Whether you use the wizards or not, you can always directly edit the amount of managed time available for each employee (located just to the right of the "Current Employee" box).

If the amount of managed time (Vacation, Sick, or PTO) that you give to an employee is based on the hours they have worked then the Accrual Wizards will work for you. However, if the amount of managed time depends on something else, for example they get 40 hours of sick leave per year no matter how much they have worked, then you should just add whatever time they have coming directly to the hours of time available.

Our Accrual wizards give you a lot of control over the accrual process.

• You can use either Regular Hours Worked or All Hours Worked (which includes overtime) in the accrual process.
• You can choose to use either the calendar year or a year begriming on each employees employment anniversary as the basic accrual period.
• Managed time can be accrued (and made available for the employees use) at the end of each pay period or at the end of the accrual year.
• You can specify a maximum amount that can be accrued each year. This, of course can be different for each employee and each type of managed time (Vacation,Sick, and PTO).
• You can specify a different Eligibility Date for of the three wizards (Vacation, Sick, PTO) and of course each employee.

Setting Up the Accrual Wizards.

The kind of Accrual Period and kind of hours used by the Accrual Wizards are the same for all employees and and wizards. Choose by clicking on the desired selection.

The Eligibility Dates, Accrual Rates, and Maximum Amount of hours which can be accrued per year must be set for each employee and each wizard. If you don't want to use a particular wizard with a particular employee, just leave the Accrual rate set at zero(0) and that wizard will be turned off for that employee.

This is the date upon which the employee begins to accrue managed time benefits. Managed time is always accrued on the basis of a Pay Period. All of any pay period which is closed after the Eligibility Date will be processed. If this date is not set, the wizard is turned off. Once set, the date can not be unset, but the wizard can be turned off by setting it's accrual rate to zero.

The Accrual Rate

The Accrual Rate can be Calculated by dividing the hours of managed time by the hours it should take to accrue it

The ShopClock Accrual Wizards are based on the notion that the employees will receive a certain amount of vacation, sick, or PTO (Paid Time Off) for each hour they have worked during some period of time. There are undoubtedly many ways to calculate how much time should be give for each hour worked. The following is an example which will at least illustrate how to use the wizards.

First the assumptions; assume that the employee will normally work 2080 hours a year (52 weeks times 40 hours per week), and that you want to give them 2 weeks or 80 hours of vacation time per year. Subtract the amount of vacation time from the hours per year ( 2080 - 80 = 2000). In other words for every 2000 hours they work, the should get 80 hours of vacation time. Now calculate the Accrual Rate by dividing the hours of vacation time by the hours it should take to accrue it (80/2000 = .04) In other words for each hour that they work, they will accrue .04 hours of vacation time. Enter the accrual rate into the appropriate box.

The Accrual Rate also serves as the main On/Off switch for the wizards. The wizards will not accrue time for an employee unless the Accrual Rate is greater than zero. To turn off any of the Accrual functions for any employee, just set the Accrual Rate to zero.

Processing - Accruing Managed Time.

This is the section where the job actually gets done. The wizards always process a year of pay periods ending on the date entered in this section (it always defaults to Today's Date). If you have selected the Calendar Year as the your accrual period, the year will always start on January 1st and all employees will have the same accrual year. All Pay Periods closed between the first of the year and the ending date will be processed. If you have selected to base the accrual year on the employees Employment Anniversary date, each employee will have a different accrual period. You can examine these periods by stepping through each employee. Either way all of each pay period closed within the accrual year will be processed. Each pay period is process only once no matter how many times the year is processed.

There are three ways in which the wizards can be used to accrue managed time:

• Pay Period by Pay Period.
  To run the wizards on a Pay Period by Pay Period basis just click on the 'Process the Accrual Period Ending xx/xx/xxxx for All Active Employees' button (it's the button on the right hand side of the processing section) after closing each pay period. Although the wizards always look at an entire year (so that the Maximum Hours Per Year limit can be enforced), they process each pay period only once.
• At the end of the calendar year.
  Use the same button as when processing each pay period, but only at the end of the calendar year. Although in the long run it doesn't matter, it would make the most sense to have selected "The Calendar Year" as your accrual period when using the wizards in this manner.
• Process each employees on the employees Employment Anniversary
  On or shortly after the employee's employment anniversary process the data for only the "Current Employee by clicking on the button on the left hand side of the processing section.
  

Testing Your Settings

This section is just provided as a way for you to test your settings without making any changes to the data. It allows you to see exactly which data will be processed and how it will be handled. It includes more information than is printed out in the reports. You can examine the raw data by running the history report for the desired accrual period. When running ShopClock holding the mouse pointer of any of the fields (or titles) in this section provides more information about that particular field.