What's covered in this guide?
Leave balances in Workforce.com help employees with applying for leave, and managers with approving leave.
How it works
Most businesses hold leave balances in their payroll software and transfer these balances to Workforce.com through an integration.
The balance is displayed to employees when applying for leave, and to managers when approving leave requests. Leave balances can also be viewed on the employee profile.
Importing leave balances from your payroll software
Some payroll software will sync leave balances automatically via the integration, including:
Xero (Australia)
MYOB AccountRight Live
MYOB Essentials
Sage Micropay (Web API enabled)
For other payroll systems, export your leave balances to a .CSV file and import this to Workforce.com.
The connection between your payroll system and the corresponding Workforce.com leave type is the 'Export Name' in the Leave Type settings in Workforce.com:
Balances will sync for the employees who the leave type applies to in Workforce.com. To confirm who a leave type applies to in Workforce.com, navigate to Compliance > Leave Types 'Manage' and click the link in the Applies to column as shown below:
Set your leave accrual rates in Workforce
Even if you accrue leave in your payroll software, entering accrual rates in Workforce.com allows managers to see projected leave balances when approving leave. These projected balances help to see how much leave would be available in the future.
To add an accrual rate, navigate to Compliance > Leave Types 'Manage' and select a leave type to edit
Scroll down to the accrual rate field, and enter your rate of accrual per hour
For an example of how to calculate your accrual rate, see the FAQ section at the bottom of this article.
Importing leave balances
If you use a payroll system that syncs leave balances automatically to Workforce.com, this step isn't necessary.
If you plan to manage leave accrual in Workforce.com, or import balances with a file each period:
Navigate to Leave > Tools > Leave Balances (for those in the UK/Europe, navigate to Time & Attendance > Leave > Leave Balance Report > Upload Starting Balances)
Download the CSV template and fill out the opening balances for each of your staff. For any leave types which you don't hold balances for, leave these blank.
(Optional) Enter the date these leave balances are accurate to (Workforce.com will automatically calculate any additional leave accrued since that date). If you've kept updated balances to the current day, leave the date selector blank.
Upload the CSV. From this point forward, the balances will be visible on the employee profile
Viewing employee leave balances
To view an employee's balance, navigate to their employee profile and select Leave Requests.
There are two separate leave balances, the payroll balance and the current balance:
Payroll balance | Current balance |
The payroll balance is the employees actual leave entitlement as at the last payroll export. It doesn't consider the impacts of future leave requests or days worked since the last pay run. | The current balance is a conceptual balance. It represents the payroll balance plus any leave accrued since your payroll balance was last updated, minus future approved leave requests. The current balance changes each time a shift or a leave request is approved. The purpose of the current balance is to help managers identify how much leave is available after considering how much leave is already approved. |
Example
In the example below, the employee had 37.53 hours of annual leave at their last payroll date. They have since taken a day of leave, which is yet to be exported to their payroll software. Workforce.com has updated the Current balance to 29.93 hours.
In the example below, the employee has accrued leave by working shifts since the last payroll date, which is reflected by the higher current balance in Workforce.com.
Updating a leave balance in an employee profile
You can update an employee's starting leave balance within their profile via two ways. After completing one of the two following methods, the current balance should update according to all leave that has been approved in Workforce against the employee's leave year.
For more detailed instructions, please see our help guide on Recalculating leave balances per employee.
Method 1:
Navigate to an employee profile and select Recalculate Leave. Enter the employee's starting balance in Starting Balance then select Recalculate Leave:
Method 2:
Navigate to an employee profile and click into the Starting Balance. Enter in the value, hit enter, and refresh your screen.
FAQs and Troubleshooting
FAQs and Troubleshooting
How can I turn off leave balance visibility for a leave type?
To turn off leave balance visibility for a leave type navigate to Compliance > Leave Types 'Manage' and click to edit the leave type.
In section '4. Advanced Settings' toggle 'Hide employee leave balances for this leave type' to the on position:
Why is a leave balance incorrect?
All changes to leave balances in Workforce.com are tracked in the Leave Balance Audit Trail. Admins can access the Audit Trail by navigating to Leave > Tools > Leave Balances and clicking 'Leave Balance Audit Trail'.
Because the leave balance audit trail will contain a lot of information, it's usually easiest to view by applying a filter to the employee column:
The report shows the time and date of each change and how the change was made.
The 'Reason' column shows how the leave balance was updated. For example, if you sync your leave balances automatically from your payroll software you will see a change each pay run when the balance is updated in your payroll software with the reason 'Imported from payroll software':
How do I calculate the rate of leave accrual?
To find your accrual rate per hour, divide your annual leave entitlement in weeks into an hourly equivalent. For example, for an employee who works 38 hours per week and gets 4 weeks of annual leave per year:
4 x 38 hours = 152 hours of leave per year
152 / 52 weeks per year = 2.931 hours per week
2.931 / 38 = 0.07692 hours accrued per hour worked. This is the number you would add to the accrual rate field in Workforce.com.