Leave Allowance Templates

A Leave Allowance Template will help make managing leave for employees much easier.

With leave allowance templates, you’re able to create pre-defined sets of leave accrual values which can then be applied to new and existing employees. This then allows you to bulk update leave values for employees if the leave accrual rates or accrual methods change rather than having to update them individually for each new employee.  

A short video on this setup can be found here.

Any business created from 28 August 2020 will have three default leave allowance templates configured, one for casual employees and two for permanent employees. The difference between the permanent employee leave allowance templates are as follows:

• Permanent Leave - No Loading: this template does not include a 17.5% annual leave loading. Additionally, the accrual and balance of personal/carer's leave is set in hours as opposed to days.
• Permanent Leave - With Loading: this template includes a 17.5% annual leave loading. Additionally, the accrual and balance of personal/carer's leave is set in hours as opposed to days.

Prior to 28 August 2020, the leave allowance templates - "Permanent Leave - No Loading (10 PCL days)" and "Permanent Leave - With Loading (10 PCL days)" - was also added to businesses by default. These leave allowance templates were configured so that the accrual method and balance for personal/carer's leave was calculated in days as opposed to hours in accordance with the Full Federal Court of Australia's decision on 21 August 2019. 

On 13 August 2020, the High Court handed down a decision regarding the method of accruing personal/carer’s leave under the National Employment Standards. This decision overturns the previous decision made by the Full Federal Court in August 2019. As such, we have removed "Permanent Leave - No Loading (10 PCL days)" and "Permanent Leave - With Loading (10 PCL days)" from our default list of leave allowance templates. 

You can use these templates as is or change the settings within to suit your business OR you can create your own.

Setting up new leave allowance templates

1. To setup a new leave allowance template, go to the 'Payroll Settings' > 'Leave Allowance Templates' page. Here you will see a list of the existing Leave Allowance Templates and will display the number of employees that are linked to that template:
   
   
   
   You can click on the number of employees linked to the template 'link' to see the details of all active and terminated employees linked to the template: 
   
   
   
   
2.  Template name - Click on 'Add' to add a new template. You’ll notice that only leave categories that automatically accrue leave are displayed in the Leave Allowances section.  
   
   

   
   
   

3. Leave year should start on - The 'leave year' setting is utilised on each accruing leave category as you are able to choose to accrue leave based as per an 'ongoing basis', or 'based on the employee's leave year'. In regards to what date is used for the 'leave year', you can select from the employee's start date, or 'the following date' which can be a custom date to your choosing. 

   
   
   
   

4. Leave loading - This setting will allow you to select which pay category you want to use for the leave loading calculation instead of the employee's primary pay rate. If this is left blank, the employee's primary pay rate will be used. Some things of note:

   • Fixed pay categories cannot be selected here
   • If you select a pay category to calculate the leave loading on, you'll need to ensure that there is a rate set against this on the Employee file > Pay rates page, otherwise the loading value will be $0
     
     
5. Enabled leave categories - Select the leave categories you want activated (i.e. you want employees to access) for this template.
   
   
   • Contingent & Entitlement Period - this traditionally applies to long service leave. Enter the number of years each period should be activated from. If the contingent period has occurred, this leave category will appear in an employee's termination pay and you can choose to pay it (if the leave is set to be paid out on termination). Additionally, if the entitlement period has occurred, the employee will be able to choose that leave category when applying for leave; 
     
     An example of what this looks like is below:
     
     
     
     Leave allowances - You will notice above that each leave category listed under Leave Allowances has an override button. Clicking on override will allow you to enter different values to that of the default. When you click on the left of the 'x' to activate the override, the default values will disappear and then you are able to enter a new set of values for that specific leave category. The following options are available when it comes to setting leave allowances:
     
     
     • Whether or not it accrues automatically - This setting is configured on the Payroll settings > Leave categories page and cannot be changed here. If it is not accruing automatically the employee's balance will not accrue without a manual adjustment being made; 
       
       
       
       
     • Unit Type - if the leave category is not tracked, you can set whether the entitlement accrues in days, weeks or hours. If the leave category is tracked, you can set whether the entitlement accrues as 'standard days per year', 'standard weeks per year', hours per hour worked' or 'hours per pay run';
     • Can Apply For Leave - you can switch on/off any leave category that the employee can access when applying for leave. If it is switched off, the employee will not see this option within the portal or WorkZone when they apply for leave. 
     • Override - this determines whether an employee's leave allowance can be overridden or not. If the override is set to no, you will see that the fields are blocked and cannot be changed. To activate an override of a leave category, simply click on the left of the override box.
       
       An example of the above 3 settings is below:
       
       

     Then, for other leave categories you may see the below settings:

     • Units - set the entitlement amount for each leave category. If you click on the calculator icon you'll be able to view a breakdown of accrual amounts, and can view different results by entering a different figure for the hours per day and employee would work; 
     • Leave Loading - enter a leave loading amount, for eg if the employee is entitled to 17.5% loading when taking annual leave, you would enter 17.5; 
     • Accrues - This can be set to either accrue on an ongoing basis, or to accrue according to the employee's leave year. If you select 'on an ongoing basis' you'll then only have the option of whether to limit or not limit the accruals for the leave. There will be no settings past this point.
       
       An example of the above 3 settings is below:
       
       
       
       

     If you select to accrue the leave according to the employee's leave year, you'll have more settings in which to specify the conditions. These include:

     • Accrue in advance - The total amount of leave owed to the employee within the leave year will be accrued upfront in the employee's first pay run. The employee will then no longer continue to accrue leave during the leave year. Upon commencement of the next leave year, the entire leave entitlement will again be added to the employee's balance in the pay run dated AFTER the employee's leave year.
     • Accruals for this leave category are - You can select from 'limited' or 'not limited' to and enter the required number of days. 
     • Carry over - You can choose to have only a maximum number of units' leave (accrued from the previous year) to be carried over upon commencement of a new leave year. If an employee's balance is greater than those units, the balance will be adjusted in the pay run.
       
       An example of the above 3 settings is below:
       
       
       
       

     The last setting applies to long service leave:

     • Contingent & Entitlement Period - this traditionally applies to long service leave. Enter the number of years each period should be activated from. If the contingent period has occurred, this leave category will appear in an employee's termination pay and you can choose to pay it (if the leave is set to be paid out on termination). Additionally, if the entitlement period has occurred, the employee will be able to choose that leave category when applying for leave; 
       
       An example of what this looks like is below:
       
          

Once you have finished making any adjustments, click 'Save' to the leave allowance template. 

Now when you create a new employee, you will be able to select a leave allowance template that can be applied to this employee. You can also select a leave template for existing employees through the Leave Allowances page of the employee file.

Finally, if you do need to make changes to the values in the leave template, you can do so. Once you click save you’ll be notified if there are employees already linked to the leave template and you’ll be asked if you want to apply the changes to all linked employees (this includes active & inactive employees)::

Copying a leave allowance template

You are able to copy a leave allowance template, which is handy if you need to create another slightly different template. Once you copy it, you just need to change the name, make the required changes and click 'save'. 

In order to copy the template, go to the Payroll settings > Leave allowance template page and hover over the template that you want to copy. Click the 'copy' icon as shown below:

Once you do that, another template will be added underneath with the same name, appended by 'copy'. 

If you have any feedback or questions on the employee leave templates feature, please send us an email at support@yourpayroll.com.au.