Benefit Accrual Setup Tab of Time Analysis and Benefit Accrual Setup

Use the Benefit Accrual Setup tab to enter information about your firm’s benefit hour plans. You establish a firm-wide pool of accrual codes, each of which represents a plan such as vacation, sick, or personal leave.

Contents

Field Description
Drop-down

Click the drop-down arrow on a grid header to complete any of the following actions:

  • To print grid data, click Print. On the Print Preview form, click File > Print to send the grid data to your default printer.
  • To export grid data to an Excel spreadsheet, click Export to Excel. When Microsoft Excel opens, use its features to modify, print, or email the grid data, or to save the spreadsheet file locally.
  • To turn on grouping for a grid, click Enable Grouping. When a field displays with the instruction: "Drag a column header here to group by that column," drag and drop column headers into the field, in the sequence that you want them to display.

Not all options are available on all grids.

Insert To enter a new benefit accrual code, click this option to add a blank row to the grid.
Delete To delete a benefit accrual code in the grid, click the benefit accrual code's row to select it and click this option.

You can delete a benefit accrual code only if it has not been used.

Company If you use Multicompany, select the company to which you want to apply the benefit accrual information.
Code Enter the accrual code. A dash (-), underscore ( _ ), and period (.) count as a character. Vision comes with two standard accrual codes set up: Vacation and Sick Leave.

If you use the Multicompany feature, you can use the same code for different companies in your enterprise.

Description Enter a name for the accrual code.
Maximum Enter the maximum number of benefit 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, Vision no longer accrues hours for this benefit plan for this employee.

Pre-Accrue Hours Select this option if you want to pre-accrue annual benefit hours when you open a new benefit accrual year. Vision locates the hours per year for each employee who receives this benefit in Employee Info Center (Accounting Tab in the Benefit Accruals grid) and applies the full amount at the beginning of the benefit year.

Benefit years are system-wide and cannot be defined on an employee-by-employee basis.

Print on Check Select this option if you want to print accrual information on the paycheck stub. If you do not select this option, Vision does not print this information on the paycheck stub (this is the default). This option is only available if the Payroll application is installed.
Limit Hours Carried Over to a New Accrual Year Select this check box if you want to limit the number of benefit hours that can be carried over into a new accrual year. For example, if your firm allows employees to carry over only 80 hours of sick time and at the end of the accrual year the employee has 90 hours, Vision 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 This field is required if you selected the Limit hours carried over to a new accrual year check box on this tab. Enter the maximum number of hours for this accrual that can be carried over into a new accrual year.
Show on Timesheet Select this check box if you want employees to be able to view the benefit hours on their timesheet. For each benefit hours selected, Vision displays the description, starting balance, current year earned, current year taken, and current balance.

To view this information from the timesheet, select Benefit Hours from the Show menu.

Default Schedule If your company set up accrual schedules, those schedules display in the drop-down list. Select the appropriate schedule.
Check Hours Entered Against Earned For each accrual code (sick or vacation, for example) listed on the Benefit Accrual Setup tab, this feature checks and validates whether or not the hours entered on a timesheet exceed the employee’s actual available hours. Choose one of the following options from the Check Hours Entered Against Earned drop-down list:
  • None: When employees save and submit timesheets, benefit hours are not checked.
  • Warning: When employees save and submit timesheets that contain benefit 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 benefit hours in excess of the current number available, they receive an error message, and they cannot save or submit the timesheets.
Use Approval Workflow for Absence Requests For each benefit accrual code in the grid, select this check box if you want to use an approval process for employee absence requests that are based on the benefit accrual code. You can select this check box only if you have created an approval workflow for absence requests in Configuration > Workflow > Approvals Workflow.

If you clear this check box 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 check box.

Absence Requests Approval Workflow After you select the Use Approval Workflow for Absence Requests check box, click in this field, and from the drop-down list, select the approval workflow to use for absence requests for the benefit accrual code. You create an approval workflow for absence requests in Configuration > Workflow > Approval Workflows. Only approval workflows for absence requests that have an Active status display in the drop-down list. You can use the same or different absence request approval workflows for each of your benefit accrual codes.

If you change the approval workflow and there are absence request approvals in progress, you will receive a message informing you that the in-progress absence request approvals will be restarted using the new approval workflow that you enter.

Projects to Exclude from Hours Worked This option is enabled when the Enable accruals based on hours worked check box is selected on the Timesheets Tab of Accounting Company Settings (Configuration > Accounting). Use the lookup for this option to select the projects that should not be included in the hours worked calculation. For example, the employee may not earn sick time while taking vacation time, or 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.