Available for the following Payroll plans: Standard, Premium, Core Payroll
Available for the following user access level: Admin
Leave taken can be added during the pay run, or via leave requests.
Please note, leave must be entered via the Actions > Take Leave tab. Do not enter leave as earnings, as this will not record the leave as leave taken. If leave is entered as earnings, it will not be shown in the employee's leave balance, or in your leave reports. If the employee leaves the business, the leave balance that will be paid out will not be taken out of any leave entered as earnings. It will be more than what was entered as earnings.
Getting started
Enter leave via a pay run
- Log in to your payroll platform.
- Open the pay run containing the employee and leave you would like to add.
- Select the Actions tab in the bottom-right corner.
- Select the Take Leave option.
- Enter the following:
- Leave category
- Notes
- Units taken
Helpful Hint
Against each leave option, next to the Notes field, the platform will display how many units of the chosen leave the employee has available. If the units entered are higher than the balance available, a warning will display "This employee has taken more leave than they have accrued". They will be allowed to go into a negative leave balance, however, you can choose to only apply the number of units the employee has available, then process the remaining leave as leave without pay/unpaid leave in a separate "take leave" action.
Enter leave via a leave request
- On the Payroll dashboard, select the Manage Employees drop-down menu.
- Select Create Requests.
- Complete the Leave request. Leave can be created for more than one employee at a time.
- Depending on your permissions, the leave request may be approved immediately after saving.
- Head to the applicable pay run and select Leave Requests.
- Leave will not be automatically added to the pay run. To apply the leave requests to the selected pay run, select the request, then select Apply. You can also apply all leave requests by selecting the Bulk Apply button.
Helpful Hint
If a leave request spans more than one pay period, you will be notified of this. In this scenario, you can override the number of units by entering the number of units applicable to that pay run. The subsequent pay run will then keep a record of units previously applied and so will then just apply the remaining units.
Further information
If you are looking for further ideas, try our community.
Taking leave at half pay
When an employee requests paying any type of leave at half pay, three options can be recommended:
Option 1: Create Leave requests based on the pay schedule.
For example, you can create leave requests weekly or fortnightly for half the usual number of hours.
- Pros: Able to apply the full leave to each pay run.
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Cons:
- Multiple leave requests. If they normally work 40 hours, then the leave request will be for 20 hours, say annual leave and then a second leave request for Leave without pay for the other 20 hours. These should be created in the HR platform.
- Leave requests may be confusing for the employee, as the platforms will prefill the usual hours.
- If created in HR, they will need to adjust the hours, day by day, to half the usual amount. Then, create the unpaid leave in a similar way. When creating the subsequent leave applications for the same day, the system will not pick up that there is already an application in place for that day and will offer the full hours available for that day instead of the half remaining.
- If created in Payroll, in regard to the subsequent unpaid leave, while the system will prefill the usual hours, it will also show the overlapping leave request and the hours outlined as a guide.
Option 2: Create a leave request for the total period.
- Pros: Two requests for the employee (paid and unpaid).
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Cons: Manual application of leave applications is required in the pay run for the appropriate hours.
- Would also recommend a pay run task be set up for the period as a reminder to do the adjustment.
Option 3: (Hybrid) Employee creates two leave requests for the total period.
Once created and approved, an Admin enters the payroll platform leave application and changes the finish date to the end of the first pay run covered by the leave. They then create further leave requests with dates that align with the pay run dates. This will need to occur for both the paid and unpaid leave.
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Pros:
- The employee only has to create two requests.
- Full leave requests can be applied to the pay run.
- Cons: The Admin needs to adjust the initial request and create further requests
The option chosen will depend on your business circumstances and perhaps the leave type taken. For example, whether this is a frequent request from multiple employees as opposed to a one-off request from one employee will affect the decision as it relates to the subsequent actions.
In all cases, best practice dictates that an unpaid leave request for the other half of the hours also be created and processed for each pay run. This completes the administrative side of the transaction so that it is clear to all that the half pay is intentional and the other hours are accounted for in leave reporting.