Company Leave Settings

The Company Leave Settings page defines the default leave settings for all new employees set up within your system.

The settings you see the first time you enter this page are generally suitable for any account. They are based on minimum legal requirements and general assumptions about the type of staff you employ.

Basics:

There are only two main questions you need to ask when configuring this page:

First, "Do we (or does this employer) employ more casual staff or permanent staff?"

Second, "Do most of the staff work regular hours, or do they have highly variable schedules?"

If the answer to the first question is casual, you should tick the "Pay as you go" box under the "Standard Leave Entitlement" section. Otherwise, leave it as is.

If the answer to the second question is that schedules are highly variable, you should tick the "Use Default Hourly Rate for Annual Leave Pay" box under the "Leave Default Pay Rate" section. Otherwise, leave it as is. Note that ideally, employees should have minimum hours in their contracts, so this option is rarely used.

Detailed:

In addition to the basics mentioned above, you can fully customize the default settings. For example, you can give all employees five weeks of annual leave instead of four, disable or enable auto-renewal, and more. Below are details on some of the less obvious changes you can make:

You can set a company anniversary date by using the "or on _________ and every year on that date" option.

You can update the "Region for the Anniversary" if it was entered incorrectly during sign-up.

The options at the bottom allow you to set up an annual shutdown for your staff if this occurs every year, and the other option allows you to calculate annual leave in weeks. See our articles under the FAQ to learn more.

Under "Leave Default Pay Rate," you can untick "Use Relevant Hourly Rate for Calculating Other Leave Pay" if you want to ensure that you always calculate the Average Daily Pay correctly for Other Paid Leave entitlements. This option helps avoid issues with new staff. You can also tick "Use Default Hourly Rate for Annual Leave Pay" to switch to the alternative calculation method for annual leave. See our leave guide in the FAQ.

Under "Determination of OWD for Irregular Working Employees," you can set up the criteria for the statutory pay calculator. It's best to leave it at the defaults, but you can customize it further. More information is available under Process a Pay.

Under "Other Leave Entitlement," you can enable additional types of leave and set the criteria for them. However, the functionality for these leave types is limited, and if your requirements are more complex, they may not be suitable.