Cover
Book temp dental nurses and hygienists employed by Smileline Staffing — set up the terms, equal treatment and payment, then post shifts, follow them, confirm their hours and pay the weekly invoice.
Staffing → Cover (/pms/staffing, in the clinical workspace) is where
your practice books temp dental nurses and hygienists. Temps are employed and
paid by Smileline Staffing Ltd, an employment business, which invoices your
practice each week. Cover is for practices in the UK: England, Wales, Scotland
and Northern Ireland.
Before you can book a temp, three things need setting up. The practice owner sets them up; a manager sees where each one stands and is asked to fetch the owner.
Terms
The terms for booking temps are agreed in the name of your practice's legal entity: the one named in your billing settings. Practices in Northern Ireland follow Northern Ireland's own rules and have their own terms.
Under 1. Terms, check the legal entity shown is your practice's.
Tick the box to accept the terms on its behalf, then click Accept the terms. A copy is emailed to you.
If your practice's legal entity changes, or is renamed, the terms need accepting again. Sites billed by another legal entity can't book temps yet, and for now a practice books temps in Great Britain or in Northern Ireland, not both.
Until the terms are published, 1. Terms says they are being finalised, and nobody can accept them.
Equal treatment
From a temp's 13th week working for you in the same role, the law gives them at least the pay and paid holiday of an employee of yours doing the same job. Under 2. Equal treatment, for each role, click Record and either:
- enter that employee's pay in Their hourly pay (£) and their holiday in Their paid holiday a year (weeks) (5.6 weeks is the legal minimum), or
- tick We have no comparable employee for this role.
Click Save. To change it later, click Change: the new figures apply from today. Earlier versions stay on record.
Payment
Smileline Staffing collects each week's invoice automatically. Under 3. Payment, click Set up Direct Debit or Use a card. Stripe opens to take the details on Smileline Staffing's behalf, then brings you back to Cover.
A Direct Debit takes up to three working days for your bank to confirm; Cover shows when it has. If a Direct Debit is cancelled at your bank, Cover says so and you set up a payment method again. Setting up a new method replaces the old one once it is confirmed.
Post a shift
Once the three steps above are done, Shifts at the bottom of Cover lists your temp shifts. Only someone who manages Staffing can post one.
Click Post a shift.
Choose the Site and Role, then the Date, when it Starts and Ends (an end before the start is the next day) and the Unpaid break (minutes). A shift is 13 hours at most, and more than six hours of work needs a break of 20 minutes or more.
Set the Hourly pay (£): anything from the legal minimum on that date up to the most the role can be paid. The dialog shows the range.
Describe The work and its Risks, and add any Notes for the temp: arriving, parking, what to wear. Your notes are shown to the temp as yours; Smileline doesn't check them.
Check how many temps it reaches and What it costs: the temp's pay, their holiday pay, the employer's National Insurance and pension, Smileline's fee and VAT. Then click Post the shift.
From a temp's 13th week working for you in the same role, their pay and holiday rise to your comparator's when that is higher, and so does the charge.
A shift can only be posted at a site whose location is confirmed on the map and which has its full address and postcode, billed by your practice's legal entity. Posting is paused while an invoice for temp cover is overdue, and while your practice is closing.
How offers go out
Within a minute of posting, the shift is offered to the temps in your bank. Fifteen minutes later it is offered to every other temp whose travel distance reaches the site. A temp is offered a shift only when every check it needs is verified until its date: their right to work, the background check for the site's nation, their GDC registration and title for the role, references and Hepatitis B immunity. Temps you blocked are never offered your shifts.
Offers go by WhatsApp or text message, and always by email. In the shifts list, an open shift shows who it is being offered to. You are told when every temp who can take it has been offered it, and again a day before it starts if it is still open. Temps who join or qualify meanwhile are offered it then. A shift nobody accepts expires at its start, and nothing is charged.
While your practice's account is paused, stopped or closing, your open shifts aren't offered to anyone and no temp can accept one. Offers carry on where they stopped within a minute of your account being back.
When a temp accepts
The first temp to accept a shift is booked, and you are told who is coming. Click the shift to open it. It shows the temp's photo, their GDC number and the titles on the register, their record with Smileline, the dates of their checks, and that they are employed by Smileline Staffing Ltd (PAYE).
- Add to your bank offers them your shifts first from now on; Block stops them being offered your shifts.
- Report a concern and Ask for copies of their checks open the support chat: tell us the shift and the temp, and we reply there.
Cancelling a shift
Open the shift. It shows what cancelling it costs right now:
| When you cancel | What you pay | What the temp is paid |
|---|---|---|
| An open shift, at any time | Nothing | — |
| 72 hours or more before it starts | Nothing | Nothing |
| Between 24 and 72 hours before | Half the shift | Half their pay |
| Less than 24 hours before | The whole shift | Their whole pay |
| After it starts (the temp was turned away) | The whole shift | Their whole pay |
Click Cancel the shift (or Temp turned away), then click again to confirm the amount shown. The temp is told by WhatsApp or text, and by email.
When a temp cancels
A temp can cancel before the shift starts, for example when they are ill. You are told, and the shift is offered again straight away, your bank first. The temp who cancelled is never offered it again, and their record shows the cancellation.
If Smileline stops a temp working, for example because a check was revoked, we cancel their bookings, offer each shift again, your bank first, and tell you.
Confirming the hours
Once a booked shift has started, open it. Hours shows the booked times, the times the temp sent, and when you have to answer by: 24 hours after the shift ends. The temp is reminded to send their times when the shift ends.
- Click Confirm hours, then click again to confirm the hours shown. If the temp hasn't sent their times, you can confirm the booked times once the shift has ended.
- Click Dispute to enter the times the temp actually worked and what happened, then click Dispute.
- Click No-show if the temp didn't come, say what happened, then click No-show.
If you don't answer by the deadline, the temp's times are confirmed, or the booked times if they sent none, so the temp is never left waiting for their pay.
When you dispute the hours or record a no-show, the temp is told if they haven't sent their times, and can send their own times until the deadline. A dispute made less than 12 hours before the deadline gives them 12 hours from when you made it instead, and Hours shows the new time:
- If they don't, your answer stands. A no-show costs nothing.
- If they do, the lower of the two is charged and paid, and Smileline decides the rest. You're told what was decided. If we decide the temp was turned away when they arrived, the shift is charged as a cancellation of the whole shift.
After the hours are confirmed, the temp can still report a problem with them. Smileline decides, and the hours already confirmed stay charged meanwhile.
The person booked on a shift can't confirm or dispute its hours, even if they manage the practice's temp cover.
Invoices
Each week runs from Tuesday to Monday, UK time. The next day, Smileline Staffing invoices your practice for everything recorded that week, and collects it from your payment method:
- the hours of each shift, once confirmed by you or at the deadline;
- late cancellations;
- corrections Smileline made after a dispute.
The invoice has four lines: the temps' pay, their holiday pay, the employer's National Insurance and pension, and Smileline's fees, with VAT on each. Anything recorded after its week was invoiced goes on the next week's invoice.
Invoices, above Shifts in Cover, lists each week's invoice and where its payment stands. The practice owner and managers can click View and pay to open an invoice on Stripe's page and pay it there. Invoices stay available while your practice is paused or closing.
Whoever has the address of Stripe's page can see and pay that invoice. Don't share it outside your practice.
Corrections
When Smileline decides disputed hours, it corrects what was charged:
- more hours go on the next week's invoice;
- fewer hours come off the invoice that charged them. If it hasn't been issued yet, its total is simply lowered before it is. Once issued, they come off as a credit note. If you had already paid it, the credit stays on your practice's account and is used against your next invoice. To have it refunded instead, ask us in the support chat.
A correction to hours that hadn't been invoiced yet is simply part of their week's invoice.
When a payment fails
If a payment fails, or your bank takes a payment back, Cover shows a banner: new shifts can't be posted until the invoice is settled. Your booked shifts carry on as normal. Click View and pay on an unpaid invoice to pay it. A payment your bank took back leaves nothing to pay on the invoice: ask us in the support chat, and once you have settled it with us, we lift the hold and you can post again. While an invoice is overdue, Smileline may cancel your shifts that are 72 hours or more away (see below).
Changing your sites or closing
While your practice's account is paused, stopped or closing, Cover stays open
for what you have already booked: open it from a notification, or at
/pms/staffing?view=cover, to see your booked shifts, cancel one, answer
their hours and pay your invoices. Posting new shifts waits until your account
is back.
When you archive a site, move it to another nation or another legal entity, or close your practice:
- its open shifts are cancelled, free;
- its booked shifts stay booked, and you are told: keep the booking, or cancel it on the shift (the cancellation terms above apply).
While an invoice for temp cover is overdue, Smileline may cancel your shifts that are 72 hours or more away; nothing is charged for them, and you and the temp are told.
Bank
Keep a bank of the temp nurses and hygienists you like working with, invite them by email, and block a temp you don't want back.
Working as a temp
Join Smileline Staffing as a temp dental nurse or hygienist, send your checks, accept your terms, then accept and manage your shifts and send your hours.