Setting up Fixed yearly entitlement (pro-rata)

This video will go through how to set up and manage your fixed holiday entitlement. There are two types of earn and claim holiday types:

• Fixed yearly entitlement - (Pro-rated based on contract start/end dates)

• Yearly Entitlement based on previous weeks of work

In this article, we will discuss fixed yearly entitlement (pro rata). The other type of fixed entitlement is fixed yearly entitlement based on previous weeks worked. To learn more about it, visit our article here.

What is Fixed Holiday Entitlement?

Fixed holiday entitlement is used when staff are given a fixed amount of holiday, such as 28 days or  224 hours for the annual year. 
This entitlement is given annually. However, there are two different approaches to this type of entitlement.
These are - Fixed Yearly Entitlement (using contract start and end dates) OR Fixed Entitlement (Based on Weeks Worked).

Fixed Yearly Entitlement (pro-rata)

Fixed yearly entitlement is used when there is a fixed yearly holiday allowance, meaning that staff members can request holidays immediately from their contract start date. If someone joins part-way through a holiday year, the amount will be pro rata down to this, reducing their allowance automatically.

Step 1

We will now go through how to set this up. Go to Pay > Contracts > Manage Contracts to find your holiday options. 

Then, go to the holiday tab of the contract to which you want to apply these holiday rules to see the Fixed Holiday options. Then select the ‘Yearly Entitlement (Pro-rated based on contract start/end dates)’.

Step 2

Choose your Calculation Mode

With this entitlement, there are three ways in which a holiday can be calculated. 

Option 1

Simple Mode

The first is 'Simple mode', which we recommend. This mode is used for anyone with a working pattern set up who isn’t reliant on shifts. It allows staff to book a full day or a half day off work when booking a holiday.

Under this option, you can also set whether this should be recorded in hours or days.

In this setup, we can also select the maximum number of days to be deducted per week, which works well for both permanent staff and those on an ad hoc shift pattern, who might be flexible about which days they work.

You can choose whether to use their working pattern only or only deduct days within their working pattern when they also have shifts booked.

Then, when you go to request a holiday, you can see that you can take a holiday for either full days or half days.

Once this has gone through, you will be able to see, depending on your display options, how many hours or days you have left to claim.

Option 2

Complex Mode

The second is 'Complex', mode.

The complex option will use shifts to calculate holiday usage carefully down to the minute. You can use this option if you're tracking shifts and time entries. It’s a more detailed calculation based on shifts worked, allowing holidays to be taken in as little as one-hour blocks.

It will use the shifts already scheduled in the system to determine what days or hours should be considered when deducting holiday entitlement.

This can also be usual if staff have unusual contracted hours, such as a half-day on a Friday. This will be considered when the system lets staff know how much of their holiday allowance will be deducted from their entitlement. In this example, if a holiday was requested on Friday and all the scheduled shifts were half-days on Fridays, the system would only deduct a half-day of holiday or the hourly equivalent.

It is important to note that shifts need to be in the system before the holiday is approved. Otherwise, the system will assume there are no shifts, so no days need to be deducted from the holiday allowance, and it will allow a holiday with no deductions on their entitlement.

If you choose the deduct on working pattern option, it will use the working pattern set up in your contract settings under Working Pattern, where you can decide the normal hours and days for that contract to work out how many hours they will need off within that time.

Existing Shifts

With the complex option, it is common to choose to use the scheduled shift option, taking existing shifts and converting them to holiday deductions. This means you can make holiday requests quite flexible and staff can request hours off, even if they wanted to take as little as two hours off in an afternoon, for example.

You can restrict this with the limit requests option, stating that you want requests to be on half or full days, but the hours of the day might differ depending on shift patterns. 

You can also decide what happens to breaks in holiday deductions. When requesting less than a full day, you can choose to calculate breaks in deductions or simply deduct the exact hours requested.

Option 3

Fixed Pay Mode

'Fixed pay mode' is used when staff are not paid by the hour but receive a set amount of pay for each shift they work. This approach is often used in companies where shifts might be longer or overnight, and the pay is set based on specific elements tied to the type of shifts.
When using this option, holidays are also calculated by shifts. Staff can request holidays as either full or half shifts. For example, if an employee normally works three shifts a week, they can take one shift off as a holiday and be paid the fixed amount for that shift, which would equate to the same as if they were working that shift.

Just select the amount of shifts that staff will receive as holiday entitlement for the year.

You will need to create a holiday pay element for holiday-paid items. Then, select that here. It is helpful to choose the holiday pay element attached to the skill the contract will be used for.

Fixed Holiday in Action

 Then, all that’s left to do is request their holiday, which is sent to their line manager for approval. 

If a staff member makes a request, you can view their holiday requests under their profile and edit the request or make changes as well. 

For Simple calculations, you can see you can only request a holiday using full or half days. Using scheduled shifts, you can schedule shifts down to the hour.

To learn about our other Fixed Entitlement options, you can visit our article on fixed yearly entitlement (based on weeks worked) or our video on Fixed Holiday. You can also view our video on our Earn & Claim holiday entitlement.