Leave Type Code & Description (user-defined): Enter the unique code (maximum of 5 alphanumeric characters) you wish to use to identify the Leave Type e.g. VAC, BER, CAS etc. 

N.B. The application has a default Leave Code, XY123 which is used within the Time & Attendance module when the reason for a person’s absence is not defined. This cannot be deleted.

Company Leave Policy: For record-keeping purposes, enter the company's policy in respect of the leave type.

For example, Vacation Rules can be as follows:

• 1 - 3 years of service = entitlement of 10 days
• 4 - 6 years of service = entitlement of 15 days
• 7 - 10 years of service = entitlement of 21 days

Leave Type Unit: Select either Days or Hours. Most leave types are defined in days as the unit of measurement of the employee's entitlement.

It should be noted that HRplus allows for an employee to be absent for a few hours within a day e.g. if the employee needs to take 3 hours off for a doctor’s/bank appointment, they can request this as "time off". 

Default Amount: Enter the default value in the unit (days or hours) selected above. E.g. o, 4, 10, etc. The employee will get this amount as their entitlement, once they fall into the rules defined for the leave type. E.g. 14 days for sick leave. 

Additionally, if should be noted that if there are additional rules configured for the Leave Type ( Cumulative or Non-Cumulative Leave Rules) and the employee does not fall into any of those rules, then this default amount entered here will show as their entitlement.

E.g. If defining the Leave Type  called Vacation, and there are additional rules configured so that persons with varying years of service to the company are entitled to different days, set the Default Amount as 0. This will ensure that if employees have a zero entitlement unless they conform to the Cumulative rules defined for the Vacation Leave Type, which would give them their correct entitlement.

Use Leave Type Default: Select Yes or No to indicate to the system if the default amount should be used to generate the entitlement amount for the specific leave type (for employees not specified in the Leave Rules options): 

Yes – employees, who have not been defined in Leave Rules, will get the default amount for the leave type. 

No – employees, who have not been defined in Leave Rules, will not get the default amount for the leave type i.e. no leave entitlements will be generated for these employees. 

Apply To: Select from the drop-down list: All, Men, Women - to indicate to which group the leave type is applicable. The system will assign leave types to those employees who belong to the selected group i.e. men or women or all depending on what sex (M – Male; F- Female) is flagged in the employee profile. This is used for leave types such as Maternity and Paternity. 

Please note that you must define the code to be used for each sex in the System Configurations menu (System Configurations>>Company Parameters>>System Constants>>Organisation Defaults). 

Years of Service Required: If applicable, enter here the amount of years of service required to be eligible for the Leave Type. An employee will only be entitled to this leave type if he fulfills the number of years of service specified here. E.g. If an employee must work with the company for three months before being entitled to Casual Leave, as the field is calculated in years you may enter 0.25 years of service.

Process Employees with Less than Years of Service Required: Select Yes or No. This is an exception to the Years of Service Required for the entitlement of the leave type. If ‘Yes’ is flagged, then the employee will be able to request the Leave Type regardless of the years of service required.

If this is flagged as ‘No’, then HR will not be able to enter any Leave Transactions for the particular Leave Type for any employee who has not yet reached the period stipulated in their service to the company (the employee’s entitlement to the Leave simply will not show up). Neither will the employee be able to request that particular leave type.

Accumulate Unused Leave: If you wish to set the Leave Type so that any unused Leave rolls over from one year to the next, as can be the case with Vacation Leave, flag Yes. If flagged as yes, this means that the leave type is both Cumulative ( rolls over) and Earned ( the entitlement is based on the number of days worked by the employee in a given anniversary or calendar year). 

If flagged as No, then the leave type is considered as Non-Cumulative and additionally the leave is not earned but given to the employee, normally at the start of the calendar year.

Limit Accumulation Per Year To: Enter the yearly accumulation amount for the leave type e.g. 0, 10, 90 etc. This value will be based on company policy which stipulates that only a portion of the Leave entitlement can be rolled over to the following year.

Limit Total Accumulation To: Enter the total amount of leave an employee is allowed to accumulate e.g. 0, 10, 90 etc. On the leave roll-over date, although the amount of leave the employee has accumulated plus the amount to be allocated may be greater than this value, the system will allocate the value stipulated in this field to the employee.

Calculate Return Date Using/Calculate Return Date Using (Non-Salaried): The application can be set to calculate an employee’s Return (from Leave) date according to various Parameters as follows:

• Calendar Days
  • Calendar days includes weekends and public holidays. This means that weekends and public holidays ARE INCLUDED in the calculation of both the leave period and the return date and the employee CAN be scheduled to return to work on a weekend and public holiday. E.g. Maternity Leave is calculated using calendar days i.e. public holidays and weekends are used in the calculation.
  • N.B. The return date can be edited if they employee should only return to work on week day.
• Skip Holidays and Weekends
  • This means that Holidays and weekends ARE SKIPPED in the calculation of both the leave period and the return date. Therefore holidays and weekends ARE NOT INCLUDED when calculating the leave period and the employee CANNOT be scheduled to return to work on a holiday or weekend.
• Skip Holidays Only
  • This means that ONLY Holidays ARE SKIPPED in the calculation of both the leave period and the return date. Therefore holidays ARE NOT INCLUDED when calculating the leave period, but weekends are. However, an employee CANNOT be scheduled to return to work on a holiday, but they CAN return to work on a weekend.
• Skip Weekends Only
  • This means that ONLY Weekends ARE SKIPPED in the calculation of both the leave period and the return date. Therefore weekends ARE NOT INCLUDED when calculating the leave period, but holidays are. However, an employee CANNOT be scheduled to return to work on a weekend, but they CAN return to work on a holiday.
• Skip Holidays in Leave Period Only
  • This means that ONLY holidays ARE SKIPPED when calculating the leave period BUT THEY ARE NOT SKIPPED when calculating the return date. Therefore holidays ARE NOT INCLUDED when calculating the leave period, but weekends are. However, an employee CAN be scheduled to return to work on a holiday and weekend. E.g. This is used for employees who normally work on Holidays except for when on Leave.
• Skip Holidays and Weekends in Leave Period Only
  • This means that holidays and weekends ARE SKIPPED when calculating the leave period BUT THEY ARE NOT SKIPPED when calculating the return date. Therefore holidays and weekends ARE NOT INCLUDED when calculating the leave period. However, an employee CAN be scheduled to return to work on a holiday and weekend. E.g. This is used for employees who normally work on Holidays and Weekends except for when on Leave.
• Skip Sundays and Public Holidays
  • This means that ONLY Sundays and Public Holidays ARE SKIPPED in the calculation of both the leave period and the return date. Therefore Sundays and Public Holidays ARE NOT INCLUDED when calculating the leave period, but Saturdays are. However, an employee CANNOT be scheduled to return to work on a Sunday or Public holiday, but they CAN return to work on a Saturday.
• Use Calendar Days  Return on Nearest Working Day
  • This means that weekends and public holidays ARE INCLUDED in the calculation of the leave period. When calculating the return date however, the application looks at the employee's shift schedule in the Time and Attendance module to determine which are the on days (i.e. Days an employee is Scheduled on a shift  are flagged as ON days) and off days (i.e. Days that an employee is NOT scheduled on a shift are flagged as OFF days) and will schedule the employee to return on the nearest working day/ON day.
• Use Calendar - Skip Holidays and Return on Nearest Working Day
  • This means that Public Holidays ARE NOT INCLUDED in the calculation of the leave period, but weekends are. When calculating the return date however, the application looks at the employee's shift schedule in the Time and Attendance module to determine which are the on days (i.e. Days an employee is Scheduled on a shift are flagged as ON days) and off days (i.e. Days that an employee is NOT scheduled on a shift are flagged as OFF days) and will schedule the employee to return on the nearest working day/ON day.

N.B. An override can be entered for the return date for a specific:

1. Pay Group, 
2. Job
3. Shift Workers 
4. Non-Shift Workers

Leave Reset Interval: The application can be set to calculate Leave Earned (via the Scheduler function) at various intervals as follows:

• Daily: Leave balances will be calculated and displayed daily. In the View Leave Entitlements option, leave entitlements will be displayed showing the daily calculations (i.e. the daily portion/fraction of leave accrued to employees will be displayed e.g. 10.47 days).
• Annually: Leave balances will be calculated and displayed annually. In the View Leave Entitlements option, leave entitlements will be displayed showing the annual calculations (i.e. the annual leave accrued to employees will be displayed e.g. 10 days)
• Calendar Month: Leave balances will be calculated and displayed monthly. In the View Leave Entitlements option, leave entitlements will be displayed showing the monthly calculations Example: Reset Leave On = Anniversary Date Leave Reset Interval = Calendar Month Employee’s Anniversary = September 7, then leave will be reset for the employee at the end of the months of September, October, November and so on.
• Anniversary Month: Leave will be calculated and displayed in the employee’s anniversary month (the month in which the employee started). In the View Leave Entitlements option, leave entitlements will be displayed showing the anniversary month calculations: Example: Reset Leave On = Anniversary Date Leave Reset Interval = Calendar Month Employee’s Anniversary = September 7, then leave will be reset for the employee on September 7, October 7, November 7 and so on.

N.B. Although the system calculates leave balances daily, the Leave Reset Interval option allows you to determine the time (daily, calendar month, annually etc.) the leave balances are displayed. It is used in conjunction with the Reset Leave On field and determines the time the leave balances are displayed. These balances can be viewed via the View Leave Entitlements and View Projected Leave Entitlements options. Select the one that is applicable to the Leave Type. Please note that all options of Leave Reset Interval are valid for either selection of Reset Leave On: Anniversary and Set Date.

Reset Leave On: The option selected here defines the leave year. Select either:

• Anniversary Date: leave will be reset on the employee’s anniversary and entitlements will be given on the anniversary date of the employee. There is no need to select a Day or Month to reset the employee's entitlement.
• Set Date: If this option is selected, enter the Day to Reset Entitlements (1, 5, 19, etc.) and the Month to Reset Entitlements (1, 2, …12). On this set date, every year, all employees will get entitlements. E.g. If day to reset = 1 and month to reset = 1, the leave will be reset on January 1st of each calendar year.

Use Leave Type in Entitlement Calculation: If flagged  'Yes', then the particular leave type will be included when the leave entitlements are generated for the employee. Also the employees will be able to see this leave type when making a leave request. If 'No' is flagged, then the leave type will not be included as an entitlement for the employee.

Automatically Post Leave Entries: Select Yes to indicate whether you wish the leave entries of the selected type to be posted automatically by the system (on or after the return date) or No if you wish to post each individual leave entry manually. This feature may be turned on and off by the user.

A default task is included in the Scheduler (Leave Setup>>Scheduler) How To Set Up the Scheduler to facilitate this automation and must be activated if the feature is to work. 

In HRplus, while you can certainly enter Leave Transaction records once a request is received, it is strongly recommended that the Transactions are not Posted until the employee has returned to work.

Posting a Leave Transaction allows for the Leave Type to be converted from ‘Booked’ to ‘Taken’ and also allows for the correct recalculation of the employee’s Leave Entitlement. By not posting an employee’s Leave Transaction until after the employee has returned to work you are able to change the data should the employee be called out from Leave or extend his/her Leave. Once a record is posted, however, you will not be able to make any changes to it. If a modification to a posted record is required, you can either:

1. Delete the erroneous record and enter a new one OR
2. Add a second leave taken record to reflect any additional days that the employee may have taken.

Earned at Rollover: This is how it works:

• When Yes is checked, employees will ONLY have rolled over leave available to be requested.
• When No (default) is checked, employees will have both rolled over leave AND leave earned in the current leave year showing as available to request.
• All Leave Request screens are affected.

Hide Zero Entitlements: If flagged as Yes, then if the employee's entitlement for a leave type is zero, then then this leave type will not be visible by either the employee or HR as part of the employee's leave entitlements. Therefore, no leave can be entered for the employees against this leave type.

If flagged as No, then leave types with an entitlement of zero will be visible as one of the leave types that the employee is entitled to.

Hide Zero Usable: 

Restrict Overbooking:  If flagged as Yes, then the employee is unable to book leave in excess of the amount entered under Available Leave. If flagged as No, then the employee can request leave in excess of what is available to them.