Restricting Leave Requests - when no leave balance
Available from Friday 07 June 2024
There is a new customer requested feature for the Organisation settings to stop anyone (including your leave approvers) from creating a leave request when there is no balance available for Sick, Lieu or Alternative Holiday leave types.
At the time the leave request is created, the balance will be calculated as:
Current leave balance
less any approved leave not paid
less any pending (not approved) leave
If this balance is less than the amount being requested, an error will be generated advising that they do not have enough leave to submit the request and they should contact their employer. The leave request is not saved.
Should you still wish to process leave that will result in a negative balance, this can be recorded and paid via a timesheet entry.
Leave adjustments and leave entitlements included in an open pay, may not be available until after the pay has been processed.
As this specific to the requirements of your payroll or company, you may want to review how this will be communicated and applied before you enable the setting.
Once enabled every person in your pay will have this setting applied to their leave requests.
It is not retrospective, any leave currently approved will not be affected by this setting.
It is a good idea to check your leave balances before enabling this setting.
iPayroll cannot give advice as to how this should be applied for specific employee scenarios.
For more information here Employment New Zealand Sick Leave
For more information here Employment New Zealand Alternative Holidays
Leave Types
Review Setup > Pay Elements > Leave for the following Leave Types, Make sure you review any Active Special Leave elements that have been set up.
Sick
Sick Leave becomes available from a leave anniversary. Your sick leave entitlement rules will decide when a person is going to receive their next entitlement of sick leave days. Future anniversaries are not taken account into calculations until they are actively run through a payroll. Negative balances of SICK - Sick leave balances are NOT automatically deducted from final pays.
Lieu
Lieu leave is generally used for people working extra time. Amending the balances for Lieu leave can be achieved by adding and approving a leave request for Credit for Overtime in Lieu or adding the credit in the Timesheet entry. It is important to create the credit for this leave, especially if you select the option to stop leave requests. If this leave has been used before a credit was applied, the person will have a negative balance. Negative balances of LIEU - Lieu leave are deducted from final pays.
Alternative Holiday
Alternative Holiday is the legislative name for the day given if a person has worked on a Public Holiday that would have been their normal working day. It is usually credited at the time the payment is made for the day, but it can be added retrospectively via a timesheet entry. This is often used incorrectly instead of using Lieu leave. Negative balances of ALT - Alternative Holiday are deducted from final pays.
Check your Leave Balances
All active people - Reports > Leave > Leave Balances
Individual people - People > View People > Person's name > Leave > Current Balances > Select the Leave Type button to display the detail.
You can always check the leave balances when making adjustments in the timesheet entry as it updates as you go.
Enable the setting
- Available to Paymaster user
- Organisation > Defaults > Leave Request Preferences
- Select appropriate leave type
- Sick - Sick Leave and / or
- LIEU - Leave in Lieu of Overtime and /or
- ALT - Alternative Holiday
- Save
Adding Leave to the Timesheet Entry
You may have decided that a person can take the sick leave, maybe they are going to get their new entitlement shortly or the leave is for exceptional circumstances. You will not be able to add a leave request if the feature has been enabled, so you can record the leave in the timesheet entry.
You can always check how your payslip looks by selecting Payslip in the Timesheet entry page. You can update any transaction, save it and review the payslip each time.
- Payroll > Enter > Enter Timesheets
- Select Person's name
- In Qty enter hours
- Select Leave type in the Description drop down
- +Add
- Use Reason field to add a note about why the leave is being paid if required
- Add From Date
- Add To Date
- Tick Reduce Ordinary Time if person has standard hours
- Save
- Review the timesheet entry
Timesheet Entry screenshot
Adding Credit for Overtime
After reviewing your leave balances, if you have discovered that lieu leave has been taken without the Credit for Lieu being processed, to adjust the balance back to zero or to give a balance you can record it in the Timesheet Entry. There is no payment generated for the LIEU-CR. It will display on the payslip, so use the Reason field to make it clear why you are doing this.
- Payroll > Enter > Enter Timesheets
- Select Person's name
- In Qty enter hours
- Select LIEU-CR Leave in Lieu of Overtime in the Description drop down
- +Add
- Use Reason field to add a note about why the leave is being paid if required
- Add From Date
- Add To Date
- Save
- Review the timesheet entry
- Review Person's Leave Balances > Current Balances > select LL button for Lieu Leave. Balance would have updated.
Timesheet entry LIEU CR
Leave Balances page
Adding Alternative Holiday Credit or correcting the leave type
After reviewing your leave balances, you have discovered that Alternative holiday has been taken without the Credit for Alternative being processed. You can record it in the Timesheet Entry. There is no payment generated for the ALT-CR Credit for Alternative Holiday. It will display on the payslip, so use the Reason field to make it clear why you are doing this.
- Payroll > Enter > Enter Timesheets
- Select Person's name
- In Qty enter hours
- Select ALT-CR Credit for Alternative Holiday in the Description drop down
- +Add
- Days Credit/Adjustment - add number of days
- Adjustment Date - day leave was taken
- Use Reason field to add a note about why the leave is being paid if required
- Save
- Review the timesheet entry
- Review Person's Leave Balances > Current Balances > select AH button for Alternative Holiday. Balance would have updated.
Timesheet entry ALT CR
Leave Balances page
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