Set Up Holiday Pay Policies for Time Off Calendar

Your Holiday Pay Policy is a template feature that automatically pays employees during paid or worked holidays.

The Worked Holiday option is only applicable to companies using Checkwriters Attendance Time Clock. Already have Holiday Pay Policies set up and want to manage them? 

Check out our Maintaining Your Holiday Records: 2025 article.

Create Holiday Template
Set Up Time Off Policy
Assign Employees to Holiday Groups
  - Pay Policy
  - Employee Center: Status
Time Clock Only: Worked Holiday


Create Holiday Template

  1. Navigate to HR Admin → Time Off Center → Holiday.
  2. Select Add New to start a new Holiday Group.
    1. A screenshot of the Holiday page, highlighting the "Add New" button.
  3. Name your group in the Holiday Group pop-up dialog. Select Save. The group will now appear in the Holiday section.
    1. A screenshot of the Holiday Group name editing pop-up.
  4. Select 0 Holidays to open the Holiday Template.
    1. A screenshot of the Holiday page, highlighting the "0 Holidays" button.
  5. Select Add New to add holiday dates to the template.
    1. A screenshot of the Holiday editing page, highlighting the "Add New" button.
  6. In the Holiday pop-up dialog, enter your first holiday's Name and Date. You can also choose to check two boxes. Select the Pay Policy Time Off checkbox to pay employees for a full day off on this holiday. Attendance Worked Holiday is only applicable if your company uses Checkwriters Attendance Time Clock. Select Save.
    1. A screenshot of the Holiday pop-up dialog with the "Name" and "Date" fields filled in and the "Pay Policy Time Off" box checked.
  7. Repeat Step 6 as many times as need to add all of your company's Holidays for the year. Select Cancel when all of your holidays have been entered.
    1. A screenshot of the Holiday editing page. An arrow points to the "Cancel" button and reads "All of your Holidays are showing on this page? Nice! Select Cancel to navigate to the main Holiday page.

Note: Each holiday is processed during the appropriate pay period. For example, if your check date is 07/10/2025 and your pay period is 06/28/2025 - 07/04/2025, the 07/10/2025 check date will contain the holiday hours for July 4th.

If a holiday falls on a weekend but you want to pay holiday hours for the Friday before or the Monday after, assign the holiday date as that Monday or Friday. 

Set Up Time Off Policy

Set up Time Off Pay Policies to assign to your employees.

Example: You can set up a Full-Time employee policy that pays out employees 8 hours for each holiday in a holiday group and a Part-Time policy that pays out 4 hours for each holiday in a holiday group.

  1. Navigate to HR Admin → Time Off Center → Pay Policy.
  2. Select Add New to start assigning groups.
    1. A screenshot of the Pay Policy page, highlighting the "Add New" button.
  3. Enter a Policy Name into the appropriate field, e.g. "Full-Time (8 Hours)".
  4. In the Holiday Template field, select the template that you wish to be associated with this policy. This corresponds to the template(s) created during Holiday Pay Policy setup
  5. In the Earning Code field, select the code for this policy to be processed under. This will typically be a "Holiday" code.
  6. Select a Begin and End Time for the holiday hours. The total number of hours should equal the number of hours that will be paid out to your employees. For example, 8:00 AM Begin Time to 4:00 PM End Time is 8 hours of pay.
  7. Select Save.
    1. A screenshot of the Time Off Policy page with the Policy Name, Holliday Template, and Earning Code fields filled out. Begin and End Times are also filled out.
  8. Select 2025-01-23_10-48-53 Regenerate in the row of the Policy you just created. Do not skip this step.  
    1. A screenshot of the Pay Policy Page, highlighting the Regenerate button.

Warning: You MUST regenerate the Pay Policy every time it is adjusted.

Assign Employees to Holiday Groups

After you create your Time Off Policies, you can assign the policies to your employees. This can be done from the Pay Policy screen or from the Employee Center Status page.

Pay Policy

  1. Navigate to HR Admin → Time Off Center → Pay Policy.
  2. Select 2025-01-23_11-25-23 Assignment in the row of the Policy you wish to assign.
    1. A screenshot of the Pay Policy page, highlighting the Assignment button.
  3. Select the employees you wish to assign to the selected Policy.  
    1. A screenshot of the employee selection process.
  4. Select Save to confirm the assignments. 
  5. Select 2025-01-23_10-48-53 Regenerate in the row of the Policy you just created. Do not skip this step.  
    1. A screenshot of the Pay Policy page, highlighting the Regenerate button.

Warning: You MUST regenerate the Pay Policy every time it is adjusted.

Employee Center: Status 

  1. Navigate to HR Admin → Manage Employees → Employee Center → select 2024-02-08_16-42-31 Edit for the appropriate employee → Status (tab).
  2. In the Pay Policy field, select the applicable Holiday Pay Policy. 
    1. A screenshot of the Employee Center Status page, highlighting the Pay Policy field.
  3. Select Save to confirm the assignment. 
  4. Select 2025-01-23_10-48-53 Regenerate in the row of the Policy you just created. Do not skip this step.
    1. A screenshot of the Pay Policy page, highlighting the Regenerate button.

Warning: You MUST regenerate the Pay Policy every time it is adjusted.

Time Clock Only: Worked Holiday

Note: Worked Holiday is only available for companies using Attendance Time Clock.

Holiday Pay Policies can be used to set up certain dates as ‘Worked Holiday’ for employees. When this box is checked, the Default Code field will be enabled.

  • Select the code under which this template should be processed. Any hours worked on an "Attendance Worked Holiday" date will automatically be recorded under this code. 

Example: If you have a Worked Holiday earning code set to pay at 1.5x the employee’s rate, then all hours worked on this date will be paid at the 1.5x rate.

A screenshot of the Holiday pop-up dialog with the "Name" and "Date" fields filled in and the "Pay Policy Time Off" box checked. The "Attendance Worked Holiday" box is checked and the "Default Code" field is filled out as well.

Note: If both Attendance Worked Holiday and Pay Policy Time Off are checked, an employee will receive BOTH the Worked Holiday pay and the Time Off pay if they work on the specified date. If the employee should not receive both pays when working on that date, select only the appropriate box.

If both are checked and an employee works on the holiday, you must cancel the approved holiday request in the Time Off Calendar.

Important: If you have employees working outside of the Eastern Standard Time zone (EST) who also work overnight shifts that overlap a Worked Holiday and a standard day, please contact Checkwriters Client Support at support@checkwriters.com.