SOURCE:    Vacation Tracker
TITLE:     How to Enable the Negative Brought Forward?
URL:       https://vacationtracker.io/knowledge-base/how-to-enable-the-negative-brought-forward/
LANG:      en
PUBLISHED: 2025-08-14
UPDATED:   2025-08-15
READING:   2 min
SUMMARY:   Decide whether a negative leave balance carries into the new year or resets to zero. Turn on Negative Brought Forward per leave policy.
How to Enable the Negative Brought Forward?
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Last updated on August 15, 2025

How to Enable the Negative Brought Forward?

Some employees finish the year with a negative balance — they took more leave than they'd earned. Enable Negative Brought Forward decides whether that deficit carries into the new year (reducing the fresh quota) or gets wiped clean at the reset.

How to Enable It

The setting lives on each leave policy — per Location, per Leave Type. You can carry over negative balances on Vacation while resetting them on Sick Day, for example. The toggles are independent.

  1. Sign in at app.vacationtracker.io.
  2. In the left-hand menu, expand Leave Setup and click Locations.
  3. On the Location you want to configure, click Edit Leave Policies.
  4. Find the leave policy you want to update and click the edit (pencil) icon on its row.
  5. In the top section, toggle Allow Negative Balance to on. Without this, users can't go negative to begin with, so there's no negative balance to carry forward.
  6. Scroll to Brought Forward Settings and set Brought Forward to Limited or All — if it's Disabled, there's no rollover to apply. See How Do I Set a Brought Forward (Rollover) Policy? if you need the setup.
  7. Toggle Enable Negative Brought Forward to Yes.
  8. Click Update at the bottom of the page to save.
Brought Forward Settings with the option for enabling negative brought forward set to Yes
Direct from the app
The in-app tooltip reads: "If set to Yes, a negative balance will be carried over into the new leave period, reducing the employee's remaining leave entitlement accordingly."

What Happens When the Year Resets

Enable Negative Brought Forward = Yes

The negative balance transfers into the new period. An employee who ended last year at −3 days starts the new year with their fresh quota reduced by 3. Example: 15-day Vacation quota minus 3 deficit = 12 days to work with on January 1.

Enable Negative Brought Forward = No (default)

The negative balance is wiped at reset. The employee starts the new year with the full fresh quota, regardless of where last year closed out.

A note from the live app
Users can only go into a negative balance in two ways: Allow Negative Balance is enabled on the policy, or an Admin or Approver adds a leave that pushes the balance past their yearly quota. Without one of those, the balance never goes below zero — and there's nothing for Negative Brought Forward to carry over.

Common Questions

Check the Brought Forward dropdown above it. If it's on Disabled, the Negative Brought Forward toggle is hidden — there's no rollover happening. Switch Brought Forward to Limited or All, and the toggle will appear.

Allow Negative Balance controls whether a user can go below zero during the current year — it opens the gate for taking more than the quota. Enable Negative Brought Forward controls what happens at year-end if they're still negative — carry the deficit into the new year, or wipe it. You typically only turn on Negative Brought Forward if Allow Negative Balance is also on.

No — it's per leave policy (one Leave Type at one Location). You can carry over negative Vacation balances and wipe negative Sick Day balances, for example. Each policy's toggle is independent.

What's Next?

How Do I Set a Brought Forward (Rollover) Policy? Can I Set an Expiry Date for Brought Forward Days? How Can I Apply the Brought Forward Policy to the Previous Year?
Need help?
Regular Users: If you have any questions, email us anytime at hello@vacationtracker.io.
Admins and Approvers: You can reach us via live chat Monday to Friday, 9 AM – 5 PM EST, or email us anytime at hello@vacationtracker.io.

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