Settle · crew share and payroll

One operation, two completely different payrolls.

A small operation often has both, and most of the software sold into this industry understands only one. Separating them is usually the most useful thing that happens on the first call.

The boat

Paid by the lay

The trip’s catch value, less the shared costs, split between the boat and the crew by an agreement that is different on every vessel. Nobody is on a salary, nothing is the same twice, and six people will check the arithmetic on the way home.

The plant

Paid by the hour

Hourly employees with CRA federal and provincial tax, CPP and CPP2, EI, and vacation accrual. Ordinary payroll, with the wrinkle that the hours come off the same landings and the same shifts as everything else.

Try the lay settlement Or work out your own boat

Runs on: The office, any browser
The agreement is: Data. Boat share and share weights are yours to set
Produces: The crew settlement statement and the paystub
Math lives in: @deepgrade/crew-share and @deepgrade/nl-payroll

01The lay, as arithmetic

How is a crew share actually calculated?

Gross stock down to a share per member, in five steps. The shape is always this; what varies from boat to boat is the boat percentage, the share weights, and which expenses come off before the split rather than after.

gross stock       every landing on the trip, at price
less common costs fuel, bait, ice, whatever is shared
= distributable
less boat share   the agreement's percentage
less crew costs   food, dues, monitoring
= crew pool
per share unit    crew pool / total share weights
member gross      share unit x that member's weight
member net        less advances and deductions

The engine that does this is @deepgrade/crew-share. It works in integer cents and allocates the remainder deliberately, so the shares always sum back to the pool. That is the whole trick: a spreadsheet that divides and rounds loses a penny most trips, and the crew member who finds it is not wrong.

What happens on a bad trip?

The pool goes negative and so does every share, and the settlement still reconciles. What happens next is your agreement’s business, not ours: it is owed back, or it carries to the next trip. Software that only handles a good trip is software you cannot use in a bad season, which is exactly the season you need it.

What if the buyer re-prices the catch afterwards?

A finalised settlement is read only. A re-price produces a linked re-settlement that shows the difference, rather than an edit that quietly changes what somebody was already told they were owed. Same rule for advances: they are recorded when they are paid and they net at settlement, so they cannot go missing between the two.

02The plant side

And the hourly crew?

@deepgrade/nl-payroll annualises the period, applies the CRA federal and Newfoundland and Labrador brackets, CPP and CPP2, EI and 4% vacation, and divides back to the pay period. Run it yourself. The brackets are refreshed from the new T4127 edition each January, and the package flags which constants are estimates and which are high confidence, because a payroll engine that will not tell you what it is unsure of is not one you should run a plant on.

03What it costs

The build, one time: $4,950
Monthly, required: $149/mo

The cheapest build in the line, and usually the one that pays for itself first. The range depends on how many vessels and agreements, whether you need the plant payroll half as well, and what the statements and the accountant’s export have to look like.

Book a 20 minute call How the ranges work