Contractor vs employee pay

Whether someone is a contractor or an employee changes how they must be paid, and InstructorHUB follows that split for you. Both start from the same place, the hours the timetable generates, but they end up in different lanes because the law and your accounts treat them differently.

An employee is payrolled

An employee is paid through your payroll. Their pay run produces a gross figure, the hours worked at their rate, and that is what you carry into your payroll system. InstructorHUB can also show an estimated employer contribution alongside it, from a contribution rate you set, so the on-cost of an employee is visible. The exact contribution, and any tax, are worked out by your payroll or bookkeeping system rather than by InstructorHUB, and the obligations that come with employment are yours to meet.

A contractor is invoiced

A contractor is not on your payroll, they bill you for their work. So instead of a payroll line, InstructorHUB assembles the contractor's hours into an invoice you can review, issue, and pay like any other supplier bill. There are no employer contributions on a contractor invoice, because a contractor is running their own business and manages that themselves.

Same hours, correct treatment

The useful part is that you do not sort anyone by hand. The hours are the same either way, and InstructorHUB reads each person's employment type to decide the treatment, an employee's hours become a payroll figure, a contractor's become an invoice. Change how someone is engaged by changing their employment type on their staff record, not by editing a single pay run, see Employment types explained.

Getting the classification right is a genuine legal and tax question, not just a setting. If you are unsure whether a particular person should be engaged as a contractor or an employee, that is worth checking with your accountant, InstructorHUB will pay them correctly for whichever you choose, but choosing correctly is yours to confirm.