Time-off balances, accruals and bulk changes

This page covers three things on the Employees tab of the Admin Hub: the time-off balances of one employee, the accrual balances that rules such as a service bonus build up, and the Bulk Operations menu, which changes a setting for many employees at once.

Before you start. The Timeclock & Payroll module must be on. The Administrator, Timeclock Admin and Payroll Admin roles can do everything here. Requests that employees submit themselves are answered on the Supervisor tab. See Supervising punches, exceptions and time off.

The balances

Paid time off grows when payroll is calculated, if the employee's rule group has a rule of type PTO. See Payroll rule groups. The rate is not a field on this screen.

Manage time off for one employee

1. On the Employees tab, choose the umbrella icon, Manage PTO, on the employee's row. The Time Off Management dialog opens with the employee's name.
2. Adjust a balance, add a grant, or add a leave entry, as described below.

Adjust paid time off

• Under Quick Adjust PTO:, choose -8h, -4h, +4h or +8h. The change is applied at once.
• For another amount, use Custom Adjustment:. Enter the hours, with a minus sign to take hours away, and choose Apply. The reason is not kept.

The adjustment changes the accrued hours, so the available hours move by the same amount. Adjustments and leave entries are not stopped at zero, so check Available before you take hours away.

Adjust personal time

• Under Quick Adjust Personal Time:, choose -8h or -4h to take hours away, or +8h or +16h to grant hours. Granting also records the date of the grant.
• Use Custom Adjustment: for another number of hours and choose Apply.
• Reset sets the granted and the used hours to zero after you confirm. It cannot be undone.

Reducing personal time never takes the granted hours below zero.

Grant expiring time

1. Under Expiring Time Grants, choose Add Grant.
2. Enter a Label / Description, such as Voting Leave, and the number of Hours.
3. Under Expiry Mode, choose Days from now and enter the number of days, or Specific date and pick the date.
4. Add Notes (optional) if you want to, then choose Add Grant.

The table lists each grant with its Label, Granted and Used hours, Remaining hours, Granted Date and Expiry Date. The Status is Active, Expiring when 7 days or fewer are left, Fully Used or Expired. The delete icon appears only on a grant that has not been used and has not expired. A grant that has been partly used cannot be deleted.

Add a leave entry

Use a leave entry to record time off that has already been approved or taken.

1. Under Add Leave Entry, choose the Leave Type: PTO, Personal Time, Unpaid Leave, Sick Leave, Holiday, Bereavement or Other.
2. Enter the Hours, the Start Date and the End Date.
3. Under Deduct From Balance, choose where the hours come from: No Deduction (Unpaid/Holiday), the PTO balance, the personal time balance or, when there is an active grant, expiring time. Each choice shows the hours that are available.
4. Tick or clear Paid Leave.
5. Enter a reason in Reason/Notes. It is required for PTO, Personal Time and Unpaid Leave entries, and optional for the others.
6. Choose Add Entry.

The entry is saved as approved. When you deduct from the PTO or personal time balance, the hours are added to that balance's used hours straight away. Choosing expiring time records the entry but does not reduce the grant, and the message tells you to adjust the grant by hand.

Leave History lists the entries with their dates, type, hours, status and reason. Use the delete icon and confirm to remove one. Deleting an entry gives the hours back to the balance they came from. For an entry charged to expiring time nothing is given back, and the message says to adjust the grant by hand.

Bulk operations

Bulk Operations is a menu above the employee list. It changes a setting for many employees at once. Most items apply to all active employees, and nothing on the screen undoes them, so check the number of employees the dialog shows before you go on. Employees who are inactive are skipped.

Add time off in bulk

1. Choose Bulk Issue Time Off.
2. In the table, enter the PTO Hours to Add and the Personal Hours to Add for each employee. Each row also shows the current PTO Balance and Personal Balance.
3. Choose Issue Time Off.

The hours are added to the existing balances. They never replace them. Leave a row at 0 to skip that employee. The button is available once at least one number is above zero, and the footer counts the employees that will be updated.

Grant or reset personal time for everyone

• Grant Personal Time (All) asks you to confirm, then adds 16 hours of personal time to every active employee.
• Reset Personal Time (All) asks you to confirm, then sets the granted and the used hours of every active employee to zero. It is meant for the end of a year and cannot be undone.

Grant expiring time to everyone

1. Choose Grant Expiring Time (All).
2. Enter the Label / Description, the Hours Per Employee and the Days Until Expiry.
3. Choose Grant to All.

Every active employee gets a grant of the same size. The dialog shows the date it expires and the number of employees.

Change overtime, assignments and pay settings

• Set All to Period-Wide OT and Set All to Per-Week OT each ask you to confirm. Only the employees who are not already on that mode are changed. The two modes are explained on Payroll employees. Employees in a Colombian rule group are always counted per week, whatever this setting says. See Overtime and premiums.
• Assign Rule Group opens Bulk Assign Rule Group. Choose the Rule Group and then Apply to All. The first choice in the list, No Rule Group (Remove Assignment), takes the rule group away from everyone, and they then get no deductions or allowances.
• Assign Schedule opens Bulk Assign Schedule. Choose a Schedule Template and then Apply to All. This sets the shared shift pattern of each employee, not the pay schedule. See Employee schedules.
• Set Salary Mode opens Bulk Set Salary Calculation Mode. Choose Salary-Based Calculation, where pay comes from the salary and punches only raise exceptions, or Hourly / Punch-Based Calculation, where pay comes from the punches and the hourly rate. The dialog shows how many employees use each mode today.
• Set Missed Time Deduction opens Bulk Set Missed Time Deduction. Choose Enable Auto-Deduction, which takes money off the salary when hours are under what is expected, or Disable Auto-Deduction (Flag Only), which deducts nothing. A shortfall is flagged only for employees who have a variance threshold set. Both settings apply only to employees paid from salary.

Each of these dialogs ends with Apply to All and reports how many employees changed.

Accrual balances

An accrual rule, such as a service bonus or severance, adds an amount to a balance each time pay is calculated and pays it out later. See Payroll rule groups for how to make one. These three bulk operations set up the balances. Only employees with a rule group are listed, because the balances belong to the accrual rules of the group.

Initialize accrual balances

Use this when you start using accruals for people who were hired some time ago.

1. Choose Initialize/Calculate Accruals. The Initialize Accrual Balances dialog opens with every eligible employee selected.
2. Leave Calculate from employee hire date ticked to start each balance at the hire date of the person. Clear it to use one Accrual Start Date for everyone. An employee who has no hire date uses the Accrual Start Date as well, so clear the tick and set the date if some of your employees have none.
3. Change the selection with Select All Active or Clear Selection, or tick people one by one.
4. Choose the Initialize Accruals button, which shows how many employees are selected.

A balance is created for each active accrual rule in the employee's rule group. It starts from the amount the rule would have built up between the start date and today. An employee who already has a balance for a rule keeps it. When some employees fail, the message says how many.

Import starting balances

Use this to carry over balances from a previous system.

1. Choose Import Starting Balances.
2. In the Import Starting Accrual Balances dialog, enter a Starting Balance for each employee. Leave an employee at 0 to skip them.
3. Choose Import Balances.

The number you enter for an employee is set on every accrual rule in their rule group, and it replaces the balance that was there. When a group has several accrual rules, each of them gets the same number, so use this for groups where that is what you want. Each balance records that a manual starting balance was entered, with the date and who entered it.

Recalculate from history

Use this to rebuild balances from the pay periods that were already calculated, for example after you fixed a rule.

1. Choose Recalculate from History. The Recalculate Accruals from Historical Data dialog opens.
2. Set Recalculate from date. All the completed pay periods from that date forward are replayed.
3. Select the employees with Select All and Clear, or one by one.
4. Tick the confirmation box that begins "I understand this will wipe".
5. Choose Recalculate, the button that shows how many employees are selected.

This wipes the accrual balances of the selected employees and rebuilds them from the calculated periods that end on or after the date. A period counts when its status is Calculated, Approved, Exported, Paid or Closed. The wipe includes any starting balance you set earlier, so only what the replayed periods contribute comes back. It cannot be undone, and it needs the tick box.

Only what the rules contribute is replayed. Payouts already made in those periods are not taken off again, so a balance rebuilt across a payout month includes amounts that were already paid. Choose a date after the last payout of the rules you rebuild. Interest on accrual balances is brought up to date for all employees while it runs, not only the selected ones.

If there is no such period, nothing is wiped and an error message says so. When it finishes, the dialog reports how many periods were processed, how many employees were affected and the total of the contributions.

Balances and payouts that are due show on the Accrual Tracking sub-tab of the Payroll tab. See Pay periods.

Related

• Payroll employees
• Pay periods
• Supervising punches, exceptions and time off
• Requesting time off and bidding for holiday shifts
• Payroll rule groups