Leave Balances and Accruals (NZ.)

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 days or hours.

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.

Leave accrual calculations can be viewed in the Leave History Report. 

Current Balance vs Available Balance

The Astute system will show two different leave balances:

Current Balance	Is the leave management ledger balance The balance is calculated and stored once a pay run is marked as Paid.
Available Balance	Is used to help employees and approvers understand how much leave can be applied for/approved The balance is calculated as the Current Balance minus any leave requests that have been submitted or approved, but have 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?

The Current Balance accrues and spends when a pay run is Paid.

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	Leave Balances Visible In
Staff/Admin 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
Employees	Pay Advices Emails 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 Approvers	Leave balances and other leave data will only appear for employees who have been assigned to you for leave approval. You can view leave balances in: Emails In a leave request approval notification, for the requested leave category only On-screen Leave > Leave Balances