Skip to content
English
Checkwriters Login
  • There are no suggestions because the search field is empty.

Employee Center: Accrual

The Accrual tab of the Employee Center tracks an employee’s earned time off based on your company’s time off policy. Examples include Vacation, Sick, Personal, and Paid Time Off (PTO).

Navigate to Accrual
Layout
Add an Accrual
  - Time Off Calendar only: Additional Information
Add a Front-Loaded Accrual to an Employee
  - Manual Load
  - Automatic Load
Example Accrual

 

 

Navigate to Accrual

Find the Accrual page by navigating to HR Admin (module) → Manage Employees → Employee Center → select 2024-02-08_16-42-31 Employee → Payroll (tab) → Accrual (tab).

A screenshot of the navigation path to the Accrual page.

 

Layout

The Accrual tab lists all accruals assigned to the employee and additional relevant details:

  • Select Add New to create a new Accrual.
  • Select Grid Options to add additional columns to the Accruals grid.
  • Select Export to export all data shown in the Accruals grid.
  • Select Edit 2024-02-08_16-42-31 to edit an existing Accrual.
  • Select Delete 2025-05-02_13-48-06 to delete an existing Accrual.

A screenshot of the Accrual page.

 

Add an Accrual

When you select Add New to create a new accrual or Edit to edit an existing accrual, the Accrual Editing aside will appear with setup fields:

A screenshot of the Accrual Editing aside.

  • Accrual: Select a time off code to assign to the employee. The options for this dropdown are created in Company (module) → Company Setup → Accruals.

Important: Accruals can only be added to an employee once. If a specific Accrual Code is not visible in the dropdown, that accrual may be inactive.

  1. Go to the Active dropdown menu on the main Accrual tab and select History.

  2. If the desired accrual is there, select Edit 2024-02-08_16-42-31.

  3. Change the End Date to 12/31/2100. The accrual will now be active.

  • Start Date: Enter the first check date for which you want this accrual to be active. This field will automatically default to the next unprocessed check date.

Note: Employees cannot see an accrual in Employee Self-Service (ESS) until the Start Date which also means they will be unable to submit time off requests until that Start Date. If an employee needs to submit time off before the default Start Date, change the Start Date to today’s date. The accrual will then be visible in ESS.

  • End Date: Enter the last date for which this accrual will be applied. If you want this accrual to occur indefinitely, enter “12/31/2100”.

  • Last Accrue Date: The most recent check date the employee earned this accrual.

Best Practice: If you are manually front-loading an accrual for the employee, we recommend entering your company’s most recent check date in the Last Accrue Date field. See the Add a Front-Loaded Accrual to an Employee section of this article for more information.

  • The following six fields all act as individual employee overrides for various accrual concepts:

    • Adjust (LOS) Length of Service Date: Can be used in place of the Hire Date when calculating length of service. This can be helpful for overriding accrual tiers. For example, if an employee’s accrual rate should increase after 5 years and you want this employee to accrue at the 5-year rate, but they’ve only been working for 2 years, you can use this field to enter an earlier date. If this field is left blank, the Hire Date [HR Admin → Employee Center → Information (tab) → Status (tab)] will be used to calculate Length of Service.
    • Accrual Max: Override the maximum combination of used hours plus available hours. 

Note: This can be adjusted to a maximum available balance on Company (module) → Company Setup → Accruals → edit accrual, Balance Max. Changes made at the Company level will affect all employees.

    • Carry Over Max: Used to override the maximum number of hours the employee can carry over after a clear when a new accrual plan year begins.
    • Override Rate: When selected, the amount entered will override the rate set up on the company level. This will be the amount regardless of hire date or LOS.
    • Override Hours: When selected, the amount entered will be the number of hours the employee will accrue each payroll. This will be the amount regardless of hire date or LOS.
    • Override Amount: When selected, this will override the total dollar amount accrued.

Warning: If the Override checkboxes are selected and the amount is left at “0”, nothing will accrue. You must enter a value when selecting the Override checkboxes.

    • Used Hours: The number of hours the employee has used during the current accrual plan year.

    • Used Dollars: The dollar amount the employee has used during the current accrual plan year.

    • Available Hours: The number of hours available for the employee to use.

    • Available Dollars: The dollar amount the employee has available to use.

    • Probation: This field is only available for any accrual that is configured with probation days in the Company module. For the duration of the accrual’s probation period, the employee will accrue hours/dollars but will not be able to access the balance until after the probation period. The accrual balance will load from Probation to Available Hours/Dollars on the first check date following the employee’s set number of probation days.

    • Available Date: This field is for informational purposes only and is typically left blank.

     

    Time Off Calendar only: Additional Information

    Note: This section is only available to clients utilizing Time Off Calendar.

    If your company uses HR Admin (module) → Time Off Center → Time Off Calendar, additional information will appear when editing an accrual.

    A screenshot of the Time Off Calendar section of the Accrual Editing page.

    • Available Hours: The total number of hours the employee has available to use.
    • Submitted Not Approved Hours: The number of accrual hours the employee has requested to use that have not yet been approved or denied by an admin or manager.
    • Approved Not Taken Hours: The number of accrual hours the employee requested–and an admin or manager approved–that have not yet been processed through payroll.
    • Balance Hours: The number of accrual hours remaining after Available Hours are reduced by the Submitted Not Approved and the Approved Not Taken Hours.
    Time Off

    A screenshot of the Time Off section of the Accrual Editing page.

    • Time Off Type: Used in conjunction with the Time Off Calendar. This can be used to override Time Off per employee.
    • Company Default Time Off Type: Displays the Default Time Off Type (Hours, Days, or In/Out) as is set in Company (module) → Company Setup → Accruals.

    Note: Even when a company has a Default Time Off Type, if an employee is assigned a different type in Attendance, this will default to the type assigned to the individual employee. In this case, the employee’s Time Off Type cannot be overridden with this drop-down.

    • Company Default Hours Worked Per Day: This section is related to the “Hours Worked Per Day” field in Employee Center Demographics.
    • Default Include Saturday: When selected, this option will override the company default to allow time off requests to include Saturday.
    • Default Include Sunday: When selected, this option will override the company default to allow time off requests to include Sunday.

     

    Add a Front-Loaded Accrual to an Employee

    The term “front-loading” when it comes to accruals refers to the process of granting employees all of their yearly accruals in one lump sum at the beginning of the plan year, rather than accruing over time. To front load, the Accrual selected must be set at an annual frequency in Company (module) → Company Setup → Accruals.

    There are two methods for adding a new front-loaded accrual to an employee: Manual Load and Automatic Load.

     

    Manual Load

    Manual load will have the employee’s full accrual balance loaded after you select save.

    Note: This method is often used when prorating an accrual.

    • Select the Accrual, Start Date, End Date, and Last Accrue Date.
    • Enter the total number of hours in the Available row.
    • Select Save.

    Important: We set the Last Accrue Date when doing a manual load, so the system knows that the accrual has already occurred. If you do not set the Last Accrue Date when doing a manual load, the system will load an additional lump sum of hours upon the next check date, making the balance higher than intended.

    Below is an example of a manual front-loaded accrual.

    A screenshot of potential settings for a manual front-loaded accrual.

     

    Automatic Load

    Automatic load will have the full accrual balance loaded upon the employee’s first check date.

    • Select the Accrual, Start Date, and End Date.
    • Enter the accrual information and do not set available hours. Below is an example of an automatic entry front-loaded accrual.

    Below is an example of a automatic front-loaded accrual.

    A screenshot of potential settings for an autimatic front-loaded accrual.

     

     

    Example Accrual

    In the following example, we’ll take a look at how accruals process into a new plan year.

    Accrual Notes:

    • PTO accrual is set up to clear on the calendar year end (12/31) and allow 40 hours of carry over.
    • PTO accrues at a rate of 3 hours per pay period.
    • Employee has 60 hours of PTO available prior to the 12/31 check date processing and the employee uses 16 hours of PTO in that pay period.

     Starting balance = 60 hours

    1. Use - 16 Hours is used in the 12/31 payroll and deducted from the 60 available. Remaining balance = 44 hours.
    2. Clear – The system sees that the check date is 12/31 and the PTO accrual has a clear date of 12/31 with 40 hours of carry-over is allowed. This triggers the system to clear out any remaining balance in excess of 40. It also clears out the used hours. Remaining balance = 40 hours.
    3. Transfer – System identifies what to do with the carry over balance based on the “Transfer To” setting at the Accrual setup. In this example, the Transfer to is the same PTO accrual. PTO Starting balance = 40 hours.
    4. Accrue – System accrues following the accrual rate table (3 hours). New PTO Balance = 43 hours.