What's covered in this guide
Why payroll owns the balance
Time off in Workforce shows up in two places: the employee's profile in workforce management, and on the pay stub once payroll runs. Both display the same number — but only payroll writes it. Every time you post a pay run, payroll computes a new balance for each time off type and pushes that value back to the profile.
This has one crucial consequence:
Editing a balance on the employee profile is not permanent. Workforce will display your edit until the next pay run posts. At that point, payroll recalculates from its own ledger and overwrites the profile balance. The change you made on the user profile disappears. To make a balance change that lasts, do it inside a pay run (see How to permanently adjust a balance).
What payroll does to balances on each pay run
Every pay run runs the same three-step calculation per employee per time off type:
Take the prior balance — what payroll wrote at the end of the previous pay run.
Add this period's accrual — calculated from the time off type's accrual method.
Subtract this period's used hours — approved time off requests that fall inside this pay period.
The result becomes the new balance, posts to the pay stub, and writes back to the employee's profile. Anything that wasn't part of this calculation — including a profile edit someone made between pay runs — is discarded.
How time off accrues
Each time off type (Vacation, Sick, PTO, Personal, etc.) is configured with one of three accrual methods, set when you create the time off type.
Based on hours worked
A fixed number of time off hours per hour of regular pay. Common for sick time off under state mandates (e.g. 1 hour of sick earned per 30 hours worked, the standard rate in California, New York, and most other paid-sick-leave states). Workforce reads regular hours from the pay run automatically — overtime, double-time, and unpaid hours don't accrue unless you configure them to.
Throughout the year at each pay period
A flat amount each pay run regardless of hours worked. A salaried employee with "80 hours of vacation per year" on a bi-weekly schedule accrues 3.077 hours per pay period (80 ÷ 26). Useful for salaried staff and front-of-mind annual entitlements.
Annual lump sum
The full annual amount lands once a year on a fixed date — either the beginning of the calendar year or the employee's yearly work anniversary. Used for "front-loaded" policies and several state sick-leave laws (California's lump-sum option, for example). New hires can be prorated to days remaining in the period.
Tenure tiers (milestones). On top of any of the three methods above, you can add tenure milestones — e.g. 80 hrs/yr for years 1–4, 120 hrs/yr from year 5, 160 hrs/yr from year 10. Workforce uses the employee's hire date to apply the right tier each pay period. Milestones are configured per time off type, not as a separate accrual method.
Balance rules and manager overrides
Each time off type has rules that constrain how much an employee can take or carry. There's a critical detail about how those rules behave:
Balance rules are checked only at the moment of the time off request — not when payroll runs. Once a request is approved, payroll honors it without re-checking the rules. Managers approving a request can override any rule, and the override is permanent for that request. If a rule changes after a request has been approved, the existing approval still pays out under the old rule.
Negative balance threshold
Default behavior is to block requests that would push the balance below zero. You can allow employees to go negative up to a configurable limit per time off type — for example, "allow up to -16 hours of vacation". Once the threshold is hit, further requests need a manager override.
Maximum balance (cap)
Stops further accrual once a balance reaches a ceiling. Common for "use it or lose it" vacation policies, and required by some states (California prohibits forfeiture of accrued vacation but allows accrual caps).
Waiting period
A new hire can't accrue or use the time off type until they've been employed for a configured number of days (e.g. a 90-day vacation probation). State paid-sick-leave laws often dictate the maximum permissible waiting period, so be careful here. Separate settings can be set up if you want different periods for accruing and for requesting.
Annual carryover
Most time off types reset every calendar year — accrued hours roll over up to a configurable cap, anything above the cap is forfeited. Workforce runs the carryover automatically. Two things matter most.
Which pay run triggers the reset
The reset runs on the first pay run whose pay-period end date falls in the new calendar year — not by payment/pay date. This distinction trips people up:
Pay period Dec 22 – Jan 4 (period ends Jan 4), paid Dec 30 → reset fires, because the pay-period end date is in the new year.
Pay period Dec 18 – Dec 31 (period ends Dec 31), paid Jan 6 → no reset yet, because the pay-period end date is still in the old year. The reset will fire on the next pay run whose period ends in the new year.
The reset is calendar-year based and runs the same way for every customer — there isn't a configurable fiscal-year start month.
What the reset does
Reads each employee's current balance.
If the balance is at or below the carryover cap, carries it forward unchanged.
If the balance is above the cap, reduces it to the cap (excess is forfeited).
Applies any annual lump-sum grant configured on the time off type.
Writes the new balance to the pay stub and back to the employee's profile.
How to permanently adjust a balance
Whenever a balance needs correcting — a prior period was miscalculated, an employee was hired with a starting balance, a one-off bonus grant — make the change inside a pay run. This is the only adjustment payroll will treat as durable.
Open the current open pay run and click into the employee's pay stub.
In the time off section, add a manual time off accrual line for the affected time off type.
Enter the adjustment in the hours-accrued field. Use a positive number to add hours, a negative number to subtract.
Save. The balance recalculates and shows on the pay stub.
The adjustment becomes part of that pay run, is audit-trailed, and can be reversed by voiding the run. From the next pay run onward, payroll uses the corrected balance as its starting point.
Don't try to fix a balance from the workforce management profile. Even if the new value sticks until the next pay run, posting that pay run will recalculate from payroll's ledger and overwrite your change. The fix has to live inside a pay run.
How time off shows on the pay stub
For each time off type, the pay stub shows three numbers:
Accrued this period — hours added by this run's accrual calculation.
Used this period — hours of approved time off taken inside this pay period.
Ending balance — the new balance after this run posts.
The ending balance is what workforce management will show on the employee's profile until the next pay run posts. If an employee asks "what's my balance?", the most recent pay stub is always the source of truth.
Termination payouts
When an employee terminates, their final balance is either paid out as wages, forfeited, or some combination — depending on state law and the policy you've documented. Common rules:
Vacation / PTO — many states (California, Colorado, Illinois, Massachusetts, and others) require accrued vacation to be paid on termination. A few states allow forfeiture if a written policy says so. Check your state.
Sick time off — generally not payable on termination, with limited exceptions.
Personal time / floating holidays — payable or not depending on how you've configured the type and your jurisdiction.
Workforce Payroll doesn't currently auto-calculate termination time off payouts. If your state requires the remaining balance to be paid out, add it manually to the employee's final pay run as a one-off earnings line. Use the most recent pay stub for the balance, multiply by the appropriate rate, and document the calculation.
Voids and reversals
If you void a pay run, hours accrued and taken during the pay run are also reversed — the balance returns to what it was before that run posted. This applies to manual accrual adjustments too: voiding the run removes the adjustment.
If you've already posted a subsequent pay run that depended on the now-reversed balance, you may need to reprocess. Contact support if you're unsure of the impact before voiding.
Common questions
I edited an employee's balance on their profile and it disappeared after payroll ran. Why?
Payroll is the source of truth and overwrote your edit. This is by design: the balance comes from the payroll ledger, and any edit made outside the pay run is treated as transient. To make a permanent change, do it inside a pay run (see How to permanently adjust a balance).
An employee took time off but their balance didn't drop on the pay stub. Why?
The time off request must be approved and dated inside the current pay period to count. Pending requests don't reduce the balance, and requests dated after the period ends will reduce next run's balance instead.
Does unpaid time off accrue paid time off?
Only if the type uses "Throughout the year at each pay period" or "Annual lump sum" accrual. "Based on hours worked" keys off paid hours, so unpaid time doesn't generate further accrual.
How do I see what an employee's balance was on a specific date in the past?
Pull the pay stub for the pay period containing that date. The ending balance shown is the post-run balance for that period.
Can an employee see their own balance and history?
Yes, by default. Employees see their current balance on every pay stub and can review historical accruals and uses through their self-service portal. However, each time off type has a "Hide time off balance from employee" setting. When enabled, that type's balance is hidden from the employee (useful for things like unpaid leave, bereavement, or types where you don't want to surface a running tally). Managers and payroll admins still see it.