FTE (Full-Time Equivalent) is a metric that standardizes workforce capacity by converting the working hours of part-time and temporary employees into the equivalent of a full-time worker. Instead of simply counting people, FTE measures the actual hours dedicated — giving Finance and HR admins a more accurate picture of labor capacity and costs.
FTE is especially useful for:
- Workforce planning: Understand your real capacity and identify whether you need to hire or adjust resources.
- Budget and cost management: Calculate labor costs accurately when your workforce includes a mix of full-time and part-time employees.
- Productivity measurement: Compare workload across departments or periods, regardless of different working schedules.
- Legal compliance: Determine whether your company meets regulations based on workforce size.
Where to find FTE
FTE is displayed in the Financial Workspace History Log, right next to the Headcount figure.
To access it:
- On your sidebar, go to Finance
- Select Workspace
- Click on the clock icon to open the History Log
The FTE metric will automatically reflect any filters you have applied in Financial Workspace — including date range, department, or any other active filters.
Before you can see FTE
FTE requires the working time percentage to be filled in for all employees in the selected period. Since this is not a mandatory field, it may not be complete for all employees.
If any employee in the selected period is missing this information, FTE will not be displayed and you will see a warning message.
To complete the missing data:
- Open the History Log in Financial Workspace
- Click on Complete the missing agreement information
- Fill in the working time percentages for the relevant employees
- Click Save
- Wait for the data to load and refresh the page — FTE will now be calculated and displayed
How FTE is calculated
FTE is calculated on a period basis using two pieces of information for each employee: their working time percentage and their contract start and end dates.
For each period, Factorial calculates the FTE of every employee whose contract was active during that period, taking into account the proportion of the period they were actually active. Employees whose contracts ended in a previous period are not included in the current period's FTE — they are counted in the period they were active.
This approach is intentional: FTE is designed to reflect the real workforce capacity for a given period, so that cost analysis remains consistent. Dividing a period's costs by a cumulative or carry-over FTE figure would produce misleading results, since those costs correspond only to the employees active in that specific period.
Example: An employee with a 50% working time percentage who was active for the full period contributes 0.5 FTE. An employee whose contract ended in a previous period will not appear in the current period's FTE calculation.
FTE is only calculated for active contracts. Working time percentage can only be updated for current contract versions; previous versions cannot be edited due to system limitations.