The present invention provides a method and apparatus for costing a roster. The method includes preparing a roster in a roster preparing means of the apparatus, said roster comprising a work schedule or list of duties for one or more work periods, each work period being populated by one or more workers, providing award information in a database of the apparatus for calculating a payroll for each of said workers in said roster, and calculating a roster wage cost in a processing means of the apparatus that would result from implementation of said roster, based on said roster and said award information. A respective pay-rate for a respective worker in the database of award information may depend on the work period populated by said respective worker, and a respective worker may be rostered in more than one of said work periods.