NZ businesses commonly award long-serving employees a one-off leave grant when they reach a service milestone — typically 10, 15, or 20 years. Previously, admins had to create a separate leave template for each tenure tier and manually move employees when a milestone was reached. This was error-prone and did not scale.
Tiered Leave Entitlement Milestones lets admins configure milestone rules directly within a leave allowance template. When a pay run is opened, the system automatically credits eligible employees — no manual tracking or template migrations required.
How to set it up
1. Mark the leave category as tiered leave
- Go to Leave Categories.
- Edit the relevant category.
- Tick the "Tiered leave" checkbox. This disables "Automatically accrues" and enables the carry-over field for that category.
2. Configure carry-over (optional)
With "Tiered leave" ticked, choose whether to carry over the entire balance or set a maximum amount to roll between milestones. A maximum of 0 means no balance is carried over.
3. Add service year entitlements to the leave allowance template
- Open the Leave Allowance Template.
- Find the tiered leave category.
- Click "Add service year entitlement".
- Enter the months of service threshold and the leave grant amount.
- Repeat for each milestone (e.g. 120 months → 40 hours; 180 months → 40 hours).
4. Review employee entitlement dates
On each employee's leave allowances screen, tiered leave categories show their own entitlement date field. This defaults to the employee's start date. Override it if needed — for example, when a casual employee converts to permanent.
5. Open a pay run — milestones apply automatically
When a pay run is opened, the system checks all active employees on templates with tiered leave configured. Any employee who has crossed a service threshold for the first time receives a leave accrual for the configured grant amount.
Important notes
- Milestones trigger on pay run open, not finalise. The system checks eligibility when a pay run is opened.
- Each milestone is applied once per employee. Once a grant has been applied, reopening or running subsequent pay runs will not re-apply it.
- Missed pay runs do not trigger back-application. If an employee has not appeared in a pay run for an extended period, missed milestones must be manually accrued by the admin.
- Template changes preserve earned entitlements. Moving an employee to a different leave allowance template does not re-apply or reverse previously earned milestone grants.
- Changing the entitlement date is not retroactive. If an admin updates an employee's tiered leave entitlement date, previously granted milestones are not reversed or recalculated. Any correction must be made manually.
- Entitlement amount units match the leave category. If the category is configured in hours, the milestone grant is in hours; days or weeks if the category uses those units.
- NZ businesses only. This feature is not available in AU or other regions.
Frequently asked questions
What happens to an employee's milestones if they move to a different leave allowance template?
Previously earned milestone grants are not re-applied after a template change. The new template's milestone thresholds are then evaluated against the employee's service length from the next pay run onwards, and any milestones they have crossed for the first time under the new template are applied.
Can any leave category be set up as tiered leave?
Yes — any leave category in a NZ business can be marked as tiered leave. Once marked, the "Automatically accrues" checkbox is greyed out and not editable while tiered leave is active. Disabling tiered leave re-enables the automatically accrues setting.
What is the entitlement date and when would an admin change it?
The entitlement date is the date used to calculate an employee's service duration for milestone purposes. It defaults to the employee's start date and can be overridden — for example, if a casual employee converts to a permanent role, the admin may want to use the permanent start date rather than the original hire date.
An employee missed several pay runs — will the system apply all skipped milestones automatically?
No. If an employee has not appeared in a pay run for an extended period, any milestones they crossed during that absence are not automatically back-applied — the rationale being that the employee did not fulfil their service requirements within a pay period. Admins must manually accrue any missed milestone grants.
Is the feature available in AU or other regions?
No. Tiered Leave Entitlement Milestones is a NZ-only feature. It will not appear in AU or other regional payroll accounts.