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Leave Balance
Function
Leave Balance processing allows the user to track the activity and available balances of certain types of leave. The leave types tracked are limited to those as set up in the Leave Balance Type form that is found in GMS Main, Payroll, Set Up.
Setup Leave Assumptions tab
This option takes you to the Leave Balance Assumptions form.
The Leave Balance Assumptions allows you to define the procedures and parameters at which various leave types are earned.
Leave Type: Using the combo box arrow, select each type of leave.
The options are to be set up individually for each leave type within each employee class. These options are:
Base: Check RT, if applicable OT, and the types of leave to be used to calculate leave earnings based upon your personnel policies. Even if leave taken is checked allowing leave to be earned when taking leave, the pay codes LP and ML will not be included and therefore no leave will be earned when those pay codes are entered in the timesheets. If leave taken is checked, place a checkmark for all the types of leave taken that leave can be earned on.
Exceed earning hours in the employee master file: If your personnel policies allow earnings to exceed the per pay period earnings in the employee master file, check this box.
Things You Should Know
Split Payroll at the End of a Fiscal Year
If your agency does not expense any type of leave when earned, you will follow your normal leave processing procedures and select all timesheet batches for the pay period.
If your agency does expense any type of leave when earned, you will follow the instructions below:
In Leave Balance Processing, click on Setup Leave Assumptions. Make sure that all classes have a P for prorated under the Prorated/Fixed column in the matrix. If your personnel policies state that only a certain number of leave hours can be carried forward to the new fiscal year for all employees, you also need to enter “True” under Max, “True” under Class and enter the Max Hours that can be carried forward to the new fiscal year.
Click on the Year End Accrual button on the Leave Balance Processing tab. If you do not normally have the same hours in each pay period, it will ask you how many hours are in the pay period. Enter the total hours for this pay period, not just the hours worked in this timesheet batch. It will calculate the prorated earnings for the time worked in this timesheet batch, record leave taken during this time period and show the balance as of the last day of the fiscal year. At this point, if you want to run the Cost Allocation menu for the last month of your fiscal year, you will be able to choose the last day of the fiscal year to use in calculating the accrued leave.
Note: At no time during this process for the split payroll should you click the Print Leave Report button. You must click Year End Leave Accrual for both batches. If you click the Print Leave Report button it will negate the special accrual you have done.
If you set up the Max Hours to be carried forward at year end, remember to change the “True” to “False” under Max and Class and change the hours to zero under Leave Balance Processing, Setup Leave Assumptions after the old fiscal year timesheet batch(es) have been processed via the Year End Leave Accrual Button.
Enter a timesheet batch for the days the employees worked in the new fiscal year using the first day of the fiscal year as the beginning of the pay period. When you are ready to process leave balances using this new fiscal year timesheet batch for this pay period, select that batch and click on Year End Leave Accrual on the Leave Balance Processing tab. The opening balance will be the ending balances from the previous leave balance report. Earnings will be calculated, the leave taken recorded and the balance shown as of the last day of the pay period. In the Setup Leave Assumptions tab, if the check box “Exceed earning hours in the employee master file” is not checked, it will take the earning amount in the employee file minus the amount of prorated earnings it gave each employee on the 1st timesheet batch and the balance is the amount earned on the 2nd timesheet batch.
Note: Once you have completed the Year End leave accrual activities you may desire to go back and re-print the Leave Balance Report by site or department for the period ending at the end of the previous fiscal year. Should that be the case, click on Prior Leave Balance Reports tab, select the order in which you would like the report sorted and choose the desired ending period.
When you process payroll, both timesheet batches for this pay period will be available for selection. The stubs will reflect the total of leave earned and taken from the two timesheet batches and the balances as of the last day of the pay period.
Note: If your agency normally earns leave on a fixed basis, don’t forget to go back to Leave Balance Processing, Setup Leave Assumptions tab and change P for prorated to F for fixed after you have finished processing all timesheet batches through the year end accrual.
Note: If your agency does not accrue the cost of leave and has a "use it or lose it" policy in place, the Year End accrual button will still be available. You would go into the Leave Balance Assumptions tab, put "True" in the Max field for the appropriate class(es) with the appropriate Max Hours. Then process the Year End Accrual to set the hours to the appropriate max or carry forward balance. Once this is completed, do not forget to change the "True" back to "False" in the Max column on Leave Balance Assumptions tab.
Setup Auto Leave Earning Matrix
This feature allows you to set up a matrix for your employees to automatically have their per-pay-period leave earning amount change based on years of service (anniversary date compared to hire date).
Things You Should Know
Operating Procedures
Leave Earning Group: Enter a description of the group of employees for which you are defining the auto rate change.
Leave Balance Type: Select the leave type to be changed.
In the grid: select the class(s) of employees to be included in this group.
Leave Update Options: As stated in the second dot point above under Things You Should Know you should be viewing this by anniversary dates. If the auto earning rate change should happen in the pay period in which the employee’s anniversary date falls, check the first button. If the auto earning rate change should happen in the pay period following the one in which the employee’s anniversary date falls, check the second button. Note: In Leave Update Options, if you select the option "the pay period in which the employee's anniversary date is" the system uses the pay period ending date to calculate the years of service.
Start Year of Service: Enter the year number of the first anniversary date of the range you are defining. For example, if the anniversary date range starts on their third anniversary enter a 3.
End Year of Service: Enter the year number of the last anniversary date of the range you are defining. For example, if the anniversary date range ends on their tenth anniversary enter a 10.
Leave Earned: Enter the number of hours the employees are to earn of this leave type per pay period.
Note: Once the matrix has been established, during normal Leave Balance Processing steps should you have employees who need to have their leave earning rate adjusted based on the matrix setup, you will receive a list of those employees with the new leave rate to be applied. You will be asked if you wish to have the leave earning rates changed as specified.
Leave Balance Processing tab
Operating Procedures
Year End Leave Accrual
If your pay period at the end of your fiscal year is split with some of the days worked in the old fiscal year and some days worked in the new fiscal year and you expense any type of leave when it is earned, you can process separate batches through Leave Processing to calculate leave balances as of the last day of your fiscal year.
Enter a timesheet batch for the days the employees worked in the old fiscal year using the last date of the fiscal year for the ending period of this timesheet batch. In Leave Balance Processing, click on the Setup Leave Assumptions tab. Make sure that all classes have a P for prorated under the Prorated/Fixed column in the matrix. If your personnel policies state that only a certain number of leave hours can be carried forward to the new fiscal year for all employees, you also need to enter True under Max, True under Class and enter the maximum hours that can be carried forward to the new fiscal year.
Click on the Year End Accrual button. If you do not normally have the same hours in each pay period, it will ask you how many hours in the pay period. Enter the total hours for this
pay period, not just the hours worked in this timesheet batch. It will calculate the prorated earnings for the time worked in this timesheet batch, record leave taken during this time period and show the balance as of the last day of the fiscal year. At this point, if you want to run the Cost Allocation menu for the last month of your fiscal year, you will be able to choose the last day of the fiscal year to use in calculating the accrued leave.
NOTE: If you are selecting more than one batch before clicking on the Year End Accrual button, those batches must all have the same period ending date.
When you are ready to process leave balances using the second timesheet batch for this pay period, in Leave Balance Processing, click on the Setup Leave Assumptions tab. For the applicable leave type, change the True to False under Max and Class and remove the Max Hours if your personnel policies allow employees to exceed the maximum during the fiscal year.
Select that second timesheet batch and click on Year End Leave Accrual. It will reflect the opening leave balances as of the first day of your new fiscal year and calculate the earnings based on the hours worked in this timesheet batch, record the leave taken and show the balance as of the last day of the pay period. In the Setup Leave Assumptions tab, if the check box “Exceed earning hours in the employee master file” is not checked, it will take the earning amount in the employee file minus the amount of prorated earnings it gave each employee on the 1st timesheet batch and the balance is the amount earned on the 2nd timesheet batch.
When you process payroll, both timesheet batches for this pay period will be available for you to select. The stubs will reflect the total of leave earned and taken from the two timesheet batches and the balances as of the last day of the pay period.
Note: If your agency normally earns leave on a fixed basis, don’t forget to go back to Leave Balance Processing, Setup Leave Assumptions tab and change P for prorated to F for fixed after you finished processing all batches through the year end accrual. Also, if you set up the maximum hours to be carried forward at year end, remember to change the True to False under Max and Class and change the Max Hours to zero.
Prior Leave Balance Reports tab: If you wish to print a Leave Balance Report for a previous pay period, select this tab. You will then need to select which pay period you want the report from.
Leave Balance processing allows the user to track the activity and available balances of certain types of leave. The leave types tracked are limited to those as set up in the Leave Balance Type form that is found in GMS Main, Payroll, Set Up.
Setup Leave Assumptions tab
This option takes you to the Leave Balance Assumptions form.
The Leave Balance Assumptions allows you to define the procedures and parameters at which various leave types are earned.
Leave Type: Using the combo box arrow, select each type of leave.
The options are to be set up individually for each leave type within each employee class. These options are:
- Prorated/Fixed – Enter “P” for Prorated, “F” for Fixed, or “N” if the employee class is not eligible to earn any hours for the identified leave type.
This identifies whether the leave earned is to be prorated based upon hours paid. For example, if an 80 hour pay period employee turns in a timesheet for 60 hours, and the leave is set up to be prorated, the system will calculate the leave earned based on the proration of hours to be paid to the total hours in the pay period. In this case, if the employee is to earn 4 hours of Annual Leave, as set up in the Employee File, for a full 80-hour pay period, the system will prorate their 4 hours by 60/80 and only give 3 hours of earned Annual Leave. If the leave type is set up as Fixed, the employee will earn the entire amount as identified in their Employee File regardless of the number of hours paid. - Flag – This determines whether you wish to place a flag (asterisk) beside a leave balance once it reaches a certain number of hours. Enter a “True” or “False” in this field.
- Flag Hours – Identify the number of hours at which you wish the flag (asterisk) to appear. You should only use this field if you have entered a “True” in the Flag field.
- Max – This determines whether you wish to have the leave earning cease once the leave balance reaches a certain number of hours. Enter “True” or “False” in this field.
- Employee – If you wish to set up the leave maximum on an individual employee basis, enter “True” in this field. If you choose this option, you need to enter the individual maximums for all appropriate staff in the Leave Information tab of the Employee File.
- Class – If you wish to set up the leave maximum on an employee class basis, enter “True” in this field.
- Max Hours – If you entered “True” in the Class field, enter the maximum balance of hours for this leave type that the class can have.
Base: Check RT, if applicable OT, and the types of leave to be used to calculate leave earnings based upon your personnel policies. Even if leave taken is checked allowing leave to be earned when taking leave, the pay codes LP and ML will not be included and therefore no leave will be earned when those pay codes are entered in the timesheets. If leave taken is checked, place a checkmark for all the types of leave taken that leave can be earned on.
Exceed earning hours in the employee master file: If your personnel policies allow earnings to exceed the per pay period earnings in the employee master file, check this box.
Things You Should Know
- Should a timesheet about to be processed in Leave Balances include an employee whose class has not been set up in Leave Assumptions, the process will stop and not be completed until the setup is done.
- If the maximum hours entered represents a maximum number of hours allowed at any time - once the employees reach the defined max hours it will show the correct hours earned on the Leave Balance Report but the balance will then be adjusted back to the maximum amount. When the employee uses some of the available leave causing the balance to fall below the maximum, the system will resume adding the earned hours, reflecting the balance up to the maximum of that leave type in the balance field.
- If the maximum hours entered represents a maximum number of hours allowed to be carried over to the following fiscal year – if your pay period ends on the last day of the fiscal year, during the course of the year, the maximum number of hours allowed to be carried over from one year to the next would appear in the Max Hours column however the Max column would have a “False” under Max and Employee. Then before the final payroll of the year is processed, you would change the “False” to “True” under Max and Employee. You then complete the payroll processing as usual. After payroll processing is completed, go back into Setup Leave Assumptions and change the “True” to “False” under Max and Employee.
- After you have printed the Leave Balance Report, but before you save the check run, if Print Leave Report is selected it will not automatically clear the current leave activity. It will ask if you wish to reprocess the leave balances. Answer Yes to clear the current activity from the leave and payroll tables to reprocess the appropriate timesheet batches. Answer No to re-print the Leave Balance Report as initially created.
- Should you wish to generate a report for a period used in the Year End leave accrual process, for example to print by department or site and distribute follow this procedure:
Select the period for which you wish to generate the report. You will receive a message “Timesheet batches for this pay period were previously processed. Do you wish to re-print the report and not recalculate leave balances?” If you answer Yes, the report options will become available. If you answer No, you will receive the message “To recalculate leave balances, start the leave balance processing again selecting the timesheet batches with your first period ending date”. At this point the YE leave accrual process will begin again and balances will be recalculated.
Split Payroll at the End of a Fiscal Year
If your agency does not expense any type of leave when earned, you will follow your normal leave processing procedures and select all timesheet batches for the pay period.
If your agency does expense any type of leave when earned, you will follow the instructions below:
In Leave Balance Processing, click on Setup Leave Assumptions. Make sure that all classes have a P for prorated under the Prorated/Fixed column in the matrix. If your personnel policies state that only a certain number of leave hours can be carried forward to the new fiscal year for all employees, you also need to enter “True” under Max, “True” under Class and enter the Max Hours that can be carried forward to the new fiscal year.
Click on the Year End Accrual button on the Leave Balance Processing tab. If you do not normally have the same hours in each pay period, it will ask you how many hours are in the pay period. Enter the total hours for this pay period, not just the hours worked in this timesheet batch. It will calculate the prorated earnings for the time worked in this timesheet batch, record leave taken during this time period and show the balance as of the last day of the fiscal year. At this point, if you want to run the Cost Allocation menu for the last month of your fiscal year, you will be able to choose the last day of the fiscal year to use in calculating the accrued leave.
Note: At no time during this process for the split payroll should you click the Print Leave Report button. You must click Year End Leave Accrual for both batches. If you click the Print Leave Report button it will negate the special accrual you have done.
If you set up the Max Hours to be carried forward at year end, remember to change the “True” to “False” under Max and Class and change the hours to zero under Leave Balance Processing, Setup Leave Assumptions after the old fiscal year timesheet batch(es) have been processed via the Year End Leave Accrual Button.
Enter a timesheet batch for the days the employees worked in the new fiscal year using the first day of the fiscal year as the beginning of the pay period. When you are ready to process leave balances using this new fiscal year timesheet batch for this pay period, select that batch and click on Year End Leave Accrual on the Leave Balance Processing tab. The opening balance will be the ending balances from the previous leave balance report. Earnings will be calculated, the leave taken recorded and the balance shown as of the last day of the pay period. In the Setup Leave Assumptions tab, if the check box “Exceed earning hours in the employee master file” is not checked, it will take the earning amount in the employee file minus the amount of prorated earnings it gave each employee on the 1st timesheet batch and the balance is the amount earned on the 2nd timesheet batch.
Note: Once you have completed the Year End leave accrual activities you may desire to go back and re-print the Leave Balance Report by site or department for the period ending at the end of the previous fiscal year. Should that be the case, click on Prior Leave Balance Reports tab, select the order in which you would like the report sorted and choose the desired ending period.
When you process payroll, both timesheet batches for this pay period will be available for selection. The stubs will reflect the total of leave earned and taken from the two timesheet batches and the balances as of the last day of the pay period.
Note: If your agency normally earns leave on a fixed basis, don’t forget to go back to Leave Balance Processing, Setup Leave Assumptions tab and change P for prorated to F for fixed after you have finished processing all timesheet batches through the year end accrual.
Note: If your agency does not accrue the cost of leave and has a "use it or lose it" policy in place, the Year End accrual button will still be available. You would go into the Leave Balance Assumptions tab, put "True" in the Max field for the appropriate class(es) with the appropriate Max Hours. Then process the Year End Accrual to set the hours to the appropriate max or carry forward balance. Once this is completed, do not forget to change the "True" back to "False" in the Max column on Leave Balance Assumptions tab.
Setup Auto Leave Earning Matrix
This feature allows you to set up a matrix for your employees to automatically have their per-pay-period leave earning amount change based on years of service (anniversary date compared to hire date).
Things You Should Know
- You may set up multiple “groups” that are employee class and leave type specific to define the different levels of leave earning and the group(s) of employees to which the earning rate(s) apply.
- When setting up the Start Year of Service and End Year of Service in the grid it is important that you think in terms of anniversary dates. For example, if an employee earns “x” number of hours of AL per pay period for the first three years of employment, the Start Year of Service would be “0” and the End Year of Service would be “3”, meaning from day one to their third anniversary date. Then for the next three years of employment they earned “y” number of hours of AL per pay period the Start Year of Service would be “3” and the End Year of Service would be “6”, meaning from their third anniversary date to their sixth anniversary date (or years 4, 5 and 6 of employment).
- It is important that the End Year of Service for one range is the Start Year of Service for the next range.
Operating Procedures
Leave Earning Group: Enter a description of the group of employees for which you are defining the auto rate change.
Leave Balance Type: Select the leave type to be changed.
In the grid: select the class(s) of employees to be included in this group.
Leave Update Options: As stated in the second dot point above under Things You Should Know you should be viewing this by anniversary dates. If the auto earning rate change should happen in the pay period in which the employee’s anniversary date falls, check the first button. If the auto earning rate change should happen in the pay period following the one in which the employee’s anniversary date falls, check the second button. Note: In Leave Update Options, if you select the option "the pay period in which the employee's anniversary date is" the system uses the pay period ending date to calculate the years of service.
Start Year of Service: Enter the year number of the first anniversary date of the range you are defining. For example, if the anniversary date range starts on their third anniversary enter a 3.
End Year of Service: Enter the year number of the last anniversary date of the range you are defining. For example, if the anniversary date range ends on their tenth anniversary enter a 10.
Leave Earned: Enter the number of hours the employees are to earn of this leave type per pay period.
Note: Once the matrix has been established, during normal Leave Balance Processing steps should you have employees who need to have their leave earning rate adjusted based on the matrix setup, you will receive a list of those employees with the new leave rate to be applied. You will be asked if you wish to have the leave earning rates changed as specified.
Leave Balance Processing tab
Operating Procedures
- Grid: The Leave Balance Processing Grid when displayed, will identify all Timesheet Batches that have not been processed in Leave Processing. The default check marks to the left indicate that all batches have been selected for processing. If a timesheet batch has been saved but does not contain any timesheet records, it will not be displayed in the grid. To only select certain batches, click or shift-click or control-click on the desired batches.
- Include all active employees with leave balances: Check the box if you want the report to include all active employees with leave balances even if they did not have a timesheet in the current pay period.
- No leave earning this pay period: Should you have an occasion when you do not want employees to earn their per pay period leave amount, such as a third pay in a month, check this box to suppress the leave earning for this pay period.
Note: Leave taken will still be processed.
- Sort by: You have the option to print the leave report by alpha, site, or department. If site or department is chosen there will be page breaks between site or department codes. Employees are listed alphabetically within each code.
- Print Leave Report: This selection will display the Leave Balance Report on the screen. The report identifies by leave type, opening balances for the current pay period, the amount earned and taken, and the balance forward, which will be the opening balance for the next pay period.
If the ending balance for an employee is a negative amount, the amount will be printed in red with a minus sign.
You have the option to print the leave report by alpha, site, or department. If site or department is chosen there will be page breaks between site or department codes. Employees are listed alphabetically within each code.
If your payroll is outsourced, you need to put a mark in the checkbox labeled “Payroll is run by a third party” under Tools, Organization, Organization Info tab. At this point the system will ask you if you wish to save the leave balances. This will post the leave earned and taken to the employee files and to a leave history table and you will not be able to prepare payroll using these timesheet batches. If you wish to use the timesheet batches to prepare payroll and not post the leave earned and taken from these timesheet batches to the employee files until the pay check run has been saved, you would not put a mark in the checkbox labeled “Payroll is run by a third party”. If an employee file exists with a leave balance, but that employee does not have a timesheet for the pay period, it will post the leave balance that is in the employee file at the time the leave is posted with zero earned and taken.
Note: Once you have completed the Prepare Payroll step but before you have saved the check run, should you need to reprint the Leave Balance Report, you will receive a message: "Do you wish to reprocess leave balances? If so you will need to redo the prepare payroll step in the payroll processing menu."
Year End Leave Accrual
If your pay period at the end of your fiscal year is split with some of the days worked in the old fiscal year and some days worked in the new fiscal year and you expense any type of leave when it is earned, you can process separate batches through Leave Processing to calculate leave balances as of the last day of your fiscal year.
Enter a timesheet batch for the days the employees worked in the old fiscal year using the last date of the fiscal year for the ending period of this timesheet batch. In Leave Balance Processing, click on the Setup Leave Assumptions tab. Make sure that all classes have a P for prorated under the Prorated/Fixed column in the matrix. If your personnel policies state that only a certain number of leave hours can be carried forward to the new fiscal year for all employees, you also need to enter True under Max, True under Class and enter the maximum hours that can be carried forward to the new fiscal year.
Click on the Year End Accrual button. If you do not normally have the same hours in each pay period, it will ask you how many hours in the pay period. Enter the total hours for this
pay period, not just the hours worked in this timesheet batch. It will calculate the prorated earnings for the time worked in this timesheet batch, record leave taken during this time period and show the balance as of the last day of the fiscal year. At this point, if you want to run the Cost Allocation menu for the last month of your fiscal year, you will be able to choose the last day of the fiscal year to use in calculating the accrued leave.
NOTE: If you are selecting more than one batch before clicking on the Year End Accrual button, those batches must all have the same period ending date.
When you are ready to process leave balances using the second timesheet batch for this pay period, in Leave Balance Processing, click on the Setup Leave Assumptions tab. For the applicable leave type, change the True to False under Max and Class and remove the Max Hours if your personnel policies allow employees to exceed the maximum during the fiscal year.
Select that second timesheet batch and click on Year End Leave Accrual. It will reflect the opening leave balances as of the first day of your new fiscal year and calculate the earnings based on the hours worked in this timesheet batch, record the leave taken and show the balance as of the last day of the pay period. In the Setup Leave Assumptions tab, if the check box “Exceed earning hours in the employee master file” is not checked, it will take the earning amount in the employee file minus the amount of prorated earnings it gave each employee on the 1st timesheet batch and the balance is the amount earned on the 2nd timesheet batch.
When you process payroll, both timesheet batches for this pay period will be available for you to select. The stubs will reflect the total of leave earned and taken from the two timesheet batches and the balances as of the last day of the pay period.
Note: If your agency normally earns leave on a fixed basis, don’t forget to go back to Leave Balance Processing, Setup Leave Assumptions tab and change P for prorated to F for fixed after you finished processing all batches through the year end accrual. Also, if you set up the maximum hours to be carried forward at year end, remember to change the True to False under Max and Class and change the Max Hours to zero.
Prior Leave Balance Reports tab: If you wish to print a Leave Balance Report for a previous pay period, select this tab. You will then need to select which pay period you want the report from.
