Manage Leave for a Prior Year (Retrospective Leave)

In this topic, you will learn how to identify a leave for a prior year, learn about scenarios when to adjust such a leave, and how to adjust it.

Identifying Leave for a Prior Year

Leave for a prior year is any leave record of any type that is taken before the current reporting year. (i.e. any leave taken before the most recent rollover dates).

For annual leave and personal/carer’s leave accruals, the current reporting year is the current company year (e.g. from 1 January to 31 December).

For long service leave accruals, the current reporting year is the current anniversary year (from their last anniversary date to their upcoming anniversary date).

This means that any leave record that takes place before the current company year or anniversary year is a leave for a prior year, regardless of the leave type.

When to Adjust Carried Over Balance for Retrospective Leave

The following scenarios constitute to retrospective leave for which an adjustment must be made:

• Entering a new as well as approved leave for a prior year
• When approving an unapproved leave for a prior year
• The duration of leave for a prior year is changed
• Deleting/removing leave for a prior year
• The paid/unpaid status of a leave for a prior year is changed
  Important

  Annual/personal leave that is unpaid and falls within the current company year but before the employee’s most recent “anniversary date” still needs to be treated as leave for a prior year for the purposes of long service leave accruals as the cut-off date for long service leave has passed.

Adjusting Carried Over Balance for Retrospective Leave

When retrospective leave is created, modified or removed, this will change the leave balance on the rollover date for that year as a different amount of “leave taken” must be “deducted” from the balance. If the retrospective leave is unpaid, this will also change the amount of leave accrued for that year (because leave accrues at different rates during unpaid leave).

When a retrospective leave is created, approved, modified or removed, you can adjust as follows:

1. Open the employee card of an employee, whose retrospective leave you want to adjust, and then, on the General tab, click Absences.
2. In the Employee Absence Summary window, in the Type field, select the type of the retrospective leave.
3. In the Report Date field, enter the rollover date for the year of the retrospective leave, and then click View.
4. Note the leave balance on the rollover date (this is the Closing Balance).
5. In the Report Date field, enter the rollover date for the next year, and then click View.
6. Note that the Carried Over balance from the previous year does not match the noted closing balance. Therefore, you need to update the Carried Over balance.
7. Click Time and Attendance > Absence Lists > Vacation Carried Over.
8. Locate the Carried Over record with the corresponding employee, leave type, start date and expiration date.
9. Select the Carried Over record, and then click Edit Item. Then update the carried over amount to match the noted Closing Balance for the previous year, and then click Save.
10. Return to the Employee Absence Summary window and note the new Leave Balance.
11. Repeat steps 6 through 10 to update the Carried Over Balance for every year after our retrospective leave record up to the current year.
    
    Note

    If the retrospective leave is unpaid, you must repeat this procedure for all accruing leave types (annual leave, personal/carer’s leave and long service leave).

Example

Alexander took 6 days of annual leave on 21/12/2022, but it was not noted and processed before the end of the year on 31/12/2022. We need to create a retrospective leave, and the adjust the carried over balance.

1. Open Alexander's employee card, and then, on the General tab, click Absences.
2. In the Employee Absence Summary window, in the Report Date field, enter the rollover date of 31/12/2022 and observe that Alexander's Closing Balance for annual leave is 14.5 days.
3. Click Register Absence and register a new annual leave for 6 days on 21/12/2022, and approve it.
4. Return to the Employee Absence Summary window for 31/12/2022 and note that the new Closing Balance is 8.5 days.
5. Now, in the Reporting Date field, enter the rollover date for the next year 01/01/2023, and then click View.
6. Note that the Carried Over balance of 14.5 from the previous year does not match our noted Closing Balance of 8.5. We will need to update the “Carried Over” balance.
7. Click Time and Attendance > Absence Lists > Vacation Carried Over.
8. Locate the Carried Over record for the employee Alexander Ganz, leave type Vacation, start date 1/1/2023 and expiration date 31/12/2023.
9. Select the Carried Over record, and then click Edit Item. 
10. Update the carried over amount from 14.5 to 8.5 days matching the noted Closing Balance, and then click Save.
11. Return to the Employee Absence Summary window and, in the Report Date field, enter 01/01/2023 to verify that the Carried Over balance has been updated to 8.5 matching the noted Closing Balance.
12. Repeat steps 7 through 12 for every year up to the current year.