There is the functionality to set up leave in days, this means that leave categories will accrue leave in days instead of hours.
Please note that any changes that are made to your business's leave category settings will not be applied to existing employees. The new settings will only apply "automatically" to any new employees who are subsequently added to your payroll. If you want to change the leave settings for existing employees you will need to do this on an individual basis. To do this, go to the employee file and access the Leave Allowances screen. You can change employee leave settings in bulk by using a leave allowance template, then apply that template to each employee's record - this is all explained in this link.
The default setup for a new business includes the following types of Leave categories:
- Annual Leave
- Sick Leave
- Statutory Adoption Leave
- Statutory Maternity Leave
- Statutory Parental Bereavement Leave
- Statutory Paternity Leave
- Statutory Sick Leave
You can choose to add more categories by following the steps below.
The best way to do this is to go to: 'Payroll Settings' > 'Pay Run Settings' > 'Leave Categories'.
You will firstly need to decide your leave year. The leave year is a period of time a group of leave accruals will apply to. You can select the appropriate leave year start date setting from the dropdown list. This setting will apply to all leave categories that start accruing from the employee's leave year. You will see the option to start the leave on the 'employee's start date' or 'the following date' and select the date you wish to start it on in the date field next to the drop down box. Once this has been selected you will need to press 'Save'. It is worth checking in the employee's file that they also have the correct leave year setting by going to the employee > leave allowances.
Next you will need to either choose from one of the default categories or click on the 'Add' to create your own category.
You will then need to enter the following information:
- Name (required if not using one of the default categories)
- External Id - This is only required if you are using an external system to capture leave requests or timesheet entries and hence need to map the code used from such external system. If an external id is used that has been used before you won't be able to save it if the 'unique external Id' setting is switched on. This setting is located on the Payroll settings > Advanced settings page. See here for more information.
- Leave Category Type - There is a drop down box to choose the category type. 'Standard' would be the recommended.
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Employee Leave Balance - There is a drop down box to choose from 'Tracked' or 'Not tracked'.
Note: For some types of leave that aren't accrued in the usual way (e.g. leave without pay) it might not make sense for an employee to have a 'balance'. In these cases you should set this value to 'Not tracked' to tell the system it doesn't need to keep track of how much of this type of leave an employee is entitled to.
Next you will need to select the relevant options:
Automatically accrues - Select this option if the leave is to accrue automatically. You will then be required to choose whether the leave will accrue on an ongoing basis or accrue based on a defined leave year. Generally you would apply it based on the employees leave year.
Exclude from termination payout - Select this option if you do not want any of the unused leave balance for this leave category to automatically be paid out upon termination.
Apply negative leave balances on termination - Select this option if you want the earnings associated with the employee's negative leave balance deducted in their termination pay.
Hide accruals from pay slips - Select this option if you do not wish to allow employees to see the amount of leave accrued for this leave category within a pay run on their pay slips.
Hide balances from pay slips and in employee portal - Select this option if you do not wish to allow employees to see the balance of this leave category on their pay slips or in the employee portal.
Hide leave category name from employee view - Select this option if you do not wish to have the leave category name displayed in the calendar contained within the employee's portal. All that will be displayed is the employee name and the period of leave taken. This setting works in conjunction with the setting "Employees can view approved leave" from the Employee Portal Settings screen.
You will then need to put in the amount of days that you wish the employees to accrue. The calculator will assist you in calculating if required as pictured below.
When calculating the leave in days it is recommended to use the setting 'Standard Days per Year'.
Please note that when taking leave in days the leave will not pro rata for part of a pay run. If you have an employee who does not work a full month, a full months leave will be applied, and you will need to do a manual leave adjustment if you don't want them to accrue a full months leave.
Accrue in advance - Select this option if you want employees to accrue their whole entitlement in advance. This means that the full annual entitlement will be accrued in the employee's first pay run and will be added to their leave balance.
Leave accrual capping - This setting allows you to select whether or not the number of units accrued will be capped. If the accrual IS NOT to be capped, select 'not limited' from the drop down list. If the accrual IS to be capped, select 'limited to' from the drop down list and then enter the maximum number of units that should accrue.
Carrying over the balance - This setting allows you to cap the number of leave units to carry over to the next leave year. If the entire leave balance is to be carried over, keep the default setting of 'the entire balance'. If only a portion of the leave balance is to be carried over, select 'a maximum of' from the drop down list and then enter the maximum number of units to be carried over.
Payment Setup: This determines whether the employee is paid for the leave taken and the pay category that is assigned when leave is taken. The default setting for Payment Setup on the Annual Leave - leave category used is set to Basic.
Basic: When an employee does not use timesheets, the employee's leave balance will be reduced, earnings are not impacted. When an employee is using timesheets to submit all time worked, an earnings line will be created and the leave balance will be reduced. To check or assign the employee's timesheet setting, go to the employee's 'Pay Run Defaults' page. The timesheets option is near the top of the page.
Don't pay for the leave taken: When an employee does not use timesheets, an earnings line with negative hours will be added to reduce the earnings for the employee. When an employee is using timesheets to submit all time worked, no earnings line will be created.
Report the earnings for the leave taken against another pay category: When wanting to report payments for leave taken in a separate pay category (for reporting/journaling purposes), select this option. The earnings related to the leave taken will be assigned against the specified pay category instead of the employee's primary pay category. When this alternative is selected, the option will be given to use the rate of pay from the employee's primary pay category.
Custom: For advanced users only, this option allows the user to deduct hours from an arbitrary pay category and transfer them to another arbitrary pay category when leave is taken.
Once you have selected all of your settings press 'Save'.