Last Update: March 10, 2023 10:08 AM

Creating a Time-Off Policy

A policy is used to group all of your time-off types. For example, if your company gives 10 vacation days and 5 sick days to new hires, your “New Hire” policy would include 2 time-off types - vacation and sick leave.

To create a new Time-Off Policy:

Under Main Menu, select Settings then Time-Off Policies:

  1. Select Add New
  2. Name your policy. This could be based on length of service (ie: New Hire, 1 year, 5 years, etc.) or it could be based on the number of vacation days included in that policy (ie: 10 Days, 15 Days, 20 Days)
  3. Select Continue

Next, add your time-off types to your newly-created policy:

  1. Beside the Time-Off Policy name, select Edit Policy Settings

     
  2. Click Add Time-Off Type to Policy
     
    Here is where you’ll choose the settings that apply to your time-off type, including renewal, accruals, restrictions, and more.
  3. Choose the Time-Off Type you wish to add to your policy
  4. Set renewal date. Typically this is the start of the calendar year or your company’s fiscal year. If you would like your balances to renew on a user’s anniversary of hire, leave this field blank and turn on the User Calendar Year Setting under Account Settings -> General.
  5. Set Yearly Allowance. This is the number of days or hours a user will have in a year.
  6. Set Default Balance. This is the balance users will get when the policy is applied to them.
     
    If accruing, this will be set to Empty. If the balance is set to Full, users will receive their full allowance. For Prorated, learn how to set up prorated balances here. 
  7. Set Upon Renewal rule (Click here to see descriptions of each rule)
  8. If accruing, set the Accrual Interval and Accrue By rate.
     

    Daily: Divide the allowance by 365 or set it at 0.275% of the allowance. 

    Weekly: Divide the allowance by 52 or set it at 1.923% of the allowance.

    Every (1) Month: Divide the allowance by 12 or set it at 8.334% of the allowance. 

    Semi-Monthly: Divide the allowance by 24 or set it at 4.167% of the allowance.

    Every 2 Weeks: Divide the allowance by 26 or set it at 3.846% of the allowance.

  9. If accruing, determine the Accrue Until rule (Click here to see descriptions of each option)
  10. Set Restriction
     

    If you give allowance up-front:

    Balance Required: Users need an available balance to request time off.

    Allow Overbook: Users can request as much time as needed with no restrictions. Requests will still require approval.

    If accruing:

    Allow Pre-Book: Users will need to have accrued enough time by year-end to request time off. This will let them request time before they’ve accrued it without going over their yearly allowance.

    Accrued By Date: Users can request time-off in advance, as long as they will have accrued the time by the requested date.

  11. Click Add

Repeat these steps to add the rest of the time-off types that will make up this policy.

To set up your other policies, you can duplicate the policy you just created. This will carry over the settings you have already set up and you can make the necessary adjustments to each time-off type. To do this, select Duplicate next to the policy.

Final Step - Apply Your Policy:

When your policies have been created, you must then apply your policy to your users.

Note: When modifying a time-off policy, the changes will not automatically apply to users who already have that policy applied to them. For the changes to take effect, reassign the modified policy to the necessary users.

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