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Introduction to Holiday Accrual

How to set up RotaCloud to automatically manage staff’s accrued holiday balances.

James Denham avatar
Written by James Denham
Updated over a year ago

If you have staff members who accrue their holiday based on their hours worked, RotaCloud can automatically keep their holiday balance up to date as part of the normal payroll procedure.

As a part of the Time & Attendance package, RotaCloud can calculate how much holiday has been accrued per pay period using staff members' clock-in and clock-out times. Accrued holiday is then automatically added to their holiday balance when you finalise your pay period.

NB: Holiday Accrual is not available for customers who are integrated with breatheHR or People HR.

Setting your accrual rate

In the Settings menu, under the Holiday Accrual heading, you’ll find an option to set your default holiday accrual rate.

By default, staff members accrue at a rate of 12.07% of their hours worked. However, if all your staff members accrue at a different rate, you can overwrite it by typing a new figure into the field. You can also choose whether certain paid and unpaid leaves are included in accrual calculations, using the options below the rate.

A screenshot of the Holiday Accrual section of the settings menu in RotaCloud. The Holiday accrual rate is set to 12.07%, and several Leave Types are set to be included in holiday accrual calculations.

Staff members can also have their own individual rate, which is set in their Employee Profile. To do this, click on the Holiday Accrual Rate cell under the Holiday Allocation section and enter the required accrual rate.

A screenshot of the Holiday Allocation section of an employee's profile. 'Accrue Holiday' is selected, and the default accrual rate has been used.

Setting which employees accrue

Employees are set to accrue holiday on their Employee Profile page. Under 'Holiday Allocation,' select 'Accrue Holiday' to enable automatic accrual for them.

A GIF of setting an employee to accrue and editing an employee's Holiday Accrual Rate, by typing a new figure into the Holiday Accrual Rate field.

Automatically updating holiday balances

At the end of each pay period, when finalising the Payroll Export report, you’ll be shown a pop up menu summarising how much holiday each of your accruing employees has earned, based on their hours worked:

A screenshot of the Holiday accrual summary, which shows how much accrued holiday will be added to staff's balances when a pay period is finalised.

You can also view this summary without finalising your payroll by clicking the 'View holiday accrual' link at the top of the Payroll report. The figures displayed here cannot be edited. The 'Hours worked' figure can be updated by changing the employee's timesheet, while the 'Holiday hours accrued' figure depends on the Holiday Accrual Rate.

Finalising the payroll will immediately update the balances of the listed employees.

If any employee has a default or empty holiday balance, such as in the first month of the pay year, it will be overwritten with their first month's accrued holiday. If they have already accrued some holiday this year, their allowance will be added to it.

If you unfinalise your Payroll Report, the accrued leave will be removed from employees' balances. When this happens, you'll be shown a confirmation of how many holiday hours are being removed:

A screenshot of the prompt shown before unfinalising a pay period, if unfinalising it will remove accrued holiday from any staff.

Manually updating holiday balances

You can manually update any employee’s holiday balance on the Leave Page. Click on an employee’s balance to enter a new one in its place:

A GIF showing the process of manually updating an accrued holiday balance, clicking on the allowance, and typing a new figure before clicking Save.

For more information about Holiday Accrual and to find a calculator to help you work out your correct Holiday Accrual Rates, visit the RotaCloud Blog.

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