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How do I set up and manage Occupational Maternity Leave and Occupational Maternity Pay on Payroll classic?

Available for the following Payroll classic plan: Premium

Occupational maternity leave (OML) within the leave category settings will allow you to set up OML categories using service length-based entitlement and up to 10 payment bands. Adding this to the employee within their Statutory/Occupational Pay section will include occupational maternity pay (OMP) alongside statutory maternity pay (SMP) in the pay run.

The PDF payment record has been updated to show the OMP calculation, which can also be published to the employee platform. The Occupational Pay report now includes the OML category, which shows a list of employees' maternity dates and payments.

Getting started

Set up occupational maternity leave
  1. Click the  Business menu.
  2. Click the Payroll Settings submenu.
  3. Under Pay Run Settings, click Leave Categories.
  4. Click the Add button.
    screenshot of the leave categories page, highlighting the add button

    Helpful Hint

    After clicking the Add button, scroll down to the bottom of your page where you will enter the details of the occupational maternity leave category.

  5. Enter the following details:
    • Name
    • External ID.
    • Leave category type.

      Important

      Please choose "Occupational Maternity Leave" for the Leave category type field. Choosing this leave category type will open the service band and payment band options below.

    • Automatically accrues: Based on length of service.

      Important

      Please keep "Automatically accrues: Based on length of service" ticked to be able to use the feature.

    • Number of service bands.
    • Number of payment bands.
    • Entitlements.

      Helpful Hint

      To learn more about the Number of service bands and Number of payment bands fields, please refer to the Service bands, payment bands, and entitlements tab in the Further information section of this article.

    • 52 week average calculation.
    • Pay category to use.
      • Occupational Maternity Pay.
  6. Click the Save button.
    screenshot of the occupational leave category slide out, highlighting the save button

    Helpful Hint

    If you have more than one OML scheme, you will need to use the Leave Allowance Templates feature to assign the correct scheme for employees. For example, your maternity scheme for management might be different for staff.

Set up occupational maternity pay for an employee

Important

If the employee is linked to a leave allowance template, first make sure the Occupational Maternity Leave you created above is enabled for the template linked to them. You need to do this before you can set up occupational maternity pay form them.

To do that, please refer to the Editing a leave allowance template tab in this article: Leave Allowance Templates.

  1. Click the  Employee menu.
  2. Click the List submenu.
  3. Click the name of the employee you need.
  4. Under Pay Run Settings, click Statutory/Occupational Pay.
  5. Click the Add button.
    screenshot of the statutory/occupational pay screen, highlighting the add button
  6. Click the Select statutory leave category dropdown.
  7. Select Occupational Maternity Leave.
    screenshot of the statutory/occupational leave panel, highlighting the dropdown and OML option
  8. Enter the following:
    • Start date.
    • Baby due date.

      Helpful Hint

      Entering these two dates will automatically populate the rest of the fields.

    • Average weekly earnings.
    • Salary.

      Helpful Hint

      The platform will automatically assess if the employee is eligible for statutory maternity pay (SMP). If they are not eligible, you can click the View Log button to see why.

    screenshot of the statutory/occupational leave panel, showing the upper half of the needed fields
  9. Continue entering the following:
    • Weeks payable.
    • Weeks already paid.
    • Calculation type.
    • Advanced settings.
    • Attachments.
    • Notes.

    Helpful Hint

    To learn more about the fields appearing in the Statutory/Occupational Leave panel, please refer to the Statutory/occupational leave panel fields tab in the Further information section of this article.

  10. Click the Save button.
    screenshot of the statutory/occupational leave panel, highlighting the save button

Editing data

Add/remove weeks of maternity pay in a pay run
  1. Click the  Pay Runs menu.
  2. Click the pay run you need.
  3. Click the name of the employee you need.
    screenshot of the pay run, highlighting the name of the employee you need
  4. Hover your cursor over the space beside the highlighted OMP amount.

    Important

    This will reveal the  button for OMP.

  5. Click the  button beside the OMP amount.
  6. To remove weeks of maternity pay, untick the unneeded weeks.
    screenshot of the statutory/occupational maternity leave panel, highlighting the checked included payment checkbox

    Helpful Hint

    The weeks you untick will go to the Add payments tab in this panel. You can tick them again if you need to add them back.

  7. To add weeks of maternity pay, click the Additional payments tab.
  8. Tick the weeks you want to include.
    screenshot of the statutory/occupational maternity leave panel, highlighting the add payments tab and unticked checkboxes

    Helpful Hint

    You can hover over the blue  icon beside each "SMP/OMP due" value to see the breakdown for each week.

  9. Click the Save button.
    screenshot of the statutory/occupational maternity pay panel, highlighting the save button
Edit your occupational maternity leave category
  1. Click the  Business menu.
  2. Click the Payroll Settings submenu.
  3. Under Pay Run Settings, click Leave Categories.
  4. Click the OML category you want to edit.
    screenshot of the leave categories page, highlighting the OML category
  5. Make the necessary changes.
  6. Click the Save button.
    screenshot of the occupational leave category slide out, highlighting the save button

Data management

Run an occupational maternity pay report
  1. Click the  Reports menu.
  2. Under Payroll, click Occupational Pay.
  3. Filter the report according to the following:
    • Date range/Pay run.

      Helpful Hint

      You can click the  button to switch between Date range and Pay run filters.

    • Employees.
    • Pay schedule.
    • Leave category type.
    • Employee default location.
    • Occupational leave category.
  4. Click the Run report button.
    screenshot of the occupational pay report, highlighting the run report button

    Helpful Hint

    You will now see the details of the Occupational Maternity Pay report.

    screenshot of the occupational pay report
Download an occupational maternity pay report
  1. Click the  Reports menu.
  2. Under Payroll, click Occupational Pay.
  3. Filter the report according to the following:
    • Date range/Pay run.

      Helpful Hint

      You can click the  button to switch between Date range and Pay run filters.

    • Employees.
    • Pay schedule.
    • Leave category type.
    • Employee default location.
    • Occupational leave category.
  4. Click the Run report button.
    screenshot of the occupational pay report, highlighting the run report button
  5. Click the Download dropdown button.
  6. Click the file type you need:
    • Excel
    • PDF.
    screenshot of the occupational pay report, highlighting the download dropdown

Removing data

Delete your occupational maternity leave category
  1. Click the  Business menu.
  2. Click the Payroll Settings submenu.
  3. Under Pay Run Settings, click Leave Categories.
  4. Hover over the row of the OML category you need to reveal the  button.
  5. Click the  button for the OML category you want to delete.
    screenshot of the leave categories page, highlighting the delete icon for the OML category
  6. Click the OK button.
    screenshot of the delete confirmation popup, highlighting the OK button

Further information

Service bands, payment bands, and entitlements

Service Bands

You can set the number of service bands (up to 10) and frequency (weeks, months, years) for your OML category. In the example below, there are three service bands, categorised using number of years.

  • Service band 1 is for employees who have been with the company for 0-2 years.
  • Service band 2 is for employees with 3-4 years of service.
  • Service band 3 is for employees who have been with the business for 5 or more years. Note that there is no cap for the last service band.

screenshot showing the number of service bands field

Payment Bands

Next, you can choose the number of payment bands and what percentage each band should be paid at. In this example: band 1 is at 100%, 2 is at 75%, and 3 is at 50%.

screenshot showing the number of payment bands field

Entitlements

Once complete, the platform will open the Entitlements section. There will be a table for you to enter the number of weeks payable at which band for each service length.

Using the example below:

  • An employee with 0-2 years of service will receive 5 weeks of full pay, 5 weeks at 75% pay, and 5 weeks at half pay.
  • An employee with 3-4 years of service will receive 10 weeks of full pay, 10 week at 75% pay, and 10 weeks at half pay.
  • Lastly, an employee with more than five years of service will receive 20 weeks at full pay and 10 weeks at 75% pay.

screenshot showing the entitlements field

Important

The Add SMP checkbox will add the SMP on top of the OMP calculation but will not pay the employee more than 100% of their daily salary. Leaving this unticked will offset the SMP within the OMP.

Statutory/occupational leave panel fields

screenshot of the statutory/occupational leave panel, showing the leave category, average weekly earnings, salary, and a table showing service and payment bands

  • Leave category - Select the OML category you created in the Leave Categories page.
  • Start date - This is the start date of the employee's maternity leave.
  • Baby due date - The date when the employee is due to have the baby.
  • Average weekly earnings - This is the same as in the statutory maternity pay screen. This shows the AWE the SMP will be based on.
  • Salary - This shows the employee's current salary, which is the amount the OMP will be based on. You can change this by ticking the override box and entering a new amount. For example, the employee’s current salary may be £40,000 but you might need the OMP to be based on a different salary.
  • The next section (the table) shows what service band the employee falls into on the OML scheme. You can amend this manually further down in the Advanced settings section.

screenshot of the statutory/occupational leave panel, showing the weeks payable, weeks already paid, calculation type, and a table showing how much OMP is due when

  • Weeks payable and Weeks already paid can be used if you have changed software part-way through a maternity leave to make sure only the weeks left are paid.
  • Calculation type will be set at weekly payments but can be amended to align the pay with the pay period. For example, weekly payments will be paid in full weeks. In some months, an employee might receive four weeks of maternity pay and some weeks, five. By clicking on Align with pay period, the pay is portioned out over the period using the number of days in it.
  • The next section (the table) shows a breakdown of what the employee is receiving each week. You can hover over the blue  icon beside each "SMP/OMP due" value to see the breakdown for each week.

screenshot of the statutory/occupational leave panel, showing the advanced settings section, amend service checkbox, attachments, and notes

  • Advance settings - This is the same as the statutory maternity pay screen with the addition of "OMP adjust." Tick this checkbox to add a one-off amount to add or deduct from the OMP due in the next pay run. Once the pay run is processed, the box will be unticked. In the pay run, the OMP will be paid separately to the SMP.
  • Amend service length.
  • Attachments.
  • Notes.

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