadsheet, re-keys it into payroll, and re-keys it again into the general ledger, then applies an indirect rate on top by hand.

THE REGISTRY CLOCK

A lapse stops the schedule

A direct support professional’s abuse-registry recheck, an RBT renewal, an LCSW license, a CPR card: any one going stale can pull a worker off the schedule or make a service unbillable. In an agency without an HR department, those dates live on sticky notes until the day one is missed.

Each of these gets a real product screen below, shown with sample agency data.
01 · WHERE THE HOUR WENT

How do you separate billable service from documentation and travel?

Every hour lands on a service line or a non-billable bucket on the WageTime run itself, so direct counseling reads apart from documentation, no-shows, drive time, supervision, and training, and productivity reads clean by clinician and program.

  • Hours coded to service lines and non-billable buckets on every run.
  • Job-cost codes up to 40 characters, matched to your funder numbering.
  • Billable-against-total productivity read by clinician and program.
  • Coded hours carry to the GL export and your billing or cost report.
  • One behavioral-health study: direct, billable care is about a third of provider time.
app.wagetime.com/time/service-lines

Time by Service Line · Pay Period Jul 6-19

Coded to service linesFeeds your cost report
EmployeeBillable hrsNon-billable hrs
Renata C.Outpatient counseling24.512.0
Marcus B.Targeted case management30.08.5
Priya D.Community support (I/DD)28.06.0
Owen T.Intake & documentation0.0Non-billable
4 staff · 82.5 billable · 66.5 non-billablecoded to service lines and funds

Replaces the productivity spreadsheet, and the cost report rebuilt from memory at year-end.

02 · AROUND THE CLOCK

How do you pay awake nights, sleep time, and on-call in a group home?

Awake overnights, weekend on-call, and holiday coverage each pay on their own rule through pay codes, and weighted-average overtime computes on the blended rate when one direct support professional covers two homes at two rates.

  • Night, weekend, and holiday differentials as pay codes.
  • On-call pay as a flat amount or a rate, paid on the same check.
  • Shifts of 24 hours or more: up to 8 sleep hours excludable by agreement.
  • An interrupted night flips the whole period back to hours worked.
  • You set which hours are worked; WageTime pays the codes.
app.wagetime.com/payroll/shift-pay

Shift Differentials & On-Call · Residential Home 3

4 pay codesWeighted-avg OT on
EmployeeHoursDifferential
Dana R.Awake overnight (Fri)8.0+$2.50/hr
Dana R.On-call (Sat)12.0$30.00 flat
Luis A.Weekend day16.0+$1.50/hr
Sam K.Holiday (Jul 4)8.0+$4.00/hr
44.0 hours · overnight, weekend, holiday, and on-call as codesweighted-average overtime applied

Replaces the differential that drifts and the on-call stipend nobody remembered to pay.

03 · THE FUNDED WAGE REACHED THE WORKER

Can payroll document direct-care compensation for the 80/20 rule?

Yes: WageTime reports wages, benefits, and employer payroll taxes per direct-care worker, by service line, so the compensation figure the 80/20 rule turns on is a report instead of a reconstruction.

  • The rule counts wages, benefits, and employer taxes; travel, training, and PPE stay out.
  • Compensation broken out by service line for the payment report.
  • Minimum-wage processing at federal, state, and local levels.
  • Configure a state direct-care base wage, like Colorado’s $17.00 an hour.
  • Rate changes captured in the audit log with effective dating.
app.wagetime.com/reports/direct-care-comp

Direct-Care Compensation · Personal Care Service Line

Compensation by categoryExports for the payment report
First three lines count toward the 80/20 rule; travel & training stays out.
Personal Care Service Line
Direct-care wages$182,400.00
Benefits$21,300.00
Employer payroll taxes$14,600.00
Travel & training$6,800.00
Direct-care compensation$218,300.00
$218,300.00 direct-care compensationexported for your state’s HCBS payment report

Replaces the wage reconstruction pulled together the week the state’s report is due.

04 · MANY FUNDERS, ONE PAYCHECK

How do you split one salary across several federal grants?

One case manager’s salary splits across a SAMHSA block grant, a CSBG award, a TANF contract, and unrestricted dollars at the pay line: WageTime carries wages, employer taxes, and benefits on the same split, with nothing re-keyed into the ledger.

  • Segments matched to your grant and program numbering.
  • Re-weight the mix once when an award closes; the next run reflects it.
  • Split carried to the GL export in CSV, IIF, or fixed-width.
  • Direct personnel cost handed off clean for your indirect rate.
  • De minimis indirect rate rose from 10% to 15% under the 2024 Uniform Guidance.
app.wagetime.com/reports/funding-allocation

Personnel by Funding Stream · Case Management

Splits to 4 streamsTies to GL
Funding streamPercentAllocated pay
SAMHSA MH block grantGR-412035%$2,275.00
Community Services Block GrantGR-221025%$1,625.00
TANF contractGR-305025%$1,625.00
UnrestrictedUNREST15%$975.00
Gross pay · 100% allocated$6,500.00direct cost ready for your indirect rate

Replaces the allocation spreadsheet, the re-key into the GL, and the indirect math done twice.

05 · CLEARED AND CURRENT

What keeps a registry recheck or a license from lapsing?

An abuse-registry recheck, an RBT renewal, an LCSW license, a CPR card, and a food-handler permit each sit on the employee record with recurring alerts, so a lapse surfaces weeks before a worker gets pulled from the schedule.

  • Credentials, licenses, and recheck dates on the WageTime employee record.
  • Recurring 30, 60, and 90-day expiration alerts.
  • Renewal tasks routed to the right person before the date.
  • Documents stored on the record; registry searches and fingerprint clearances stay yours to run.
app.wagetime.com/hr/credentials

Credentials & Registry Rechecks

30/60/90-day alerts1 due this month
Renata C.66 daysSep 30
LCSW license
Marcus B.17 daysAug 12
Abuse-registry recheck
Priya D.TrackingNov 15
RBT renewal
Dana R.68 daysOct 02
CPR / first aid
4 staff tracked · alerts at 30, 60, and 90 daysdocuments on the record

Replaces the sticky-note recert list and the worker pulled off shift with no notice.

PRICING

Simple payroll pricing. No surprises.

Full-service payroll is $10 a month per person paid that month, plus $50 a month per company, with unlimited runs. No long-term contracts, no per-run charges.

  • Full-service payroll, unlimited runs
  • Federal, state & local tax filing
  • Year-end W-2s & 1099s
  • Direct deposit, checks & pay cards
  • Contractor payments & filings
  • Off-cycle runs & bonuses, no extra fee
  • Employee paystubs & W-2 access
  • QuickBooks integration
$10/mo per person paid
+ $50/mo per company

Off-cycle runs and bonuses cost nothing extra. No long-term contracts; cancel anytime.

Example: 50 people paid × $10 + $50 company = $550 for the month

HR & hiring, onboarding, PTO, time tracking, benefits, and workers’ comp are optional add-ons, priced separately when you’re ready.

See a demo
THE INFRASTRUCTURE BEHIND WAGETIME
$35B+
in payroll & taxes paid
2.8M+
employees paid
4.3M+
W-2s & 1099s filed
100%
of tax filings automated

Human & social services payroll FAQ

How do we separate billable service time from documentation and travel?

Code each hour to a service line or a non-billable bucket on the run itself, using job-cost segments up to 40 characters matched to your funders. Direct counseling and case management land on their codes; documentation, no-shows, drive time, and training land on theirs, so productivity reads clean and the coded hours feed your cost report.

How do you pay overnight, sleep-time, and on-call staff in a group home?

Night, weekend, and holiday differentials and on-call pay are configured as pay codes, so each shift pays on its own rule, and weighted-average overtime computes when someone covers two homes at two rates. Federal sleep-time rules decide which hours on a 24-hour shift count as worked, and that determination stays yours to make with counsel.

Can payroll help us document the 80/20 direct-care compensation rule?

Yes. WageTime reports wages, benefits, and employer payroll taxes per worker and by service line, the categories the Medicaid Access Rule counts toward direct-care compensation, and exports them for the payment report your state requires. You and your state confirm the ratio and the rule’s details; WageTime supplies the underlying numbers, not a compliance guarantee.

How do we split one case manager’s salary across several federal grants?

WageTime divides a case manager’s salary across a SAMHSA block grant, a CSBG award, a TANF contract, and unrestricted dollars by the percentages you set, so every wage, tax, and benefit dollar follows that split each run. Segments carry to the GL export in CSV, IIF, or fixed-width, and your indirect cost rate (15% de minimis since the 2024 Uniform Guidance) is applied in accounting.

What keeps a background recheck or a clinician’s license from lapsing?

Every credential, license, and abuse-registry recheck sits on the employee record with recurring 30, 60, and 90-day alerts, and renewal tasks route to the right person before the date. WageTime tracks the renewal date and stores the document; it does not run the background check or the registry search, which stay where your state requires them.

What does payroll cost for an agency whose census changes with referrals?

$50 a month for the agency plus $10 per person actually paid that month, with unlimited runs. A program that staffs up for a new contract and down when an award ends pays for who was paid, so the bill tracks your census. Off-cycle runs and corrections cost nothing extra, and filings, year-end W-2s, and 1099s are included.

Bring one program and one pay period.

One program’s roster, a pay period with some overnight and on-call coverage, and the funders that program charges to. Twenty minutes with a payroll specialist on a live demo agency: you’ll watch hours code to service lines, see a residential shift paid with its differentials, and see a case manager’s salary split across four grants and posted to the ledger.

Book a 20-minute demo