One of the most important parts of any system that handles time off is the ability to work out accurate starting balances based on various conditions. 

This guide here will help you work out exactly what you need to enter for your employee balances to get the figure you are expecting on the employee's home screen. 

Entering a Balance

Entering a balance for an employee can be done in 3 ways:

1. By Bulk Upload;
2. Using Update Allowances by going to Administration > HR > Time off management > Update Allowances;
3. Adding to the employee's Benefits by going to People > Employees > Benefits.

Please Note - Any balance that you enter needs to be the full balance for the entire year based on the working pattern of the employee. The system does not pro rate allowances based on part-time hours unless you are using job grades so it is important that this value is the full allowance that the employee is entitled to. The system will, however, pro rate for mid-year starters, as such entering the full year's balance will take into account the employee's start date and pro rate the value accordingly. Calculations for our pro ration methods will be shown in our Mid year start/leaver calculations article.

Do I include mandatory holidays in my balance?

Mandatory holidays have a few ways of being dealt with in the system. These options are covered here. However, it is important to know whether you want to display these within your time off wheel at the point of adding in your balances. 

If you want these to display in the wheel as a mandatory holiday deduction, you will need to ensure that the balance entered above includes the full year's allowance of mandatory holiday days regardless of the employees' working patterns. 

For example, if you have 8 mandatory holidays in your year, but only 3 that the employee would be working on, you would still enter 8. The system will do the rest based on your rules set. 

I've entered my balance, but the figure is wrong

If you have entered a balance but it displays a weird number, don't panic! The most likely culprit is a historical record that is causing pro ration. HRWize has the capacity to pro rate balances based on multiple changes within the year. When you are first adding an employee in, if you haven't entered a time off balance for them at the point of creation and return to their record to add this, you will create a history record. This in many cases can cause unusual looking pro ration but is easily remedied.

By going to Administration > HR > History > Employee Allowance History, you will be able to see a list of any history entries for your employees. If you search for the record you just created when adding the balance and delete this record using the cross icon, this will remove the historical record and will remove the pro ration along with it. Making the value you have entered read as entered.