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Benefit Hours Accrual Codes Table

Overview

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Benefit Hours (Time Off) Accrual Codes Table

Fields on the Hours Accrual Codes Table

• Code (required).  Enter a Code of ten characters or less with no spaces or special characters. Optionally use the same Code name as that for the corresponding Benefit Code.
• Description.  Enter a description of thirty characters or less.  
• Active?  An active code has the Active checkbox selected, making the code available and keeping the code in effect as a valid choice.

EE Accrual Information

The three EE Accrual Information option buttons are "Use Hours Paid, "Only EEs Paid," and "All Pay Group EEs." Select one. For "Use Hours Paid," also define the minimum and maximum hours worked. For all policies, select the employment date type to begin the accrual and define when the accrual hours are eligible for use.

• Use Hours Paid.  For accruals calculated at a rate per hour-worked and accrued per pay period, select the Use Hours option. The accrual will equal the standard pay period accrual multiplied by the employee's ratio of hours worked up to the "Max Hours" defined in this section. For how the standard pay period accrual is calculated, refer to the "Pay Period" option in the Accrual Frequency section.
• Min Hours (optional). Eligible after hours worked?  For the "Use Hours Paid" option, enter Min Hours if employees are required to work a minimum number of hours in each payroll period to be eligible. If "Use Hours Paid" isn't selected, this field can be blank.
• Max Hours (optional).  Maximum eligible hours per pay period? For the "Use Hours Paid" option, to define the number of hours worked required to receive 100% of the applicable accrual per pay period, enter Max Hours. If "Use Hours Paid" isn't selected, this field can be blank.
• Only EEs Paid.  For a policy that restricts accruals to only those employees paid (those with earnings records) in the current payroll, select Only EEs Paid. This causes payroll processing to confirm that an employee actually receives pay (has a time entry record) in the pay period before allowing an accrual to calculate for the employee. Avoid this option for annual accruals.
• All Pay Group EEs.  To allow accruals to process for all employees in the pay group being processed, select the All Pay Group EEs option.
• Accr Begin Date (required).  As of what date does this start? This is the accrual begin date, and options are based on the Hours Accrual Dates Table.
• Eligible for Use in.  Define when employees can begin to use any available hours. Enter a number and select either Days or Months. For instance, if employees can't use benefit hours for one year after the accrual begin date, enter 12 and select Months.

Accrual Frequency

The accrual frequencies also are affected by the settings in the EE Accrual Information section. For instance, if "Only EEs Paid" is selected in the EE Accrual Information section, and a particular employee is not paid in a particular payroll, that employee will not accrue hours, even if the accrual frequency applies to the payroll.

• Pay Period.  To calculated and accrue hours by pay period, per pay period, every pay period, according to the pay frequency defined for an employee's assigned pay group, select the Pay Period option. Calculating accruals by pay period is one of the most popular options for accrual plans.
• Monthly.  To calculate and accrue hours once per month on the same accrual date(s) for all applicable employees in the pay group, select the Monthly option, and then, to the right of this option, choose to select the checkbox for "New Month Period."

Having the "New Month Period" checkbox selected causes accrual processing to look at whether the Payroll Calendar has "New Month Period" and "Process Hours Accrual" selected.

Having only the "Process Hours Accrual" checkbox selected here causes accrual processing to look only for the "Process Hours Accrual" selection on the Payroll Calendar.

Note: Where the Monthly option is selected with "Process Hours Accrual," be sure that the Payroll Calendars of the month that shouldn't process the accruals have the "Process Hours Accrual" checkbox cleared.

Where the Monthly option is selected with "New Month Period," edit the Payroll Calendars as needed to have "New Month Period" selected for the appropriate Payroll Calendars.

• Quarterly.  To calculate and accrue hours once per quarter on the same accrual date(s) for all applicable employees in the pay group, select the Quarterly option. To the right of this option, choose to select the checkbox for "New Quarter Period" or the checkbox for "Process Hours Accrual".
• Annual.  To calculate and accrue hours once per year on the same accrual date(s) for all applicable employees in the pay group, select the Annual option. To the right of this option, choose to select the checkbox for "New Year Period" or  the checkbox for "Process Hours Accrual".
• Never Accrue.  Select the Never Accrue option for a policy that never allows an accrual. This would be selected for plans that are manually defined and do not include an accrual.
• Anniv. Annual on.  Select the Anniv. Annual on option to calculate accrual hours once per year on a particular anniversary. With this option, also select the anniversary using the available accrual date selections.

Reset Hours

In the "Reset Hours" section, choose to "never reset" hours or choose one of the options to reset the accrual hours to the carry-over hour, if any. Any reset occurs on the month and day that falls in between the payroll begin and end dates (not based on check date).

• Never Reset.  To keep a running total and never reset the accrual hours, select the Never Reset option.
• Reset Hours at Year End.  For a policy that resets the accrual hours at the end of the calendar year, select the Year End option.
• Reset Date on _______.  For a policy that resets accruals for all employees on the same date, select the "reset date on" option and choose the calendar date. The year you select is unimportant. The reset will occur on the month and day selected.
• Anniv Reset on _________.  For a policy that resets the accruals on each employee/s anniversary, select the anniversary reset option and choose the type of anniversary date.  Employees' anniversary dates are seen on the Employment tab within the Employee Master in the Effective Dates section.

Available Balance Transfer Info

• Transfer Avail Bal to (optional).  For a plan that transfers balances, choose a Benefit Code to transfer the balances to. Only active benefit codes with the "Accrue Hours" checkbox selected are available for selection.
• Max Remaining Balance (optional).  Enter the maximum remaining balance for this policy.
• Max Transfer Amount (optional).  To limit the hours transferred to a fixed number, define the maximum number of hours to transfer in the "Max Transfer Amount" field. Alternatively, a limit can be applied by selecting the checkbox for "Or Use C/O Max" in the transfer section.
• Or Use C/O Max (optional).  To limit the hours transferred based on the applicable C/O Max value, select "Or Use C/O Max" in the transfer section.
• Add Transfer Amount to Cur Balance (optional).  To add the transfer amount to the current available balance for the selected benefit, select this checkbox.
• Transfer Year End (optional).  To transfer balances at the end of the year, choose the "Transfer Year End" option.
• Transfer Date on (optional).  To transfer balances on a particular date (non-recurring), choose "Transfer Date on," and enter a date.
• Anniv Transfer on (optional).  To transfer balances on a particular anniversary (recurring), choose "Anniv Transfer on," and select an hours accrual date option.

Hours Accrual Chart

Define up to twelve accrual levels per accrual policy. Each level is defined on a different row based on the number of months of service entered. Enter these from lowest to highest.

Some policies have a single level of accrual and would only have a row for 9999 months of service.

Others have multiple levels. For instance, less than or equal to 12 for the first row, all of the interim rows, and 9999 for the level with the greatest number of months.

• How many less than or equal months of service?  
  The row of the chart that is used to calculate the accrual rate is determined by the employee's length of service based on the accrual begin date and the pay period. It compares the applicable length of service to the service levels in the first column, Less than or Equal Months, and determines the level of accrual for a specific employee. (To determine the accrual begin date for an employee, look at the Accr Begin Date field on the Hours Accrual Code, and compare it to the corresponding date on the Employee Master for the employee.)

If employees don't accrue any hours the first year, enter the first accrual row starting with 12 months and 0 rates for the other fields in the row.

For the last row that you define in the accrual table, enter 9999 to represent infinity in the "< + Months" field.

• What annual rate?  Enter the yearly hours-accrual total. To compute the annual rate of accrual, multiply the current accrual amount by the number of accruals per year. For instance, an accrual of one hour per week would equal 52.

Rate computations are based on the length of service according to the policy's accrual begin date.

Length of service is calculated by the accrual begin date (based on accrual begin date for the policy and the corresponding date on the Employee Master for the employee), less the pay period end date, and compared to the number of months in the Less than or Equal Months field.

• How many hours can be carried over?  When the accruals are defined to reset to zero and the reset date occurs within a pay period, the system looks at the C/O Max column to determine the maximum carryover hours allowed for that year.

OR

Where the "Carry over is Available Max" checkbox is selected, then the C/O Max defined in the accrual chart is the available-hours maximum balance.

• Total Max.  What is the absolute maximum for "available hours + any carry over"? The Total Max column sets the overall total maximum hours allowed for the level of accrual defined by the Less than or Equal Months entry (unless the "Carry Over is Available Max" checkbox is selected).

Other Indicators

• C/O is Maximum is the Available Max Amt? (optional)  Determine if the carry over value should actually be used as the available maximum to define maximum available-hours balances.
• To define the carry-over as the available maximum, select the C/O is Maximum is the Available Max Amt checkbox. When this checkbox is selected, the values in the C/O Max column are considered recurring available maximum amounts.
• WHERE the policy requires a carry-over or has no carry-over, leave the checkbox for C/O is Maximum is the Available Max Amt checkbox empty or de-select it.
• Print on Check? (optional)  To show information related to this accrual policy on employee payment forms, select the Print on Check checkbox.

How to Define Recurring Available Hours Balance Limits (Optional)

The C/O is Maximum is the Available Max Amt checkbox on the Hours Accrual Codes Table allows an organization to re-define carry-over maximums (C/O Max entries) to be applied as recurring available-hours balance limits every payroll.

Those paid time-off policies that have available-hours balance limits instead of carry-over limits, typically will place no limits on total maximums and will never reset the hours accrued. For such policies, use these three settings when defining the hours-accrual policy on the Hours Accrual Codes Table:

1. Select the checkbox for "Carry Over is Available Max."
2. Select the option for Never Reset to preserve the hours from being reset.
3. For each row with a Less than or Equal Months entry, enter 99999.00 for each Total Max entry to remove maximum limits from the Hours Accrual policy.