Preshift Rota builds the week from your sales forecast, costs every shift the way payroll will, blocks anything that breaks UK employment law, and hands finance a ready-to-post labour accrual. One cost model, from the GM's screen to the ledger.
Built by Preshift and Williams, Stanley & Co. Rates set for 2026/27.
If you run more than one site, this is how labour gets managed today.
The rota said 26%. Payroll says 31%. Holiday, employer NI and pension were never on the rota, so nobody can say where the five points went.
Five points on £40k a week is £104k a year you only find out about after it has gone.
The rota was built from last week's rota, not from the forecast. The quiet afternoon got the same team as the Friday rush.
Habit, not demand, is setting your biggest controllable cost.
Nobody meant to. The rota tool let it through, the same way it let through the 9 hour turnaround and the missing break.
Tribunal risk sitting quietly in a spreadsheet.
Payroll runs after month end, so labour on the P&L is an estimate built from last month. The real number arrives too late to act on.
Decisions made on stale numbers are decisions made too late.
Build the rota. Show the GM the consequence of every shift. Post the accrual to the ledger. The same numbers, every step, so the rota reconciles to payroll.
The week at a glance: forecast sales, fully loaded labour, labour % against the site target and anything that needs a second look before you publish.
Hourly sales and covers become headcount per role. The build fills peaks first with the cheapest legal person, then trims overstaffed edges.
Gross pay, holiday accrual, employer NI and pension, worked out on the whole week and spread back over each shift. No more rate times hours.
Publish the week and the labour accrual is ready: by role nominal and site tracking category, in Xero manual journal format, with an hours file for payroll.
A week of labour, start to finish, without a spreadsheet in sight.
Sales and covers by hour, per site. Set the labour target and the productivity rule for each role. That is the brief the rota has to meet.
Press one button. Preshift fills the week legally and cheaply, then the GM adjusts with the cost of every change in front of them. Blocking issues stop publication.
The published rota becomes the labour accrual. Finance posts it, payroll confirms it, and the variance is reviewed every week rather than discovered every month.
Rate times hours is the number most rota tools show. Move the sliders and watch what the shift actually adds to the week once holiday, employer NI and pension are counted the way HMRC counts them.
| Gross pay | £0.00 |
| Holiday accrual (12.07%) | £0.00 |
| Employer NI (15% over £96/wk) | £0.00 |
| Employer pension (3% of qualifying earnings) | £0.00 |
| Marginal cost of this shift | £0.00 |
Illustrative. 2026/27 rates, single employment, weekly pay period. The product uses the same rules.
Every shift is checked as it is built. Warnings get a second look. Blocking issues stop the rota being published until they are fixed.
Two systems, two definitions of cost, weeks apart. That gap is where margin leaks. Preshift closes it with one cost model, signed off by the firm that produces your management accounts.
Rate times hours. Built by the GM on Thursday. Never sees holiday, NI or pension.
Fully loaded. Produced by finance three weeks after the month closed.
Rota to payroll variance, as a share of labour cost.
Of weeks with labour % within one point of target.
To close the month for sites on Preshift.
Overstaffed hours in the first quarter.
The targets we hold ourselves to with every site.
Neither of us could build this alone as credibly. Together we cover the data, the floor and the ledger.
Runs technology and marketing for UK multi-site hospitality groups. Brings the sales, covers, weather and footfall feeds that drive the forecast, and the onboarding that gets you live.
Hospitality accountants, founded by a restaurateur turned accountant. Brings the cost model, the 3-day close and a labour number signed off by the people who produce your management accounts.
Done for you by Preshift and WS onboarding. No consultancy-led six-month implementation.
Shape the product with us.
A small group of multi-site operators going live first, with direct access to the people building it.
Bundled into your WS service.
For Williams, Stanley & Co. clients. The rota feeds your management accounts and the 3-day close.
Per site, per month.
Through Preshift, alongside Preshift Reports and Core. Exports to the ledger and payroll you already use.
Scheduling is a commodity. The difference is that our cost on the rota is the cost on the P&L: fully loaded, reconciled to payroll, and posted to the ledger as the labour accrual. The rota becomes part of the close, not a separate tool that finance has to reconcile after the fact.
From Preshift's own sales and covers feeds, by hour and by site. Forecast accuracy improves with every week of actuals. You set the labour target and the productivity rule for each role.
The labour accrual exports in Xero manual journal format, by role nominal and site tracking category, with an hours file for payroll. Further payroll exports are on the roadmap for the payrolls WS clients run.
We do. Minimum wage bands, employer NI, the pension band and holiday accrual are held in one place, set for 2026/27 and re-checked against GOV.UK before every new tax year.
A staff app for rotas, swaps, availability and leave; geofenced clock-in so actual hours replace rostered hours in the accrual; a live sales feed so labour % updates through the day; and tronc allocation under the Employment (Allocation of Tips) Act 2023.
Half an hour on Zoom or in person. Bring last month's rota and payroll. We will show you where the points went.