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Columns in the Opening Balances Template (Leave balances)

Dominic Beckham
Updated
EH Content Team

Available for the following plans: Employment Lite, Employment Plus
Available for the following Payroll plans: Standard, Premium, Core Payroll

Setting up opening balances is a fundamental part of your Employment Hero payroll implementation. This process creates a data bridge between your previous payroll system and your new platform, ensuring that employee records remain continuous and compliant from the moment you go live. 

Why Opening Leave Balances are Critical

The primary purpose of opening leave balances is to ensure that every employee's annual holiday entitlement is up to date. By establishing these starting figures accurately, you allow the system to continue accruing leave correctly according to New Zealand legislation. Without accurate opening balances, the transition of leave records can become fragmented, leading to discrepancies in employee entitlements and future accrual calculations.

Managing Parallel Pay Runs

For customers undertaking a self-guided implementation, a parallel pay run typically follows the setup of opening balances. Importing your opening balances prior to this step is essential, as it ensures the system has the necessary data to calculate leave accurately when you complete the parallel task.

Because the parallel pay run remains within the Employment Hero system and contributes to the overall opening balance figures, you must be careful to avoid doubling up on leave accruals. The opening leave balances you import should reflect the entitlement values as they displayed in your previous system for the second-to-last pay period. This means the figures should not include the specific pay period you intend to use for your parallel pay run.

Important

When entering leave data, it is vital to distinguish between entitled and accrued leave. You should only enter the employee’s Entitled Leave balance, which refers to the leave they have a current legal right to take. Employment Hero will automatically calculate Accrued Leave—the leave an employee is currently building toward their next anniversary—based on their last anniversary date.
Furthermore, you are only required to enter the specific hours, days, or weeks into these fields rather than the dollar value of the leave liability. Finally, ensure that all leave balances are imported in the correct format according to your specific Leave Category setup, as these formats are based on legislative requirements for each different leave type.

Leave Balance Specifications

Leave Type Specifications Format Required
Alternative Holiday Leave
LC84542_Alternative Holiday Leave
  • This is a required Opening Balance.
  • The balance must be in Days (e.g. 4 days).
  • The balance must be only the entitled balance.
 Days Yes
Annual Holidays
LC84539_Annual Holidays
  • This is a required opening balance
  • The balance must be entered in Weeks (e.g. 3.2 weeks).
  • The balance must be only the entitled balance.
  • Employment Hero will calculate the Accrued leave from the employees last Anniversary Date.
Weeks Yes
Bereavement leave
LC84546_Bereavement Leave
  • This is not a required Opening Balance.
  • The balance must be in Days as a negative total (e.g. -3 days).
  • This opening balance is only used to track how many days have been taken in your previous system.
Days No
Covid Leave
LC84547_Covid Leave
  • This is not a required Opening Balance.
  • The balance must be in Days as a negative total (e.g. -3 days).
  • This opening balance is only used to track how many days have been taken in your previous system.
Days No
Domestic Violence Leave
LC84543_Domestic Violence Leave
  • This is a required Opening Balance.
  • The balance must be in Days (e.g. 10 days).
 Days Yes
Leave without pay - (excluding annual holidays)
LC84545_Leave without pay - (excluding annual holidays)
  • This is not a required Opening Balance.
  • The balance must be in Hours as a negative total (e.g. -25 hours).
  • This is used for LWOP components not related to Annual Holidays (e.g. Sick Leave).
Hours No
Leave without pay - annual holidays
  • This is not a required Opening Balance.
  • The balance must be in Weeks as a negative total (e.g. -6.2 weeks).
  • This is used for LWOP components related to Annual Holidays.
Weeks No
Long Service Leave
LC85481_LSL
  • This is not a required Opening Balance.
  • The balance must be in Weeks as a positive total (e.g. 1 week).
Weeks No
Parental Leave
LC84540_Parental Leave
  • This is not a required Opening Balance.
  • The balance must be in Weeks as a positive total (e.g. 1 week).
Weeks No
Sick Leave
LC84541_Sick Leave
  • This is a required Opening Balance.
  • The balance must be in Days (e.g. 15.5 days).
 Days Yes

Pay Category Balances and Year-to-Date Earnings

Opening balances for pay categories provide the distinct benefit of ensuring that an employee’s total year-to-date earnings are displayed accurately on their payslips. While these figures are important for employee transparency and financial year reporting, they have no technical influence on how the system performs calculations. For this reason, they are considered optional. 

For maintaining professional and complete payslip record the figures entered should be the employee’s total financial year-to-date earnings.

Important

If importing leave balances only, complete columns that start with LC (Leave Category) on the import template.

 

 

 

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