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Automate Accrual Earnings with Accrual Rules
Automate Accrual Earnings with Accrual Rules
Create rules that earn PTO automatically by year, month, pay period, or hours worked.
Accrual rules define how employees earn paid time off throughout the year. These rules usually come from your employee handbook or benefits policy. Once created, a rule can be assigned to a pay code so time such as Vacation is earned based on length of service, or Sick time based on hours worked.
Accrual periods available: Yearly, Monthly, Pay Period, Hourly, and Hourly percentage.
Step 1 Open the Accrual Rules Tab
- Go to Feature Manager.
- Click the Settings button for PTO Accrual Tracking.
- Select the Accrual Rules tab.
Step 2 Add a New Accrual Rule
Click the Add New Accrual Rule button.
Step 3 Choose the Accrual Type
The accrual type defines the accrual year, which is used when counting taken hours and carryover amounts.
- Anniversary starts the accrual year on the employee’s hire date.
- Fiscal starts the accrual year on January 1st.
Step 4 Choose the Accrual Update Period
The accrual update period defines when the employee receives their PTO time.
- Yearly updates accruals once a year, on the anniversary or on January 1st.
- Monthly updates accruals each month.
- Pay Period updates accruals with every pay period, whether weekly, bi-weekly, semi-monthly, or monthly.
- Hourly updates accruals based on hours worked, for example 1 hour for every 40 hours worked.
- Hourly percentage updates accruals based on a percentage of hours worked, for example 2.5% of every hour worked.
Step 5 Decide Whether to Prevent Negatives
When Prevent Negatives is enabled, an employee’s available PTO balance cannot drop below zero. TimeTrakGO blocks additional PTO requests, blocks approval of pending requests that would go below zero, and blocks manual time card entries that would create a negative balance.
Step 6 Assign a Default Pay Code
This optional setting links the new accrual rule to an existing pay code and offers to assign the rule to all existing users as well as new hires. It can still be configured individually per employee later. For example, if part-time employees are not entitled to vacation time, you can turn it off for those employees.
When prompted, choosing Yes, Assign Users assigns the rule to all users.
Step 7 Edit the Rule to Set the Hours to Earn
Once the rule is created, edit it to configure how many hours should be earned.
- Hours to Earn is the number of hours earned per accrual update period, for example 32.00 hours per year.
- Maximum Accrual Per Year is the most that can be earned during the accrual year. It often matches Hours to Earn, but for periods such as Hourly percentage it is used to cap earning.
- Maximum Carryover Per Year is the most that can carry from one accrual year to the next. Set it to 0 when no carryover is allowed.
- Maximum Balance is the highest balance allowed. It combines earned, carryover, and opening balances and will never exceed this amount.
Step 8 Use Accrual Levels (Optional)
Accrual levels are needed when the hours to earn change with length of service, such as vacation based on seniority.
Example accrual levels
- 1 year = 40 hours of vacation
- 2+ years = 80 hours of vacation
- 5+ years = 120 hours of vacation
- 10+ years = 160 hours of vacation
When enabled, multiple levels per accrual rule can be configured based on length of service in months.
Additional levels can be added or edited as shown here.
Related Articles
- For three complete rules start to finish, see Example Accrual Rule Settings.
- To turn on accrual tracking, see Enabling PTO Accrual Tracking.
- To see where balances appear, see Where to See PTO Balances.