Your accruals are payroll categories that do not impact your employees' gross nor net pay, but will be accrued or earned every pay period or all at once. You must select another payroll category (typically an earning or a benefit) that will serve as the payout for this accrual. Paying it out means that it will decrease the balance in the accrual, such as when your employees take vacation. 

For more information about vacation, please review this article. For more information about sick pay, please review this article.

Creating an Accrual Payroll Category

1. Navigate to Payroll > Payroll Setup > Payroll Categories. 
2. Click the "+ New" button to create a new payroll category. 
3. Select 'Accrual'. 
4. Enter the required fields. 
   1. "Code" refers to the payroll category code - generally a short name or number to identify the payroll category.
   2. "Name" refers to the name of the payroll category - generally a long name to identify the payroll category.
5. Update the optional fields as required: 
   1. "Status" identifies if the payroll category is in use (active) or not (inactive). 
   2. "Basis" identifies what the payroll category is based on - either dollars/salary, units, or script/custom. 
   3. "Default to New Employee" indicates whether this payroll category will be automatically added to new employees (active) or not (inactive). If inactive, you must assign this payroll category to new employees manually. 
   4. "Paystub Abbreviation" is the abbreviation of the payroll category name which will appear on paycards, reports, and paystubs. With accruals, there will be two (2) separate lines on these documents - one of which is the accrual in the pay period and another 'balance' line. 
      Note: The second 'balance' line will take your paystub abbreviation and add "balance" to it. For example, if your paystub abbreviation is "Vac Paid", then the balance line will show "Vac Paid balance". If your paystub abbreviation is too long, your reports and paystubs will not show the word "balance", making it look like there is a duplicate line. 
   5. "Amount" (if basis = salary) or "Rate" (if basis = units) indicates the dollar value or per-unit rate that applies to this payroll category. 
   6. "Order" indicates the order of which this payroll category appears in your reports and paystubs.
   7. "Show on Paystub" identifies if this payroll category will be shown on your employees' paystubs (active) or not (inactive). 
   8. "Units Refer to" (if basis = units or script) identifies what 'units' mean for this payroll category, such as hours or days. 
   9. "Maximum" identifies the maximum for the accrual, if any. Additional options will be required if enabled. 
      1. 'Employee YTD Amount' refer to the year-to-date accrued dollar value. For example, if entering "$1000", then the employee cannot accrue more than $1000 in the year. Note: The maximum does not take opening balances into consideration.
      2. 'Employee YTD Units' refer to the year-to-date accrued units value. For example, if enter "100", then the employee cannot accrue more than 100 units (hours/days) in the year. Note: The maximum does not take opening balances into consideration.
   10. "Reset at Year End" indicates whether this payroll category's balance will reset to zero when closing the year. When enabled, the year-end close process will ask you to reset it to zero or not. If not enabled, the balance will automatically carry over into the new year as the opening balance for the employee. 
6. On the right side, identify the payout payroll category, if any. 
7. If there is any formula to be set to calculate this accrual, set up this information in the 'Formula' tab. Review this article for more information about setting up a formula. 
8. Click the save button to save your changes. The system will ask you if you want to assign this new payroll category to all employees. If you click "OK", it will automatically assign this payroll category to all employees. If you click "No", it will not assign the payroll category to any employee, and you must assign it manually. 

Assigning Accruals to Employees

Assigning or Mass-Updating by Accrual

This option will be useful when updating a single accrual for multiple employees at a time.

1. Navigate to Payroll > Payroll Setup > Assign Payroll Categories. 
2. In the first dropdown field, select the accrual. 
3. In the second dropdown field, select the employee you want to add it to. If you want to assign this payroll category to a whole payroll group, skip this step. 
4. Enter the "Opening Amount", "Opening Units" (if basis = units), "Amount" (if basis = salary), "Rate" (if basis = units), "Units" (if basis = units) fields as required.
5. Click the "+ Add" button to assign the accrual to the specified employee. If assigning it to a whole payroll group, click the "Assign to Payroll Group" button instead and select the payroll group you want to assign it to. 
6. Repeat steps 2 through 5 for each accrual. 

Assigning or Updating by Employee

This option will be useful when updating multiple accruals for one employee at a time.

1. Navigate to Payroll > Payroll Employees > Assign Payroll Category. 
2. In the dropdown field, select the employee you want to update. A list of all assigned payroll categories will be shown at the bottom. 
3. If the accrual is not yet assigned, click the "+ Add" button. Select the accrual and enter the fields as required. Click "Save". 
4. If the accrual is already assigned, scroll down the list of payroll categories to find it and click the 'edit' button to edit the values. Click "Save" to save your changes. 
5. Repeat steps 2 through 4 for each employee.