This article explains the basics of how to read and interpret leave balances for your employees.
Understanding these figures helps you manage your team's leave entitlements, plan for absences, and manage your obligations under the Holidays Act. For more detail on entitlements, you can refer to our articles on specific leave types.
Leave balances page
For each employee you can do a check of their balances and review history for each leave option by navigating to Employees, select your employee, then click on the 'Balances' tab.
This page gives you a summary but you can review the transaction history for every item that appears as a blue clickable link. This is most items on the page except for those in the 'balances' section, as the balances are simply the total of what appears in the other sections.
YTD Totals
The YTD (Year-to-Date) Totals section shows cumulative pay and deduction figures for each employee from the start of the year to the current date. This gives you a snapshot of what the employee has earned and what has been deducted.
Gross Pay: Total earnings before any deductions.
Gross Tx. Inc: Gross taxable income used to calculate PAYE.
Ordinary Pay: The employee's regular base pay, excluding irregular payments.
PAYE: Pay As You Earn tax deducted from wages.
Extra PAYE: Tax deducted using lump sum rules.
Accrued Tx. Inc: Gross earnings that are included in leave calculations. This is all gross taxable earnings excluding payments that are not included in leave calculations.
Accrued AL payments: Payments that have been made to the employee for accrued leave (leave in advance of entitlement).
Accrued Leave
This section shows leave that is being added to the employee's totals. It shows all entitlements, and in the case of the accrued annual leave, the leave that is gaining each period towards their next entitlement.
Accrued Leave: The total amount of annual leave accumulated in the current year so far towards their next entitlement. This will reset after each annual leave anniversary.
Entitled Leave: Annual leave the employee is legally entitled to take. This represents their formal entitlement under the Holidays Act and is distinct from leave that is still accruing toward the next entitlement.
Sick Leave: Accumulated sick leave entitlements.
Family Violence Leave: Entitlement to Family Violence Leave.
Alternate Leave: Also called "alternative holidays" or "days in lieu." When an employee works on a public holiday that would otherwise be a working day for them, they earn an alternative day off. In the accrued section you can see each addition and a cumulative total.
Lieu Leave: Lieu leave that has been added to the balance (different from alternative leave).
Special Leave: Any additional leave types your organisation provides beyond statutory minimums, such as birthday leave, study leave, or wellness days.
The accrued annual leave for each period comes from your employee's settings. If your employee is set to 'variable hours', the accrued value for each pay is determined based on the hours they have been paid.
If your employee is set to standard hours, the hours you have entered in the leave settings for your employee will be used to calculate their accrual.
Taken
This section records all leave the employee has used. Click on any leave type to review a record of all the entries.
Annual leave and annual leave cash up are separate items, because you must record annual leave cash ups distinctly from annual leave that has been taken.
Alternative leave taken and alt cash up are separate for the same reason.
Balances
This section shows the employee's current available leave - what they have remaining to use.
Annual Leave: Remaining annual leave balance in hours. This is what's available for the employee to request.
Sick Leave: Remaining sick leave. Remember, unused sick leave can accumulate up to 20 days.
Alternate Leave: Alternative holidays earned but not yet taken. These don't expire, but can be cashed up by mutual agreement after 12 months. They must be paid on termination if the employee leaves.
Special Leave: Any special leave balances available.
If your employee's sick leave balance exceeds 20 days, check that your sick leave cap is enabled in company settings and in the employee's settings. If you want a sick leave cap to be in place, you must ensure this is enabled in each employee's leave settings.
If you want to check your employee's entitled annual leave balance only (not including any accrued leave) you should take the current balance and deduct the current 'accrued' value.
Average rates
The 4 week and 52 week average show to you on this page. You can click on each entry for more detail.
The 'days paid' will be either:
If your employee is set to standard hours: The 'days per pay period' set in your employee's leave settings for each of the periods they have been paid in
If your employee is set to variable hours: The days per pay period that you recorded in each pay run, or the days paid in your employee's leave settings if you have set a value here