Time accounts

Time accounts are the balances that track accrued and consumed time — vacation days, flex hours, time bank hours, and similar. Policies add to and draw from these accounts so employees and managers always see an up-to-date balance.

Overview

An account defines what kind of balance it holds and the unit it’s measured in. Time off policies and settlement policies reference accounts to record what an employee earns and uses, and the employment terms name the flex account.

Each account carries:

Name and description
Type — Time off or Allowance
Unit — Days or Hours
GL code (optional) — a general-ledger code for payroll and accounting exports
Show on dashboard (optional) — put this account’s balance on the current period card of the employee dashboard
Hide from employees (optional) — keep this account off the employee dashboard and timesheet balance cards, even when Show on dashboard is on

Manage time accounts

Go to Settings › Time Accounts
Use Add Account to create a new one
Click a row to open the account editor

Configure an account

Name — the label shown on balances and statements
Description — optional details
Type — Time off for balances that can be taken as time off — vacation, and usually also flex and time banks. Allowance for other balances of hours that are never taken as time off
Unit — Days or Hours. Time off accounts default to days and Allowance accounts to hours, but you can change this when creating the account.
Scale time off with work pattern — (day-based accounts only) for part-time schedules, a working day off draws a larger share of the fixed entitlement, so a full week off always costs the same number of days (Danish statutory vacation)
GL Code — optional general-ledger code carried into exports
Show on dashboard — turn on to show this account’s balance on the employee’s dashboard, on the current period card. It is off for new accounts
Hide from employees — turn on to keep this account off the employee dashboard card and the timesheet period card. It wins over Show on dashboard

The Type and Unit are fixed once the account is created, because existing balances depend on them. To change either, create a new account. Scale time off with work pattern can no longer be changed once any employee holds a balance on the account.

What employees see

The employee’s dashboard shows, on its current period card, every account with Show on dashboard turned on, whatever the account’s type:

The flex account and the time banks a settlement policy feeds (such as comp time) show the balance held today, the period’s movement, and what the period close leaves.
Any other account, such as vacation or senior days, shows one line: the balance the account holds today. Unlike the time off widget, it does not subtract time off that is planned or waiting for approval, and it does not count what will be earned later. The two figures can differ, and that is intended.

Accounts that were on the dashboard before this setting existed (flex accounts and time banks fed by a settlement policy) have it turned on. A flex account you create now stays off the dashboard until you turn it on.

The timesheet period card shows the flex account and the time banks a settlement policy feeds, each with the current balance and the period’s movement. Turn on Hide from employees to keep a specific account — for example an internal accumulator — off both views.

Using accounts in policies

An account only fills with a balance once a policy is attached to it. Set up accrual and consumption rules on your time off policies and settlement rules on your settlement policies, which then post to the accounts you’ve defined here.

Reasons Employee data retention