Time Off Tracking Overview

The Time Off Tracking module (also referred to as PTO) is designed to make time off communication, employee requests and management decisions on those requests simple for everyone.  While time off policies can be very different from one company to another, we have created a framework which will help companies simplify the management of time off and provide most of the common features used by companies. 


To create a Time off Package, follow the steps below:

  1. From the PTO tab > SETUP > Packages and Policies page.
  2. A default Time off package has been created for you.  You can leave this as is or select Edit time off package to modify the package name, description, and Request settings.
  3. Type the name of the package.
  4. Type a description of the package to display for administrative users.
  5. Configure Request Settings
  6. Save Time Off Package

Once you have created your Time Off Package, click the Add Policy button to the right of the Package name to create a time off policy.

To create additional time off packages, navigate back to the Packages and Policies page and click the button to Add another time off package.  


Time Off Policies

A Time off policy is one "bucket" of hours available from which an employee can request time off.  Multiple time off policies can be created within a Time Off Package to make up the entire bundle of time available to an employee 

 

 

 

Leave Types

Leave Types are used to track the reason that an employee is using time.  You can select multiple leave types for each Time Off Policy if needed.  When the employee submits a time off request, the leave type they select will determine which policy (bucket of hours) the employee is requesting from.  

An example of how you may want to utilize multiple leave types within one policy would be if your company has one PTO policy to which all of an employee's hours are accrued, but you would like to track whether the employee is taking a vacation day or if they are sick.  Adding the SICK and VACATION as leave types in your PTO policy will allow you to track this information. 

We have built 7 pre-defined leave types available for selection, or you can create a new custom leave type that meets your needs.  The same leave type cannot be used in multiple policies within an employee's Time Off Package.

To select leave types:

  1. Select a check box next to one or more leave types to include in this policy

  2. Select 'Add a custom leave type' to create your own.

The Time off policy name and the Description are pre-populated based on the leave types selected, however this can be edited if desired.

 

   

 

How are hours made available?

Time off policies can be configured to make hours available to employees in one of three ways, accruals, manual assignment, unlimited in which the employee will have no balance and can submit requests for as much time as needed.  To determine which option to use for a policy, see the details below:

  • Periodic Accrual - Hours are earned over time based on the Accrual schedule configured in the policy.  For detailed information on configuring accrued policies, see Accruals below.

Example: A vacation policy where employees accrued 5 hours of vacation time each pay day and time off requests can be made against the balance of accrued time.

  • Manual Assignment  - Hours are awarded or granted manual to an employee by an HR User or Agency Admin through the "Adjust Hours" tool or by importing adjusted hours. No hours will appear for the employee until they have been granted and the employee will not be presented with the option to select leave types associated with manually assigned policies until hours have been granted.  

 Manually assigned policies cannot be configured with the option for an employee to submit a request for more hours than have been granted and    probationary periods are not applicable with this policy configuration.

Example: A jury duty policy where an HR User would require an employee to present a jury duty summons prior to manually granting Jury Duty hours. The HR User would add hours to the employee's balance and the employee would be presented with the option to request time against the balance of the policy

  • Unlimited - Hours are not accrued or granted to the employee and there are no limits on the amount of hours an employee can request from the policy. Time off requests will still go through the approval process and can be denied by HR or a manager.

 Unlimited policies do not support the configuration of a probationary period, carryover rules do not apply, and restrictions on negative balances are not    applicable.

Example: A work from home benefit in which the employee has the flexibility to work from home whenever necessary but requests must be approved by a manager.  Using the unlimited policy type will allow administrators and managers to track these requests in the system on the employee's PTO profile.

 


Policy Year Start Date

The policy year start date will drive specific functionality in the system.  This date is used to determine when carryover rules are applied and will be used to establish accrual dates for Monthly and Annually accrued policies.  Policy years can be set up by employee hire date or by a common date.  To determine which option should be used for your policy, see the information below:

  • By employee hire date - Select this option the carryover and accrual dates for your policy are determined by the employee's date of hire.  Accruals can be configured to occur each pay period, monthly, or annually.  Carryover jobs are processed each year at midnight on the anniversary of the employee's hire date.

* Note: Weekly and Bi-weekly accruals are not supported for policies based on employee hire date.

  • Common date for all employees - Select this option if the same policy year is used for all employees. Accruals can be configured to occur weekly, bi-weekly, each pay period, monthly, or annually.  Carryover jobs are processed at midnight on the policy start date each year.

 


 

Accruals

Time off policies in which the employee accumulates more time off as time passes are configured by using accruals.  To setup accruals:

  1. The Periodic Accrual option must have been selected under "How are hours made available for employee requests?" 

  2. Select the appropriate frequency under “How often are hours accrued?”

    • Annually:  Hours accrue one time per year on the anniversary of the policy start date.  

      • Hours are accrued in ADVANCE meaning that the employee is accruing hours for the upcoming accrual period on the accrual date.
      • If policy start date = common policy date, employees will be awarded their full annual accrual on the anniversary of the policy start date each year.  
        • New hires assigned to a package with an annually accrued common date policy will accrue pro-rated hours for the days remaining in the policy year on date of hire or upon expiration of their probationary period.
      • If policy start date = employee hire date, employees will be awarded their full annual accrual on date of hire and each anniversary thereafter. 
        • If probationary periods are configured, new hires will accrue pro-rated hours for the days remaining in the policy year based on the expiration of their probationary period. 

    • Bi-Weekly:  Hours accrue every other week on the day of the week selected.  (not available when policy start date = employee hire date)

      • Hours are accrued in ARREARS meaning that the employee is accruing hours for the previous accrual period on the accrual date.
      • The first accrual date will occur on the second instance of the day of the week selected after the common policy start date.  Accruals will continue to be processed on the established bi-weekly schedule.
      • New hires will receive pro-rated hours based on the days employed/accrual eligible in the previous accrual period on the next scheduled accrual date after their date of hire or expiration of their probationary period. 

    • Monthly:  Hours accrue one time per month on the day of the month of the policy start date.

      • Hours are accrued in ADVANCE meaning that the employee is accruing hours for the upcoming accrual period on the accrual date.
      • If policy start date = common policy date, employees will be awarded hours their full monthly accrual on the day of the month of the policy start date each month.
        • If the accrual month does not include the date of the month of the policy start date, accruals occur on the last day of the month (e.g. Policy start date = January 31, accrual date February = February 28th/29th, accrual date for March = March 31st, accrual date for April = April 30th)
        • New hires assigned to a package with a monthly accrued common date policy will accrue pro-rated hours for the days remaining in the month on date of hire or upon expiration of their probationary period. 
      • If policy start date = employee hire date, employees will be awarded their full monthly accrual on the date of the month of their date of hire and each month thereafter.  
        • If probationary periods are configured, new hires will accrue pro-rated hours for the days remaining in the accrual period upon expiration of their probationary period.  

    • Payday: Hours accrue each pay day based on the payroll calendar configured for the employee's assigned payroll group.


      • Hours are accrued in ARREARS meaning that the employee is accruing hours for the previous accrual period on the accrual date.
      • Payroll Groups must be configured to utilize this option. Payroll calendars must be configured for all active payroll groups. If payroll groups and calendars do not exist 'Payday' option will not display.
      • Employees must be assigned to a payroll group. 
      • New hires will receive pro-rated hours based on the days employed/accrual eligible during the previous accrual period on the next scheduled accrual date after their date of hire or expiration of their probationary period. 

    • Weekly:  Hours accrue every week on the day of the week selected.  (not available when policy year start date = employee hire date)


      • Hours are accrued in ARREARS meaning that the employee is accruing hours for the previous accrual period on the accrual date. 
      • The first accrual date will occur on the first instance of the day of the week selected on or after the policy start date.  Accruals will continue to be processed on the established weekly schedule.
      • New hires will receive pro-rated hours based on the days employed/accrual eligible in the previous accrual period on the next scheduled accrual date after their hire date or expiration of their probationary period.

 

  1. Enter the total number of hours accrued per policy year.

 

Top ↑      

 

Tenure/Service Awards

Tenure/Service Awards are additional hours earned by an employee after being employed for a specified number of years.  New accrual values based on years of service begin on the first accrual after the employee’s anniversary.  To add tenure/service awards:

  1. Click “Add service award".

  2. Add the number of years that an employee must be employed to begin accruing additional hours.

  3. Add the number of additional hours the employee accrues per year above the hours configured in the policy.

  4. Repeat steps if there is an additional tier of service award. 

 


Probationary Periods

Probationary periods are a set number of days during which new employees do not accrue hours or cannot request or take leave.  The employee's hire date = day 1 of the probationary period.  The date of expiration of the probationary period is considered the employee's accrual eligible date.  

Probationary periods can be configured with one of the following three options:

  • Hours ARE NOT accrued/Leave CANNOT be requested or taken
    • Employees will not begin accruing hours until after their probationary period has expired.  Employees will not be presented with the option to request time off from the policy until the probationary period has expired.  
    • HR users/Managers can record leave for the employee.
  • Hours ARE accrued/Leave CANNOT be taken or requested
    • Employees start accruing hours upon date of hire but are not presented with the option to request time off from the policy until the probationary period has expired.
    • HR users/Managers can record leave for the employee if necessary.
  • Hours ARE NOT accrued/Leave CAN be requested and taken
    • Employees will not begin accruing hours until after their probationary period has expired.  Employees will be permitted to request and take leave during their probationary period, however, this will result in the employee carrying a negative balance for the policy.  

  

   

 

Carryover

Carryover is used to set a maximum number of hours that an employee can roll over into the next policy year.  Carryover jobs are processed at midnight on the anniversary of the employee's policy year start date.  To allow carryover hours on the policy:

  1. Select the check box “Can employees carry unused hours over to the next year?” If this box is not selected, all remaining hours will be removed from an employee's balance on the anniversary of the policy year start date.

  2. Add the maximum number of hours an employee can carryover into the next policy year.  To allow all remaining hours to carryover, leave this field blank.

 

  

 

Restrictions

Restrictions on negative balances are used to allow an employee to request and take more leave hours than they accrue in a policy year.  Employees will not be permitted to submit a request which exceeds the negative hour restrictions. To allow employee requests to exceed the number of hours accrued per year:

  1. Select the check box “Can employees submit requests for more hours than they accrue?”  

  2. Add the maximum number of hours which the employee can request over the number of hours accrued in a policy year.  To allow employees to go into the negative by an unlimited amount, leave this field blank.

To reduce company risk, best practice is not to allow employees to request more hours than they accrue in a policy year. 

Note: Restrictions are not supported on Manually Assigned or Unlimited Hour policies.  


 

Activate Policy

Once you have configured and saved your time off policy and are prepared to roll-out the PTO module for your group, Activate the policy by using the Activate link under Actions on the Packages and Policies page.  

Activating a policy will push the policy into "Scheduled" status.  The Schedule period will last for 14 days after which the policy will become Active. During the Scheduled period, changes can still be made to the policy and accruals and rules will be updated and applied accordingly.  After the policy moves into Active status, all processed accruals will remain on the employees record regardless of changes made to the policy.  During the scheduled period, employees are able to utilize the PTO module.