You can manage leave without pay by creating leave categories that do not track the leave balance for an employee. It means you can create leave categories that employees are eligible to apply for without needing to accrue the leave first.
Glossary
Setup Untracked Leave Without Pay
To start using leave categories without tracking leave balances, follow these simple steps:
- Click the Business menu
- Click the Payroll Settings sub-menu.
- Click the Leave Categories button.
- If a leave without pay category is not already there, create a new leave category and under the Employee leave balance select list, choose the Not Tracked option.
- Click the Save button.
Helpful Hint
Now when a leave request is created using a leave category without a tracked balance, the leave balance is not checked. When this leave request is applied in the Pay Run, there is no associated balance that is updated, and in the Pay Run there are no warnings about employees not having enough leave.
Setup Tracked Leave Without Pay
New businesses
To track Leave Without Pay, the following settings can be configured to apply to all unpaid leave categories. The following will be set up and automatically available as the default:
Pay Categories
Leave Categories
Work Types
To apply this Work Type to timesheets, you will need to complete the Automatically Available section by clicking the Pencil button; then in the Automatically Available To section tick the required options, and then lastly clicking the Save button.
Once saved, the Leave Without Pay work type will be available for selection on timesheets for employees with the selected employment statuses. Employees with the selected employment status will have access to report LWOP on their timesheets accurately.
Leave Allowance Templates
To make sure Leave Without Pay is available to be selected by employees when they are applying for leave, the Leave Allowance Template will need to be updated. Make sure there is a tick beside each leave category so the employee can select the leave category.
Existing Business
For any existing Leave Without Payleave category types, these can be amended to be reportable on pay slips and in reports.
Pay Categories
To make sure that multiple leave categories report into a single pay category so that it displays as a total figure on pay slips and reports, you will need to combine the reporting of the leave categories. This will streamline the tracking and reporting of leave usage while providing employees a clear overview of their unpaid leave taken. Refer to the Leave Category description below for application
Leave Categories
To setup your leave categories, select and set the following settings:
- Name: Leave Without Pay (the name can be anything where no payment is required)
- Leave Category Type: In the dropdown select the Leave Without Pay option.
- Employee Leave Balance: Tracked.
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Tick Boxes: Make sure the following boxes are ticked:
- Exclude from termination.
- Hide accruals from pay slips.
- Hide balances from pay slips and employee view.
- Unit Type: Hours.
-
Payment setup:
- Report leave earnings against a specific pay category.
- When an employee takes leave, apply earnings to:
- Leave Without Pay Taken (the pay category above).
Helpful Hint
Pay leave earnings at the employee’s base rate of pay' needs to be unticked
Work Type
Either create or update Leave Without Pay Taken
Leave Allowance Templates
To make sure Leave Without Pay is available to be selected by employees when they are applying for leave, the Leave Allowance Template will need to be updated. Make sure there is a ‘tick’ beside each relevant leave category so the employee can select the leave category.
New and existing Payroll Platforms
If set up as per the above, Leave without pay will now be available to be selected by employees when applying for unpaid leave. The process will be the same as when applying for other leave types and application to timesheets.
Application in a Pay Run
The Leave Without Pay feature has not changed within a Pay Run. It will need to be applied in the normal manner. However, now that Leave Without Pay is tracked, two warnings will display highlighting that Leave Without Pay is being processed within a Pay Run. Please note, in the following example, LWOP - Test two (not reporting) is an untracked leave type and will not appear on the employee’s payslip or in the reports
Pay Run warnings will display
The below screen shots display how Leave Without Pay will display a warning within the Pay Run.
How it will look on a pay slip
Reports
Leave without pay is already included in many of the reports, and the following has been included: for all of the below reports, as per the Pay Run example above, the red box is the tracked leave without pay. In the yellow box is untracked leave without pay.
Pay slip report
Pay categories report
Leave balance report
Report Packs
When the above reports are selected in a Report Pack, the details will display as per normal