Rota > Labour cost shows two figures side by side: what the published rota will cost, and what the approved hours actually cost. It is for owners, and for managers the owner has let in under Settings > Labour cost. See Who can see sales and labour cost.
The two figures
Forecast cost is the published shifts priced at each person's rate as it stood on the day. Actual cost is the approved timesheet hours priced the same way. Variance is the gap, and says whether you are over, under or in line with the forecast. Rates are frozen onto each line when the timesheet is built, so a pay rise in April does not restate what March cost.
Gross or loaded
By default every figure is gross wages. Enter employer National Insurance and employer pension percentages under Settings > Labour cost and the headline figures include them; the page says "Includes N% on-costs" when they do. Paddl does not guess these, because the thresholds change and a guessed number would look precise and be wrong.
Labour as a share of sales
Where a site has a sales forecast, the report shows labour as a percentage of expected sales, and switches to actual sales once the days have been taken. Your target lives under Settings > Sales; leave it blank and a typical hospitality figure of 30% is used and the report says so. The same figure sits in the rota header while you build the week, so you see it move as you add a shift.
The breakdown
Three panels below the headline: by site, by person and by day, each with forecast and actual hours and gross cost. The by-person panel is the one that shows what colleagues earn, which is why the manager permission is off until an owner turns it on.
Days out of step with takings
Where a site has a forecast, the note under the report lists days in the range where the hours were out of step with the takings, either more hours than the takings needed or fewer people than they needed, with a link to the timesheets for that flag. Both are things to read, not corrections: neither changes an hour or a rate.
What is left out, and why the report tells you
People with no pay rate. Their hours are counted and their cost is not. The report names them so you can add a rate under Team.
Hours in another currency. Counted in the hours, never added to the money. There is no exchange rate anywhere in Paddl, and inventing one would put a confident wrong number on a payroll page.
Long ranges. A very long range may be cut short, and the report says which side was cut so a variance is never quoted against half the data.
Export
Export CSV gives you the report as a spreadsheet with short column headings. It contains pay, so treat the download as you would a payroll report.
Nothing here is payroll. The report says what the rota costs; it moves no money and produces no payslip. What goes to your bureau is the export in Exporting hours to payroll, built from the same approved hours described in Approving hours and timesheets.