Payroll Driven Policies
Payroll-driven policy
This suits organizations whose vacation is already accrued and tracked in Payroll. It removes the second set of numbers that admins would otherwise keep in step by hand.
How a payroll driven policy differs from a standard time-off policy
| Standard policy | Payroll driven policy | |
|---|---|---|
| Who owns the balance | Time Off | Payroll |
| When the balance changes | On the accrual schedule you set | On each pay date |
| Accrual rate | Set in the policy | Set by the payroll accrual benefit |
| Reset and carry over | Configurable | Not available |
| Dollar value | Not shown | Can be shown alongside hours |
| Unlimited balances | Supported | Not supported |
Everything else works the same way. Employees request time off from the same screen, reviewers approve from the same place, and the policy still appears on the Time Off calendar and in reports.
Set up a payroll driven policy
Go to Time Off > Manage Time Off > Policies and open the policy. The setup has three tabs.
Basic information
Name the policy, pick an icon and a colour, and decide whether other employees can see the policy name in Away Today and the Time Off calendar. Turning that off leaves the name visible to admins and to whoever made the request.
This is where the policy's rules live.
- Balance tracked in. Hours or days.
- Hours in a work day. Used to convert a day of leave into hours.
- Minimum time required per request. The smallest increment an employee can request, down to a quarter hour.
- Automatically adjust request balances for weekends. Leaves Saturdays and Sundays out of the deduction when a request spans a weekend.
- Show dollar amount to employees. Employees see the dollar value of their balance next to the hours. Admins see both regardless of this setting.
- Allow negative balances. Lets employees book time that takes them below zero.
The banner at the top of this tab explains that payroll driven policies take effect from the enrolment date. The balance itself still reflects everything Payroll has accrued for that employee, including pay periods before you created the policy.
Payroll setup
This tab connects the policy to the accrual balance in Payroll.
- Payroll organization. The payroll org the employees belong to.
- Payroll accrual policy. The accrual benefit that holds the balance, for example Accrued Vacation Pay.
- Sync time off with payroll. Sends approved requests to Payroll when an admin imports time off to the payroll input sheet.
- Increment instruction. The payroll instruction that pays the time off out, set separately for salary and hourly employees.
- Decrement instruction. The payroll instruction the hours come out of.
Tip: Salaried employees are paid a default number of hours each pay period, so their vacation hours have to be taken out of regular salary or they get paid twice. Hourly employees are paid from submitted hours, so there is nothing to take the vacation out of and the hourly decrement field is usually left empty.
If your account has more than one payroll organization, this block repeats once for each one. You still only need one policy, but each payroll org needs its own accrual policy and instructions filled in.
The policy card
The policy card on the Policies screen summarizes the setup, including how much time has been taken and approved by month.
Two lines on the card confirm the payroll connection. Requests imported to payroll means approved requests are picked up by the payroll input sheet import. Balance synced with payroll means the balance is coming from the payroll accrual benefit.
What employees see
Their balance
The Time Off dashboard shows the balance as of the last pay date, with the recent balance changes beside it. When Show dollar amount to employees is on, the dollar value sits under the hours behind an eye icon that reveals it.
Their statement
View Statement opens the full history: every pay date, the amount that moved, and the running balance. Amounts can be negative where time taken outweighed the accrual for that period.
The future balance calculator
Employees can pick a date and see what their balance will be then. On a payroll driven policy the calculator is marked Synced with payroll, and the projection uses estimated payroll accruals for the pay periods between now and the date chosen.
Requesting time off
The request summary shows the balance as of the last pay date and an estimated balance projected to the end of the pay period the request falls in. Show breakdown lists the estimated accrual for each pay date between now and then.
If the request puts the employee below zero they get a warning. Whether they can still submit depends on the Allow negative balances setting on the policy.
When the balance updates
The balance is Payroll's number, and it moves on the pay date of each pay period. It does not move when a pay run is posted, and it does not move when a request is approved.
- A newly enrolled employee reads zero until the first pay date after enrolment. That is expected and does not mean the setup is wrong.
- Pay runs are usually posted a few days before their pay date, so for those few days the payroll register can be ahead of what Time Off shows.
- A pay run that was posted before the policy existed still lands on its pay date.
Payroll has no automated reset or carry over. If the policy you are replacing had an anniversary reset or a carry over cap, that behaviour stops when you move to a payroll driven policy.
Moving an existing policy over
Your CSM or onboarding specialist runs the move with you. In outline:
- Rise builds the new payroll driven policy and enrols your employees.
- Time off requests that fall after the last posted pay period are re-entered on the new policy.
- You review the enrolled employee list and the re-entered requests and confirm in writing.
- The old policy is un-enrolled and retired.
The move should land before your next pay period starts, so accrual under the new policy begins on a clean period.
Re-entering a request that was still awaiting a manager's decision marks it approved. Rise will tell you which requests this affected and ask you to confirm they should stand.