Table of Contents

Vacation/Sick Leave Employee Setup

Greg Hatfield Updated by Greg Hatfield

Note: Vacation/Sick Leave accrual and tracking is only available to Live Payroll users.

See also, Vacation/Sick Leave Overview.

Assigning Vacation/Sick Leave Policies to Employees

One policy for each of the two categories of Paid Time Off (PTO) can be assigned to each employee on this screen. This screen can be accessed from the Add/Edit Client screen, Vacation/Sick Leave tab, and from the Employee setup screen, Rates tab. The categories are Vacation and Sick Leave. The policies are created and saved on the Vacation/Sick Leave Policy Setup screen.

Add/Edit Client Screen

Employee Setup Screen - Rates tab

Steps to set up employees for PTO tracking

Step 1: Select one of the two categories from the list: Vacation or Sick Leave.

Step 2: Assign a policy to each employee that will accrue PTO. Accrual and usage tracking will begin with the next pay check so do not assign an employee until they are eligible for PTO accrual.

Step 3: If the employee already has accrued a PTO balance because the employer had an existing PTO policy, see the section below on Manual Adjustments before entering a paycheck. Otherwise, enter the first eligible paycheck and review the starting balance and/or the accrued amount for PTO on this Employee Setup screen.

Manual Adjustments

First Paycheck after Eligible - Manual adjustments may be required because CFS Payroll is not a time clock program. The program can only use the paycheck date and the number of hours entered on the Payroll Grid to calculate PTO accruals and usage. If the policy accrues PTO per hour worked, then when hours for the first eligible paycheck are entered, the program does not know if the hours worked were before or after the accrual start date. It also does not know if PTO used on that check was before of after a specific date (accrual start date or annual usage reset date). For that first check, the user will be prompted to enter the total hours worked AFTER the accrual effective date. This is only necessary on the first check after the policy is assigned to get the initial accrual amount correct. Manual adjustments may also be necessary for any checks with hours that span specific dates set for accrual or annual usage reset. For all later checks, the total hours worked will accrue PTO.

Employer has existing policy and wants to enter the previously accrued PTO - After assigning a policy and before entering the first check, enter any previously accrued PTO balance on the "Carry over from YYYY" line. Click the "Save" button. Accruals from new paychecks will be added to this balance.

Making adjustments - Any of the numbers on the Employee Setup screen may be manually edited. If editing checks besides the last check, or if entering a carry over balance after checks have been created, then click the "Recalculate" button to recalculate balances on later checks. Click "Save" to save the changes. Also see Delete Records... below as a quick way to start over.

Note: After assigning policies to employees, or changing the PTO balance and accrued amounts, be sure to SAVE the changes.

Employee Setup Screen Options

A description of the options on the Employee Setup screen are below.

Category: Select one of the two categories: Vacation or Sick Leave.

Print Available PTO on paychecks: Check this option to print the available sick leave and vacation on employee paychecks. This is the most convenient method to provide employees with this information and this option is checked by default. If users uncheck this box to keep it from printing on employee paychecks, then they can print employees reports to provide the information instead.

Employee: A dropdown list of employees allows the user to display PTO information for "All Employees" or for only a selected employee. The rest of the display changes depending on if "All Employees" is selected, or if a single employee is selected.

All Employees

Check Date: This dropdown list of pay dates allows the user to display PTO balances, accruals, and used amounts for any pay date. There is also a selection for "Carry over from YYYY", where YYYY is the prior year. This is the ending balance from last year and represents the starting point for this year. This list only appears if "All Employees" is selected in the Employee list.

Employee List Grid: A list of employees is displayed. The second column allows the user to select a policy for the current PTO category. Click the cell next to the employee and choose the policy from the dropdown list. <None> indicates that the employee has not been assigned a policy and that no accrual or usage will be tracked for that employee.

The next columns pertain to the pay date selected in the Check Date list (see below). The grid displays the Prior Balance, amount Accrued, amount Used, the Balance Accrued remaining, and the Balance to Use remaining. Note that if the Check Date is "Carry over from YYYY" then the Balance Accrued and the Balance to Use are the ending balances from last year and the starting point for this year.

Selected Employee

Current Policy: This dropdown list shows the policy currently assigned to this employee. The user may change the assigned policy by selecting one from the list. This list only appears if a single employee is selected in the Employee list.

Check Date List Grid: A list of check dates for the selected employee is displayed. Only check dates since a policy was assigned to the employee will appear. The next columns pertain to the pay date in the first column (see below). The grid displays the Prior Balance, amount Accrued, amount Used, the Balance Accrued remaining, and the Balance to Use remaining. Note that if the Check Date is "Carry over from YYYY" then the Balance Accrued and the Balance to Use are the ending balances from last year and the starting point for this year.

Column Descriptions:

Prior Balance: Balance Accrued from the previous paycheck or, if this is the first paycheck, then he Balance Accrued from the "Carry over from YYYY" line.

Accrued this Period: Amount accrued on this paycheck.

Used this Period: Amount used on this paycheck.

Balance Accrued: The remaining accrued amount (Prior Balance + Accrued - Used).

Balance to Use: The remaining amount available to use if the policy has an Annual Usage Limit. If the policy does not have an Annual Usage Limit then this column should be blank. See Vacation/Sick Leave Policy Setup.

Recalculate: This button can be used to recalculate the balances on screen if an amount is edited when displaying a selected employee.

Save: Click the Save button to save policy assignment changes, PTO amount changes, or recalculations on the screen.

Delete Records...: This function can be used to quickly remove PTO records that were created in error. The user can then recalculate the checks to recreate the PTO records if desired. Click the button to delete Sick Leave or Vacation records, depending on which is currently displayed on the screen. All records for one employee, or for all employees, will be deleted, depending on which is currently displayed on the screen. Note that when displaying All Employees, even though only one date is shown at a time the button will delete all sick leave or vacation records for all employees regardless of the date shown. The Carryover from Prior Year amounts are not deleted or changed. Actual paychecks are not affected, only PTO records.

Preview/Print Report: Two reports are available depending on the screen settings. If "All Employees" are shown on the screen, then the report contains a list of all employees with their current assigned policy and the Balance Accrued and Balance Available for both vacation and sick leave as of the date selected on the screen. If an employee did not receive a paycheck on the selected date, the report will show the balances from the last check that they received. The employer could use this report to show their current paid time off liabilities.

If only one employee is shown on the screen, then the report shows the paycheck history for vacation or sick leave, similar to what is displayed on the screen. This report could be provided to the employee to show their paid time off history.

Preview/Print All Employees: This report option displays the single employee report described above but for all employees at once. Users are prompted to optionally exclude any employees who don't have a policy assigned and don't have paid time off records (paychecks were not created after a policy was assigned). The report is for the displayed category only, Sick Leave or Vacation. A separate report can be run for the other PTO category if desired. This report can be provided to the employees instead of using the option to print PTO information on the employee paychecks.

How did we do?

Vacation and Sick Leave in LivePayroll

Vacation/Sick Leave Overview

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