Setting up Leave Priorities

Leave Priorities are a means of automatically pushing employees to take another leave type when they have used up their available balance of leave type that was applied for. In this way a company can ensure that certain leave types are exhausted before others, and that employees do not go into a negative leave balances.

Leave Priorities work by trying to take from the top leave type first, regardless of what leave type is requested (as long as the requested leave type is part of the leave priority).

The exception is the bottom leave type (which is always a Take leave type). The bottom leave type is always a Take because these leave types do not have a balance and therefore can never have a negative balance, allowing them to catch all remaining leave hours requested.

For this reason, Take leave types cannot exist anywhere but the bottom in a leave priority.

Leave priorities are best described through example:

Lieu > Annual Leave > LWOP

Scenario 1: Lieu is requested by the employee.

Lieu is taken first. If the employee has insufficient Lieu leave then Annual Leave will be used. If their Annual Leave balance is exhausted then the remainder will be processed as LWOP.

Scenario 2: Annual leave is requested by the employee.

Lieu are taken first, not Annual Leave. If the employee has insufficient Lieu leave, Annual Leave and then LWOP will be used the same as in Scenario 1.

By default, Leave Priorities are only used when the Leave Request system is utilised to add leave to employee pay packets. Adding leave taken components into the pay packet manually through the Add Component tab will override any Leave Priorities set in the company.

Payroll Administrators have the ability to enable Leave Priorities for use in Timesheets. This setting can be found in the Pay Group tab > Timesheets, as shown below.

To create a new Leave Priority, navigate to the Company tab > Leave Types > right – click on the Leave Type you wish to create the Leave Priority for and select “Create Leave Priority Group”

A new Leave Priority will appear as a new section beneath your existing Leave Types.

To add further Leave Types to this, simply click on the Leave Type and drag it down to the correct position within the Leave Priority and release.

Add and reorder further Leave Types as required until you have the desired order and then save your screen.

You can create further Leave Priorities as required, however be careful not to have conflicting priorities set up. As a general guide, Take leave types can be in multiple Leave Priorities, however Leave Types that hold a balance should only be in one.