For more information about the availability of this feature, contact your Account Manager.

The "Time Off Plans" page on ExakTime Connect is where you would set up the PTO/Time Off accrual rules for your employees and determine the options available to employees when requesting time off. From the "Time Off Plans" page, you can:

• Configure new/existing Time Off Plans for employees that have different accrual rules, such as for salary or hourly employees.
• Configure how time off hours are accrued, such as for employees who accrue more time off for their seniority at the company.
• Allow employees assigned to a time off plan to request partial days off or allow a negative time balance.
• Assign employees to a time off plan to accrue time and request time off against their time off balance. 

If you have not completed the initial setup for Time Off, please refer to the initial setup article.

We also offer a video training for this topic on Arcoro Learning.

Table of Contents

• Understanding the Time Off Plans Page
• Configuring a Time Off Plan
  • Plan Details Tab
  • Add Employees Tab
  • Manage Employees Tab
  • Import Tab
  • Accrual Log Tab
• "Removing" an Employee from a Plan

Understanding the Time Off Plans Page

The Time Off Plans page will present you with the following columns:

• - Clicking the Edit icon will allow you to configure an existing Time Off Plan.
• Active - Time off plan status.
• Name - Name of your Time Off Plan.
• Plan Time - The type of Time Off Plan.
• Accrual Method - How time off hours are accrued. 
• Description - Description of the Time Off Plan.
• Last Modified - The last time that the Time Off Plan was modified and by whom.

Click the ⋮ button in column headers to sort the list in ascending/descending order and/or filter out entities based on the column, such as active status, name, plan type, accrual method, and unpaid status. 

Configuring a Time Off Plan

Click Add New Plan to create a new Time Off Plan or click the pencil button to configure an existing Time Off Plan.

Plan Details Tab

The Plan Details tab is where you will set up the name, description, and accrual rules of your Time Off Plan.

Double-check the plan type and accrual methods, as they cannot be modified after saving your time off plan. This is to help preserve the data integrity of a time off plan.

• Active - Toggle if the Time Off Plan should be active or not. A time off plan can only be made inactive if:
  • No employees are assigned to the time off plan.
  • If employees are assigned, they must have a balance of 0 and a plan end date that is the same or is earlier than the date of deactivation. 
• Time Off Plan Name - Name for your Time Off Plan. Each plan name must be unique.
• Description - Description of Time Off Plan. This field is only shown on the Time Off Plans page for reference.
• Plan Type - Select from a list of pre-defined plan types:
  • Personal Time Off
  • Sick Time
  • Holiday
  • Jury Duty
  • Bereavement Leave
  • Unpaid Time
  • Parental Leave
  • Military Leave
  • Voting Time
  • Other Time Off
• Plan ID - The plan ID populates the location ID for the time off record generated. This allows time off records on time cards to be unique for reporting or AccountLinx exports. 

• Accrual Method - The select accrual method determines how the balance of the time off plan is increased/decreased:

  Per Pay Period By Hours Worked Manual Annual Unlimited

  Employees will accrue a set amount of time from as little as .001 and up to 750 hours upon each pay period close. Additional options will appear when "Per Pay Period" is selected.

  

  • Enable Balance Reset on
    • If enabled, will reset the employee's time off plan balances down to the specified balance reset value if the balance is exceeded for the appropriate tier on the specified date or the employee's hire date. When enabled, an additional field will appear when setting up time off tiers.
    • If disabled, employees will continue to accrue time off until either of the following is met:
      • The Time Off Plan has ended for the employee.
      • Employee has reached the maximum balance for their time off tier. If the employee moves into a new time off tier with a higher balance, they will begin to accrue time off until the new maximum balance is met.
  • Allows balance reset to increase balances
    • This option will appear if balance reset is enabled. If enabled, allows balance reset events to automatically adjust employee balances to a defined reset amount, regardless of whether their current balance is above or below the reset value.
  • Employees can request partial days
    • If enabled, your employees will be able to select the number of hours in a calendar day for their time off request and for the time off records that will be generated. For example, if this setting is enabled, an employee can request 4 hours of time off on a calendar day to take a half-day.
    • If not enabled, employee time off requests will default to 8 hours per day. Employees will not have the ability to adjust the number of hours for each day where time off is requested.
  • Employees can have negative balances
    • If enabled, employees can request time off that, when completed, will result in their available time off balance being negative.
    • If not enabled, employees will be unable to submit requests that will result in their time off balance being negative.
  • This plan will be unpaid time
    • If enabled, any approved time off for this time off plan will be considered unpaid, will not be considered for overtime calculations, and will not export to payroll.
  • Can be used for company time off
    • If enabled, this time off plan will be available when submitting company time off, such as for paid or unpaid holidays.

  Tiers

  • Configure tiers by years/months - Specify if tiers should be set up by years or months of an employee's employment.
  • From Years/Months X - Tier 1 always begins with 0. Additional Tiers require 1+ year value. Employee Tier assignment is system defined based on the employee hire date.
  • Earnable Time Off - How much time off can be earned for the tier.
    • The value entered can only be from .001 – 750.
    • If entering a decimal value, only up to three decimal places are allowed.
    • Employees will accrue value per pay period upon pay period close.
  • Maximum Balance - Maximum balance employees will accrue through system accruals.
  • Balance Reset Value X Hours Per Year - This field will appear if 'Balance Reset' is enabled. The balance for the time off plan will reset to the entered amount for the given date.

  Employees will accrue time off based on the amount entered for "earnable time off" multiplied by the employee hours worked within the pay period. Hours worked by an employee are any time records recorded by the employee (via ExakTime Mobile, JobClocks, or Connect Clock) or time records added manually to the time card. "Time Off Records" generated from a time off request is not counted towards "By Hours Worked". Additional menu options will appear when "By Hours Worked" is selected.

  

  • Enable Balance Reset on
    • If enabled, will reset the employee's time off plan balances down to the specified balance reset value if the balance is exceeded for the appropriate tier on the specified date or the employee's hire date. When enabled, an additional field will appear when setting up time off tiers.
    • If disabled, employees will continue to accrue time off until either of the following is met:
      • The Time Off Plan has ended for the employee.
      • Employee has reached the maximum balance for their time off tier. If the employee moves into a new time off tier with a higher balance, they will begin to accrue time off until the new maximum balance is met.
  • Allows balance reset to increase balances
    • This option will appear if balance reset is enabled. If enabled, allows balance reset events to automatically adjust employee balances to a defined reset amount, regardless of whether their current balance is above or below the reset value.
  • Employees can request partial days
    • If enabled, your employees will be able to select the number of hours in a calendar day for their time off request and for the time off records that will be generated. For example, if this setting is enabled, an employee can request 4 hours of time off on a calendar day to take a half-day.
    • If not enabled, employee time off requests will default to 8 hours per day. Employees will not have the ability to adjust the number of hours for each day where time off is requested.
  • Employees can have negative balances
    • If enabled, employees can request time off that, when completed, will result in their available time off balance being negative.
    • If not enabled, employees will be unable to submit requests that will result in their time off balance being negative.
  • This plan will be unpaid time
    • If enabled, any approved time off for this time off plan will be considered unpaid, will not be considered for overtime calculations, and will not export to payroll.
  • Can be used for company time off
    • If enabled, this time off plan will be available when submitting company time off, such as for paid or unpaid holidays.

  Tiers

  • Configure tiers by years/months - Specify if tiers should be set up by years or months of an employee's employment.
  • Include Additional Hour Types - By default, the employees worked hours will include only Regular time. This setting allows the time off plan to include OT1 or both OT1 and OT2 hours type when calculating accrual based on hours worked per pay period. 
  • From Years/Months X - Tier 1 always begins with 0. Additional Tiers require 1+ year value. Employee Tier assignment is system defined based on the employee hire date.
  • Earnable Time Off - How much time off can be earned for the tier.
    • The value entered can only be from .001 – 750.
    • If entering a decimal value, only up to three decimal places are allowed.
    • Employees will accrue value per pay period upon pay period close.
  • Maximum Balance - Maximum balance employees will accrue through system accruals.
  • Balance Reset Value X Hours Per Year - This field will appear if 'Balance Reset' is enabled. The balance for the time off plan will reset to the entered amount for the given date.

  Employee's time off balances will be updated by setting an initial balance when assigning the time off plan to an employee and the balance will be manually updated by an Administrator. 

  

  • Enable Balance Reset on
    • If enabled, will reset the employee's time off plan balances down to the specified balance reset value if the balance is exceeded for the appropriate tier on the specified date or the employee's hire date. When enabled, an additional field will appear when setting up time off tiers.
    • If disabled, employees will continue to accrue time off until either of the following is met:
      • The Time Off Plan has ended for the employee.
      • Employee has reached the maximum balance for their time off tier. If the employee moves into a new time off tier with a higher balance, they will begin to accrue time off until the new maximum balance is met.
  • Allows balance reset to increase balances
    • This option will appear if balance reset is enabled. If enabled, allows balance reset events to automatically adjust employee balances to a defined reset amount, regardless of whether their current balance is above or below the reset value.
  • Employees can request partial days
    • If enabled, your employees will be able to select the number of hours in a calendar day for their time off request and for the time off records that will be generated. For example, if this setting is enabled, an employee can request 4 hours of time off on a calendar day to take a half-day.
    • If not enabled, employee time off requests will default to 8 hours per day. Employees will not have the ability to adjust the number of hours for each day where time off is requested.
  • Employees can have negative balances
    • If enabled, employees can request time off that, when completed, will result in their available time off balance being negative.
    • If not enabled, employees will be unable to submit requests that will result in their time off balance being negative.
  • This plan will be unpaid time
    • If enabled, any approved time off for this time off plan will be considered unpaid, will not be considered for overtime calculations, and will not export to payroll.
  • Can be used for company time off
    • If enabled, this time off plan will be available when submitting company time off, such as for paid or unpaid holidays.

  Tiers

  • Configure tiers by years/months - Specify if tiers should be set up by years or months of an employee's employment.
  • From Years/Months X - Tiers will only appear if 'Balance Reset' has been enabled. Tier 1 always begins with 0. Additional Tiers require 1+ year value. Employee Tier assignment is system defined based on the employee hire date.
  • Balance Reset Value X Hours Per Year - This field will appear if 'Balance Reset' is enabled. The balance for the time off plan will reset to the entered amount for the given date.

  Annual Accrual will run on the morning of the calendar date or hire date per plan. This accrual will be independent of the pay period closing and will apply to employees' balances at 2 AM PST/ 5 AM EST on the morning of the accrued date.

  

  • Enable Balance Reset on
    • If enabled, will reset the employee's time off plan balances down to the specified balance reset value if the balance is exceeded for the appropriate tier on the specified date or the employee's hire date. When enabled, an additional field will appear when setting up time off tiers.
    • If disabled, employees will continue to accrue time off until either of the following is met:
      • The Time Off Plan has ended for the employee.
      • Employee has reached the maximum balance for their time off tier. If the employee moves into a new time off tier with a higher balance, they will begin to accrue time off until the new maximum balance is met.
  • Allows balance reset to increase balances
    • This option will appear if balance reset is enabled. If enabled, allows balance reset events to automatically adjust employee balances to a defined reset amount, regardless of whether their current balance is above or below the reset value.
  • Employees can request partial days
    • If enabled, your employees will be able to select the number of hours in a calendar day for their time off request and for the time off records that will be generated. For example, if this setting is enabled, an employee can request 4 hours of time off on a calendar day to take a half-day.
    • If not enabled, employee time off requests will default to 8 hours per day. Employees will not have the ability to adjust the number of hours for each day where time off is requested.
  • Employees can have negative balances
    • If enabled, employees can request time off that, when completed, will result in their available time off balance being negative.
    • If not enabled, employees will be unable to submit requests that will result in their time off balance being negative.
  • This plan will be unpaid time
    • If enabled, any approved time off for this time off plan will be considered unpaid, will not be considered for overtime calculations, and will not export to payroll.
  • Can be used for company time off
    • If enabled, this time off plan will be available when submitting company time off, such as for paid or unpaid holidays.

  Tiers

  • Configure tiers by years/months - Specify if tiers should be set up by years or months of an employee's employment.
  • Accrual date by calendar date - Specify if the annual accrual date occurs at the specified calendar date.
  • Accrual date by hire date - Specify if the annual accrual date occurs on the hire date of the employee.
    • If the employee's hire date is February 31st (a leap day), the employee will accrue on February 30th for non-leap years and February 31st for leap years.
    • If using accrual date by hire date with a balance reset on a specific date, please keep in mind situations where these dates could be close (for example, an employee accrues in November, but has a balance reset for January).
  • From Years/Months X - Tier 1 always begins with 0. Additional Tiers require 1+ year value. Employee Tier assignment is system defined based on the employee hire date.
  • Earnable Time Off - How much time off can be earned for the tier.
    • The value entered can only be from .001 – 750.
    • If entering a decimal value, only up to three decimal places are allowed.
    • Employees will accrue value per pay period upon pay period close.
  • Maximum Balance - Maximum balance employees will accrue through system accruals.
  • Balance Reset Value X Hours Per Year - This field will appear if 'Balance Reset' is enabled. The balance for the time off plan will reset to the entered amount for the given date.

  If an employee has the same date for an annual accrual and a balance reset, the balance reset will occur first to bring the employee balance down to the balance reset value for their tier, and the annual accrual will occur second to bring the employee balance up to the earnable time off value for their tier.

  No accrued balance. This is best used for employees/companies that offer unlimited paid time off.

  

  • Employees can request partial days
    • If enabled, your employees will be able to select the number of hours in a calendar day for their time off request and for the time off records that will be generated. For example, if this setting is enabled, an employee can request 4 hours of time off on a calendar day to take a half-day.
    • If not enabled, employee time off requests will default to 8 hours per day. Employees will not have the ability to adjust the number of hours for each day where time off is requested.
  • This plan will be unpaid time
    • If enabled, any approved time off for this time off plan will be considered unpaid, will not be considered for overtime calculations, and will not export to payroll.
  • Can be used for company time off
    • If enabled, this time off plan will be available when submitting company time off, such as for paid or unpaid holidays.

Double-check your plan type and accrual methods as they cannot be modified after saving your time off plan. This is to help preserve the data integrity of a time off plan.

Click Save when finished or click Save + New to save the current Time Off Plan and create a new blank Time Off Plan. 

Add Employees Tab

The 'Add Employees' tab allows you to add employees to newly created or existing Time Off Plans.

The 'Add Employees' tab will have the following columns:

• Checkboxes - Use the checkboxes to select the employee(s) to add to the Time Off Plan. Use the checkbox at the top of the column to select all the employees listed. The number of employees selected will be shown in the bottom right.
• ID - ID of the employee.
• Name - Name of the employee.
• Category - Category of the employee.
• Hire Date - The hire date is required for an employee to be assigned to Time Off Plans, including scenarios where the accrual method is "Unlimited". Click the to edit the hire date.

Starting Balance - Assign a starting balance to multiple employees. 

Assign Plan Start Date As - Available options are Today, Hire Date, or Custom.

• This date determines when an employee will start to Accrue a balance. If this date falls within a pay period, employees will accrue the full amount for the pay period. 
• The date can be future-dated.  Employee(s) future-dated will not start accruing hours until the plan start date falls within a pay period that has been closed. Plan start date does not prevent employees from creating requests when assigned to plans.

Click the ☰ icon in the column headers to filter the table.

Click Complete Assignment in the bottom right to complete your employee assignments.

Manage Employees Tab

The 'Manage Employees' tab allows you to view employees that are currently assigned the Time Off Plan.

The 'Manage Employees' tab will have the following columns:

• - Click the Trash Can icon to remove an employee from the Time Off Plan. 
  • If an employee has ever received a system accrual event balance, they cannot be removed from a time off plan. If you would like to stop an employee from receiving any more time and requesting time off against a plan, you can refer to the following steps.
  • If an employee has only accrued time off through a manual balance adjustment, they can be removed.
• ID - ID of the employee.
• Name - Name of the employee.
• Balance - Click the to edit the time off balance for an employee.
  • Administrators can enter an initial starting balance and edit existing balances.
  • If an employee has a balance of zero, the time off plan will not appear for them as an option to request against. 
  • An optional comment can be entered. This comment will be visible in the upcoming time off activity log at a future time.
• Pending Hours - Hours the employee has in pending request states.
• Hire Date - Employee's Hire Date
• Tier Service Date - This column will be available for time off plans that offer tiered accruals. The tier service date will allow you to specify what the tiered accrual should respect for proper accrual calculations.
  • This option is best used for rehired employees or negotiated PTO agreements.
  • The tier service date is suggested to match the month/day as the employee's hire date if the time off plan uses a hire date balance reset.
  • An employee's tier service date can be unqiue to the respective time off plan, allowing an employee to have multiple tier service dates. 
• Plan Start Date - The date the employee started accruing user-defined value assigned to the plan.
• Plan End Date - Click the to set the end date for when the employee will no longer accrue toward their balance. If employees have an outstanding balance and are based on plan-specific options, they will still be able to create time off requests with the remaining balance after the plan end date has passed.

Click the ☰ icon in the column headers to filter the table.

Click Export to Excel to export a XLSX file based on the grid and any filters applied.

Import Tab

The "Import" tab allows you to import a completed XLSX template to update time off balances, tier service dates, and time off plan start/end dates.

Employees must be added to the time off plan before using the import tab. The import tab does not allow assigning employees to the time off plan.

Importing Employee Time Off Information

1. Download the XLSX template with the provided button. The template will contain the employees who are assigned to the time off plan. The available columns may differ depending on your time off plan. 
   

2. Complete the template with an appropriate application, such as Microsoft Excel.

   • The headers' names, positioning, and EmployeeGUIDs must not be edited. 
   • The Employee ID and First/Last Name fields can be changed, but any changes in the template will be ignored and will not affect the employee's ID or First/Last Name.

   

3. Click Select Files and select your completed XLSX template, or drag and drop the file into the provided space. Click Begin Import to import the file.
   
4. The "Import History" section will contain the history and any errors from the import based on the user who initiated the import.
   
   • User Initiated - The user who initiated the import.
   • Complete - Status of upload.
   • Updates - Number of updates performed.
   • Successes - Number of successful updates.
   • Skipped - Rows skipped due to no changes.
   • Failures - Number of rows on file that contained a failure
   • Error Files - Downloadable XLSX file(s) which will contain only error rows. Corrections can be made within error file and reimported.
5. An email will also be sent with the status of the import.
    

Accrual Log Tab

Review events that impact your employees' time off balances and will include the following accrual events:

• System Accrual - For per pay period and hours worked accruals, when a pay period is closed, a row per employee assigned to be plan will show the increase in balance per their tier plan. If a pay period is re-opened the row per employee will show a decrease as the system reverts the balance previously applied.
• Request Adjustment - When an approved time off request is transitioned to the completed state, a row per request will show the balance deductions per request. A request transitions to completed when the pay period the start date of a time off request is within is closed.
• Manual Balance Adjustment - A row per employee will show when a time off administrator makes a manual balance adjustment to employee to add or deduct hours.
• Balance Reset - A row per employee will show when the balance reset event occurs.

The 'Accrual Log' tab will have the following columns:

• Created Date - The date and time of the accrual event.
• ID - ID of the employee.
• Name - Name of the employee.
• Plan Name -  The name of the Time Off Plan.
• Event Type - The type of accrual event. Accrual events can be:
  • System Accrual
  • Request Adjustment
  • Manual Balance Adjustment
  • Balance Reset
• Starting Balance - Time off balance before the accrual event.
• Ending Balance - Time off balance after the accrual event.
• Hours Adjustment - The number of hours for the accrual adjustment. 
• Comments - Any comments associated with a manual adjustment. 
• Pay Period - The pay period for the event.
• Hours Considered - Used for the "Hours Worked" accrual type. Will show how many hours the employees worked and was factored into the calculation.

Click the ⋮ icon in the column headers to filter the table.

Export to Excel - Export the accrual log to Excel based on what is currently filtered. The export will contain up to 20,000 lines and will contain data from all pages.

"Removing" an Employee from a Plan

'Time Off Plans' do not currently allow the removal of an employee if the employee has ever received a system accrual event balance. If an employee needs to be "removed" from a plan, you can instead add an immediate Plan End Date for the employee from the "Manage Employees" screen and then zero out the employee's Time Off balance. 

This effectively removes them from the plan, and they are no longer able to make requests against that plan. If an employee has a balance of zero, the time off plan will not appear for them as an option to request against.