All ClickTime accounts have access to basic Time Off options. You can learn more about managing your staff's available Time Off in the Time Off Overview guide here.
This article will cover the Time Off Accrual options available through our Time Off Management Module. This feature can be used to automatically add Time Off hours to your employee's balance on the same day of every month. You can also set a maximum balance to prevent staff from accruing more hours than they should have access to. In addition to Accruals, the Module also supports Time Off Request and Approvals - please see this guide for more details on the Time Off Request and Approvals workflow.
NOTE: please be aware that currently, ClickTime only supports a (monthly) accrual model meaning there is not a way to setup other models such as weekly, bi-weekly, etc.
Also, here are some other factors to be aware of:
- ClickTime doesn't yet support condition-based accruals (ie. for every X amount of hours worked, the employee receives Y hours of Time Off). So in these situations, we suggest a manual process of periodically reviewing employee worked hours using time entry reports such as the Horizontal/Vertical Timesheet (from the 'Company--->Reports page). Once a manager or administrator determines the amount of Time Off hours that an employee should receive, they can use the Modify Balance option (HERE) to adjust the employee's Time Off balance accordingly.
- Because ClickTime handles accruals on a monthly basis, you may consider making the Accrual Rate amount smaller to compensate (see more details on Accrual Rates below).
- Time Off Accruals allow a more 'automated' way to add hours to an employee's Time Off balance each month - but you can still do manual balance adjustments as needed (per above)
Use the links below to skip to the appropriate section of this guide:
Time Off Accrual Overview
Setting the Default Accrual Rate for a Leave Type
Managing Accrual for New Employees
Managing Accrual for Existing Employees
Additional Information About Time Off Accruals
Time Off Reports
Time Off Overview Video
ClickTime's Module will automatically add a certain number of hours to an employee's Time Off Balance on the same day every month. Please note that retroactive Accruals are not currently supported, so you will need to make sure the balance is set up correctly up to the first day that automatic accruals will be applied. Please see the Modifying Time Off Balances section of the Time Off Overview here for more details on manually changing the balance.
One other thing to be aware of is the "Accrual Start Date" - we will discuss this more below, but the Accrual Start Date is when ClickTime starts tracking hours to be accrued for the next month. For example, someone with an "Accrual Start Date" of July 1st, 2017, will see their first set of hours on August 1st, 2017. If you wanted an employee to receive their first set of automated accruals on July 1st, you would need to set their "Accrual Start Date" to June 1st, 2017.
ClickTime will always apply the total number of hours on the same day each month - our system was not intended to add partial hours for accruals that were added/updated midway through the month.
ClickTime also supports Time Off Request and Approvals with this Module - please see the Managing Time Off Requests and Approvals guide here for more details. Read on for assistance with setting up the Accrual Rate for your staff.
Setting the Default Accrual Rate for a Leave Type
Each Leave Type can be set with a Default Accrual Rate, which can be used as a starting point for any employees you add to the system. This is set from the Leave Type Detail. To edit a Leave Type, go to the Company --> Preferences --> Leave Types page
and then click the "Edit" pencil icon for the appropriate Leave Type.
You can also click "Add New Leave Type" to create a new Leave Type.
(Complete instructions for setting up and editing Leave Types can be found in the Leave Type Overview guide here.)
Scroll to the "Person Defaults" section and then choose to "Edit Section":
Here you can enter the Starting Balance of this Leave Type for any new employees that you enter into the system:
You can also enter the Accrual Rate (number of hours to be accrued each month) and the Maximum Accrual (if you enter a number in this field, ClickTime will not automatically accrue hours over this value). Then click "Update" to save the settings.
The next section of this guide will cover how this will be applied to new Employees that you set up in the system (and how to change the values as needed).
Managing Accrual for New Employees
When you add a new employee to the system that should have access to the Leave Type, you will see the default values (discussed above) entered into the Time Off and Accrual fields:
By default, the "Date" is the day you entered the Starting Balance and set up the Accrual Model and will be for today. The "Start Date" is the day the employee starts to accrue hours and will also be today's Date.
You can change both dates, as well as the starting Balance, Accrual Rate, and Maximum Accrual if needed before you finish adding the new person to the system.
They can also be changed at any time (see below).
Please note: Since Accrued hours are added to the employee's balance on the same date of each month, the latest day of the month the "Accrual Start Date" field can support is the 28th of the month:
For continuity, we generally recommend that employees who are set to accrue hours at the end of each month are instead given an Accrual Start Date of the 1st of each month. This will allow them to fully earn all the hours before their balance is updated.
Managing Accrual for Existing Employees
Read below to learn how to set/edit the Accrual Model for existing employees. Click here to skip to the section that explains clearing the current accrual model.
Accrual Rates can be changed at any time for any of your staff by going to the Person Details page and clicking the "Edit" pencil icon for the appropriate Leave Type:
The first table you will see displays every modification to the employee's Balance, whether because they took leave, accrued hours, or if their Balance was manually changed.
To the right you will see the current Accrual Rate. Click the "Edit Accruals" button to make changes:
You will have the option to modify the number of hours the employee receives each month, the Maximum amount of hours that can accrue, and the Start Date. There is also a field to enter notes, which is recommended. Click "Update" to apply the new Accrual Model.
Changes you make will be applied immediately and can be viewed in the balance history table. You can also see the last time the Accrual Rate was modified and by whom:
You can change the Accrual Rate at any time. Please note that if you do so, the current number of hours in the "Rate" field will be applied the next time they accrue (determined by the Start Date). You can either choose to leave this the same, or to change the Accrual Start Date to indicate when the Rate was updated:
SOME CLARIFICATION ON ACCRUAL START DATES:
- Because ClickTime uses a 30-day accrual model, if you change the Accrual Start Date, the system needs to allow a full 30 days in order to align with the new Accrual Start Date. Also, we take into account when you actually make the changes. For example: if today is March 15 and you change the Accrual Start Date to April 1, the system needs 30 days to elapse, so the employee would not actually get their accrued hours until (May 1).
- Accrued hours cannot be built-up retroactively. So if an employee's start date was say June 20 and that's when you wanted them to have fully accrued hours, you can still enter the Accrual Start Date as (May 20), but the system will not go back into the past to accrue those hours. In that scenario, the system will look to a (future) period when the 20th of the month occurs (ie. June 20) to initiate the accrual. Also as explained above, the day you actually create or change the Accrual Start Date, also affects when the hours will fully accrue.
- For best results for (future) time periods, either leave the Accrual Start Date unchanged, or set it to one month prior to the next accrual date. For example, if today is July 15: to accrue a new set of hours on September 1st of this year, set the Accrual Start Date to August 1st. When August 1 arrives, the hours will begin to accrue.
- If any changes are made (per above), you can always use the Modify Balance option (HERE) to manually adjust an employee's Leave Type balance while waiting for accrual changes to take effect.
As mentioned above, since Accrued hours are added to the employee's balance on the same date of each month, the latest day of the month the "Accrual Start Date" field can support is the 28th of the month:
For continuity, we generally recommend that employees who are set to accrue hours at the end of each month are instead given an Accrual Start Date of the 1st of each month. This will allow them to fully earn all the hours before their balance is updated.
If for some reason this employee should no longer accrue hours for this Leave Type, you can edit the Accrual Rate and use the "Clear all fields" option to delete the current model. Then click "Update":
This will zero-out the accrual so hours will not be added automatically. You can set up a new Accrual Rate (or manually modify the balance) at any time.
Additional Information About Time Off Accruals
More information on the following aspects of Time Off Accrual can be found below:
Understanding "Start Date"
Understanding "Accrual Maximum"
Understanding and Viewing "Available Balance"
Viewing Accruals
Time Off Requests and Approvals
The "Start Date" determines what day of the month an employee has hours added to their balance. If this is in the past, the employee will get their hours on the next day of the month.
If the Start Date is in the past, the actual month and year is not very important - the employee will still earn the same number of hours each month (ClickTime does not support retroactive accruals - hours earned before the Accrual Module was used should be manually added).
If the "Start Date" is in the future, that is the day the employee starts to accrue hours. For example, if it is mid-July, and the "Start Date" is set to August 1st, the employee will see their first set of hours one month after the "Start Date", September 1st.
Understanding "Accrual Maximum"
The "Accrual Maximum" will be helpful if your organization has a policy that staff is not allowed to have more than a certain number of hours available at any time (such as 1.5 times what they accrue in a year).
If there is a value in this field, ClickTime will not allow the employee to automatically earn more hours than this number when accrual takes place. Employees must have less than their maximum accrual in order to earn hours each month.
The system will not retroactively add hours, so if the Maximum Accrual prevented someone from earning hours they should have access to, you will need to manually "Add" those hours. ClickTime will allow you to manually add as many hours as necessary - the "Maximum Accrual" will only prevent the automated accrual from taking place if the employee has reached the maximum.
Understanding and Viewing "Available Balance"
The "Available Balance" is visible on both the Person Details page:
and the top left of the Balance Details page.
This is the number of hours an employee has available to them and will include any Time Off they have saved to the system in the future. Employees can also view this using the Time Off widget on their time entry pages, if this has been enabled for the Leave Type.
The option to "display balance" with the widget is only available to those with the Accruals Module.
Every time hours are automatically accrued, they will show up in the employee's Balance Detail as a separate row.
Automatically accrued hours cannot be deleted, but you can manually "subtract" hours if an accrual happened in error (more details on manually modifying Time Off Balances can be found here).
Time Off Requests and Approvals
The Accruals Module also includes access to our Time Off Requests and Approvals feature. Please see this guide for more details on setting up / managing Leave Types and Time Off Requests.
ClickTime offers two Time Off Reports in the "People" section of the Company --> Reports page. Both will generate an Excel file:
The "Time Off and Accrual Detail (Excel)" report can be run for a period of time, specific Leave Types, and specific employees:
The resulting file will show you the balance at the beginning of the time period, any changes to the balance/accrual rate, and the balance at the end of the time period:
The "Time Off and Accrual Summary (Excel)" report can be run for specific Leave types and specific employees:
The resulting file will display the current Balance available as of when the report was run:
Please note this will factor in any Time Off entries that are in the future and have not taken place. If you need to see the current available balance, without considering future Time Off entries, please use the "Detail" report.
These reports are also available to your staff from the Personal --> My Reports page (Standard users will not see the "Personal" tab).
The Personal versions of the reports will display the balance of the user within Clicktime (instead of generating an Excel file).
More detail on the Personal Time Off Reports can be found in this guide.
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