Worker rates and when to edit them
Last updated: August 25, 2026
Changing a pay rate in Alpaca is easy. Changing it at the right moment is what trips people up, because Alpaca keeps a full history of rates and prices each piece of work using the rate that was in force on the day the service happened. This article explains that behaviour and the deadlines around it.
Setting a rate
Open the worker's profile from My Team.
Edit the Pay Rates card.
Update the salary, or the clinical / training / admin / drive time / weekend hourly rates.
Save.
Editing pay rates requires the pay rates permission, which clinic admins have.
Rates are versioned
Pay Rate History on the worker's Pay Rates card.
Alpaca does not overwrite a rate — it closes the old one and opens a new version. Expand Pay Rate History on the Pay Rates card to see every version, each with its date range, its rates, and a status:
Active — in force now
Scheduled — starts on a future date
Historical — closed out
Rate versions start on pay period boundaries, so a version's range lines up with the payroll calendar rather than with an arbitrary mid-period date.
The rule that surprises people
Work is priced by the rate in force on its SERVICE date — not by the rate shown for the period you are looking at.
This matters most on off-cycle runs, which pay by service date. If a worker's rate went from $7 to $10 and an old appointment is paid later on an off-cycle run, that appointment is paid at $7 — the rate that applied when the work was done — even though the Payroll page for the current period shows $10 as their rate. That is correct behaviour, not a bug.
If you genuinely intended to pay the new rate for old work, that is a retroactive raise and needs a manual entry rather than a rate edit. Email support.
Timing: when a change takes effect
A new rate applies from its effective date forward. It does not retroactively re-price work that has already been signed and paid.
There are two deadlines to know about after a period ends:
Window | What you can do |
|---|---|
Up to 1 day after the period ends | As a clinic admin you can still backdate a pay rate into the just-ended period. |
1 to 3 days after the period ends | Payroll is being processed. You can still set rates going forward, but you can no longer backdate into the closed period yourself — email support. |
More than 3 days after the period ends | The lock is released and normal editing resumes for open periods. |
During the three-day lock, attempting a pay-affecting edit returns "Payroll is under processing and can no longer be manually updated. Contact Alpaca for changes."
Missing and zero rates
A worker with hours in a category but no rate for it is flagged as a Zero Rate warning. This does not block payroll — it just means those hours pay nothing. Common cases:
Drive time — needed as soon as a worker logs any drive time appointment.
Admin — needed once they have approved admin hours.
Weekend — needed if you use a weekend differential.
If you deliberately do not pay for a particular appointment type, the right fix is to change the appointment type or remove the appointment, not to leave a $0 rate sitting there generating warnings.
A $0 rate on a versioned entry falls back to the worker's current rate rather than paying nothing, so a partially-filled rate version will not silently zero someone out.
Before terminating someone
The termination preview warns you if any of the worker's worked hours have a $0 pay rate. That is your last chance to fix a missing rate before the final paycheck is calculated — take it. See Suspending vs terminating a worker.
Still stuck? Email support@alpacahealth.io and we will take a look.