Contents of the Absence Accrual Form

Identify and set up the absence accruals, such as vacation or sick leave, that you provide for your employees.

For each absence accrual, you can show accrual balances on timesheets, set up an absence request approval process, and specify the corresponding projects for tracking the hours.

Field	Description
Accrual Frequency	This field indicates how often you plan to accrue benefit hours: monthly, semi-monthly, biweekly, or weekly. Vantagepoint divides the annual number of absence hours by the number of times that you plan to accrue absence hours over the course of the year. For example, an employee earns 120 hours of vacation per year and you plan to accrue absence hours twice a month. Since 120 / 24 = 5, Vantagepoint accrues 5 hours each time that you process accruals. You run the absence accrual process inAccounting > Absence Accruals > Absence Hours Accruals Processing.
Accrue Absences with Payroll	This option is available only if Payroll is enabled. Select one of two settings: To calculate absence accruals automatically when you process a regular payroll, select Yes. To calculate absence accruals separately from your payroll process, select No

Accrual Codes Grid

Field	Description
Accrual Codes	Use this field to select the absence accrual that you want to add. Accrual codes can be used company-wide to represent a specific benefit plan. You can define an unlimited number of accrual codes and you can add new codes at any time. After you define accrual codes, you associate them with employees in the Employees hub.
Description	Use this field to enter a name for the accrual code.
Maximum	Use this field to enter the maximum number of absence hours that any individual employee can have at any given time. For example, if you enter 200 in this field for the vacation accrual code, an employee can never carry a balance of more than 200 hours of vacation time. After an employee reaches this maximum, Vantagepoint no longer accrues hours for this absence plan for this employee.
Pre-Accrue Hours	Select this option to pre-accrue annual absence hours when you open a new absence accrual year. Vantagepoint locates in the Employees hub the number of hours per year for each employee who receives this benefit, and then applies the full amount at the beginning of the benefit year. Accrual codes that are set to pre-accrue hours will not accrue as part of Accrual Hours Processing. Benefit years are system-wide and cannot be defined on an employee-by-employee basis.
Print on Check	Select this option to print accrual information on the paycheck stub. This option is only available if the Payroll application is installed.
Limit Hours Carried Over to A New Accrual Year	Select this option to limit the number of absence hours that can be carried over into a new accrual year. For example, if your enterprise allows employees to carry over only 80 hours of sick time and at the end of the accrual year the employee has 90 hours, Vantagepoint deducts 10 hours and begins the employee at 80 hours for the year. Benefit years are system-wide and cannot be defined on an employee-by-employee basis.
Carry Over Limit	Use this field to enter the maximum number of hours for this accrual that can be carried over into a new accrual year. This field is required if you selected the Limit Hours Carried Over to A New Accrual Year option.
Show on Timesheet	Select this option if you want employees to be able to view the absence hours on their timesheet. For each absence hours selected, Vantagepoint displays the description, starting balance, current year earned, current year taken, and current balance.
Default Schedule	If your company set up accrual schedules in Settings > Accounting > Accrual Schedules, you can select a schedule from the drop-down list in this field.
Check Hours Entered Against Earned	For each accrual code, you can specify whether or not the hours entered on a timesheet exceed the employees actual available hours. Select one of the following settings: None: When employees save and submit timesheets, absence hours are not checked. Warning: When employees save and submit timesheets that contain absence hours in excess of the current number available, they receive a warning about the discrepancy, but they can still save and submit the timesheets. Error: When employees save and submit timesheets that contain absence hours in excess of the current number available, they receive an error message, and they cannot save or submit the timesheets.
Use Absence Request	Select this option if you want to use an approval workflow for employee absence requests that are based on the absence accrual code. You can select this option only if you have created an approval workflow for absence requests in Settings > Workflow > Approval Workflows, in the desktop application. If you clear this option after it was selected and there are absence request approvals in progress, you will receive a message informing you that the in-progress absence request approvals will be canceled if you clear the option. You can define separate approval workflows for each company, or you can use the same approval workflow across multiple companies. Changing an approval administrator for a workflow for the active company changes the administrator for all companies using that workflow. If the approval workflow is enabled, your employees can request vacation or paid time off (PTO), and then have their supervisor approve the request as defined within the approval workflow.
Approval Workflow	If you select the Use Absence Request option, select the approval workflow from the drop-down list in this field. Only approval workflows for absence requests that have an Active status display in the list. You can use the same or different absence request approval workflows for each of your absence accrual codes.
Approval Administrator	This field is autopopulated based on the selected approval workflow. The approval administrator is specified when setting up the workflow in Settings > Workflow > Approval Workflows, in the desktop application.
Project to Exclude from Hours Worked	This field displays in the grid when you set Enable Accruals on Hours Worked to Yes. Click in this field, and then click to select one or more projects that should not be included in the number of hours worked for the accrual calculation. To select multiple projects, click Search at the bottom of the list. When you select one project, the project name displays in this field. When you select multiple projects, Records Selected displays in this field. For example, the employee may not earn sick time while taking vacation time or earn vacation time while taking short term disability leave, so you can select the projects that are associated with vacation time or short term disability leave. The time charged to the projects selected are excluded from the accrual calculation.
+Add Accrual Code	Click this option to add a new accrual code that defines an absence accrual (vacation, sick leave, or others) that you provide for your employees. A blank accrual code row appears at the bottom of the grid.

Projects Associated with Accruals Grid

Use this grid to identify the absence accrual code to which this project or range of projects is associated. Time posted to this project or range of projects is considered time taken against the accrual plan.

Field	Description
Accrual Code	Use this field to select an accrual code from the drop-down list.
Time Analysis Report Column	Use this field to select a time analysis column from the drop-down list.
Start Project Range	This field indicates the starting project associated with the accrual code.
End Project Range	This field indicates the ending project associated with the accrual code.
	Click this icon at the end of a grid row and select the option to copy or delete the record. When you copy a row, a new row that contains the copied information is added below the row that you copied. Modify the information in the new row.
+Add Accrual Code	Click this option to add a row at the bottom of the grid to add an accrual code that will be associated with a project.

Benefit Accrual Calculation Based on Hours Worked Section

Use these options to include or exclude the number of hours the employee accrued for each hour worked and for overtime.

Field	Description
Enable Accrual on Hours Worked	Select Yes to enable Vantagepoint to calculate an employee's absence hours accrual based on the hours that the employee works. This enables the Hours Worked option in the Methods column in the Absence Accruals grid on the Accounting tab of the Employees hub. When you enable accruals based on hours worked, the Projects to Exclude from Hours Worked column is added to the Absence Accrual grid on this form. Use the lookup in the column to select the projects that should be excluded from the hours worked calculation. If you select Hours Worked as the method for an employee, you can also specify how Vantagepoint calculates the employee's hours earned per year, hours earned per hours worked, and maximum hours earned.
Enable Overtime Hours	This option displays when you set the Enable Accrual on Hours Worked option to Yes. For this option, select Yes to have Vantagepoint calculate an employee's overtime hours based on the hours that the employee works. For example, if an employee works 40 hours of regular time and 10 hours of overtime, the setting for this option determines whether or not the employee earns vacation or sick time on the 10 hours of overtime.
Skip Accrual If Less Than Expected Hours	This option displays when you set the Enable Accrual on Hours Worked option to Yes. For this option, select Yes to stop the absence accrual calculation for a time period if the employee does work the number of expected hours in that time period. You must also enter a value in the Expected Hours field. For example, if your firm does not calculate earned vacation for an employee when they work fewer than 10 hours in a specified time period, select Yes and enter 10 in the Expected Hours field. Set this option to No to include all employees in the absence accrual calculation, regardless of the number of hours that they work.
Expected Hours	You must enter the expected hours in this field if you set the Skip Accrual If Less Than Expected Hours option to Yes. If an employee has fewer than this number of hours in a time period, absence hours do not accrue for that time period.