Automating PTO Accruals with Vacation Tracker
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As your team expands, calculating PTO accruals can become complicated and involve some math. When performed manually, these calculations can be confusing and prone to errors if not accurately done.
Instead of manually calculating PTO accruals, you may want to consider software that does it for you. To make your work life easier, we created our little leave management software: Vacation Tracker. Thanks to our system, you no longer have to worry about endless calculations. If you don’t have great leave tracking software in place, the administrative cost of continually calculating your team’s leave balances or accrual days can quickly turn into a nightmare.
The Benefits of Automating Accruals
Vacation Tracker provides a faster and more reliable method for calculating accrued leave. With just a few clicks, your employees can check their status on the user profile page and plan leaves accordingly.
The benefits of automating accruals are fewer payroll errors, less manual work, and improved efficiency. Vacation Tracker provides a crystal clear view so that employees are able to see their situation with accrual with one quick glance. You won’t have to waste time processing numbers and will get the information you need in a split second. That’s why most organizations use time-off management software that calculates PTO accruals automatically. Once you set it up, our system will perform calculations for you so that you can relax and invest time in growing your business.
How Accruals Are Set-Up in Vacation Tracker
Now, let’s see what setting accruals looks like on Vacation Tracker.
Go to app.vacationtracker.io/connect to log in to the online dashboard.
Select Settings, then choose Locations (you can set accruals for each leave type on any location depending on your needs.)
Choose the location where you’d like to add the Accruals feature. Here, we chose Germany:
Select the Leave Policies tab.
Select the Edit icon on the right-hand side of the Leave Type. Then, the Paid Time Off Leave Policy window will pop up.
First, make sure that you enter an amount in the Yearly Leave Quota section, which is the total number of days an employee can earn for a year.
Next, within the Accruals section (Accrual Type) of the Leave Policy window, you will be able to set the frequency of the accrued days.
Admins will be able to select one of three of the following accrual options: None, Biweekly, Semimonthly, and Monthly. These three are the most common payroll system used, therefore the most common way of calculating accruals.
Biweekly Accrual
Biweekly schedules are the most common payroll schedule. Friday is the most common payday, but you will be able to choose the day that you would like the accrual to occur on.
Let’s say that Michael Scott (as a regional manager of the Dunder Mifflin) has decided his company will give out accrued days on a biweekly schedule. He wants the accrual to occur every second Tuesday. He will select the Biweekly option.
Below that Michael will see that an employee will accrue 0.38 (10/26) days every second Friday.
Semimonthly Accrual
This kind of accrual is connected with semimonthly pay. A semimonthly PTO accrual occurs twice a month, typically on the 15th and last day of the month (or the 1st and 16th day of the month.)
Let’s say that Holly Flax (as an HR manager of Dunder Mifflin) decided that employees at the company will accrue leaves on a semimonthly basis. She wants the accrual to occur on the 1st and 16th of every month. She will set settings as follows:
Our system will then give you a breakdown of the most recent accrual period and the date of the next accrual. Below that Holly will see that an employee will accrue 0.84 (20/24) days on the 1st and 16th of a month.
Monthly Accrual
This kind of accrual is connected with monthly payments. A monthly PTO accrual occurs once a month, typically on the last day of the month (or the 1st day of the month).
Let’s say that Toby Flenderson (as an HR manager of Dunder Mifflin) has decided his company will give their employees accrued time off on a monthly basis. He wants the accrual to occur on the 1st day of the month. He will set the following:
Our system will then give you a breakdown of the most recent accrual period and the date of the next accrual. Below that Toby will see that an employee will accrue 1.67 (20/12) days on the 1st day of a month.
No Accruals
In case you don’t want your employees to accrue leave on a biweekly, semimonthly, or monthly basis, you can select the “None” option in the Accruals section.
After entering this basic data you will get the information you need in a second. Once you do the setup, you are free from all the hassle since Vacation Tracker will do all the accrual calculations for you.
User Profiles
Users can always view their accrued days on their individual user profile page, or by using our bots to check their current leave status. Additionally, on the user’s profile page, a small tooltip gives users and admins a more detailed overview of the days earned and information on the next accrual.
Admins can also use the logs page on the user’s profile page to see the exact calculation over time and to see when the accrual occurred. Users also have a view of their own private logs page where they can see the same information.
Solve Your Problems on All-in-One-Platform
Vacation Tracker is easy to implement into your business and makes tracking PTO accruals a breeze. And, that’s just one of the features we offer — because, with our tool, you can achieve so much more! When you use Vacation Tracker, managing PTO, managing vacation requests, and tracking every kind of leave your team takes becomes so much easier. You can quickly handle all of your business needs related to automated leave management.
It is wise to invest in a leave tracking system. Still not convinced? Witness the magic of setting PTO accruals for yourself by signing up for a free demo. In this demo, we’ll cover in-depth how our Accruals feature works, along with tons of other features you’ll be sure to love. Get started now!
Uros Vucendic
After many years of working as a programmer, Uros has finally returned to his true passion, which would be writing, as a content writer in Vacation Tracker. Human words surely bring more beauty and poetry than codes do, so one could say that today, at last, he is content as a writer. A content writer.
