Leave Balances and Accruals

Overview

A leave balance is the amount of leave an employee has accrued in the system for a given leave category.

When a leave category is assigned to an employee, leave will accrue in pay runs according to the settings that you have configured in Config > Leave.

Some leave categories will show leave balances in dollar figures, while others will display in units.

Some leave categories will not show any balances, as there is no accrual for the category and it can’t be applied for in a leave request.

Current Balance vs Available Balance

The Astute system will show two different leave balances:

Current Balance	The leave management ledger balance Calculated and stored once a pay run is marked as Paid
Available Balance	Used to help employees and approvers understand how much leave can be applied for/approved Calculated as the Current Balance minus any leave requests that have been submitted or approved, but not yet been paid

If a leave category cannot be ‘requested’ (eg Holiday Pay in NZ), then the Current Balance and Available Balance will always be the same.

When Does Leave Accrue / Spend?

Accrual and spend for the Current Balance of a leave category is triggered by a pay run being marked as Paid. The accrual will report on the last day of the relevant pay period. 

The Available Balance can change in the following places:

• when a leave request is submitted, the leave will deduct from the Available Balance
• when a leave request is rejected, the leave will add back to the Available Balance
• when a leave request is paid, the leave will no longer apply to the Available Balance

At this point, the Current Balance will reduce by the amount of the leave request, so the net effect on the Available Balance will be 0.

Where Do Leave Balances Display?

You can view leave balances for employees in various parts of your portal, depending on your user type and level of access.

User Type	Visible in:
Staff/Admin user with payroll permissions	Reports Leave Balances Report Leave History Report Leave Liability Report, if a leave category has been configured to appear as a liability Pay Advices On-screen In an employee profile (Users > Employees > select employee > Leave) In the Leave Request Summary section of a leave request
Employee	Pay Advices Emails/Notifications In an approved leave request notification, for the requested leave category only On-screen Leave > Leave Balances Leave > Leave Requests In the Request Summary of a leave request, for the requested leave category only
Leave Approver	Emails/Notifications In a leave request approval notification, for the requested leave category only On-screen Leave > Leave Balances Note: You can only view leave balances and other leave data for employees who have been assigned to you for leave approval.