SMB has an incredibly powerful holiday allocation calculation engine, allowing for a wide range of business rules and scenarios to be automatically processed each holiday year. However, given the level of flexibility offered by the system, sometimes holiday allocations aren’t calculated in the way you would expect them to. While this is almost always caused by an incorrect setting, it can be difficult at first glance to pinpoint which particular setting has caused the difference in calculation. This short troubleshooting guide should help you understand, identify and resolve any issues with absence allocation.
The Allocation Calculation Process
First of all, a refresher on how SMB calculates holiday allocations. SMB uses a combination of the base full-time allocation settings, the percentage of the year covered and the percentage of holiday allocated by the employee’s working hour pattern to perform the overall holiday allocation.
As an example, an employee who has an allocation of 28 days including bank holidays, who works full time and is working the full year, will have their allocation calculated as:
Base Full Time allocation setting: 28 days including bank holidays
How much of the year are they working?: 100%, so allocation is still 28 days
What percentage of the week do they work, based on their working hour pattern?: 100%, so the allocation is still 28 days
Final allocation: 28 days.
For a more complex illustration, let’s have an employee with a base allocation set to 30 days, who joined the company 3 months into the holiday year and works 3 days a week out of 5. This would be calculated as:
Base Full Time allocation setting: 30 days including bank holidays
How much of the year are they working?: 75%, so allocation is pro-rated from 30 to 22.5 days
What percentage of the week do they work, based on their working hour pattern?: 60% (3 days out of 5), so the allocation is further pro-rated from 22.5 days to 13.5 days
Final allocation: 13.5 days.
Public/Bank Holidays
Bank holidays can be managed as part of the allocation calculation process and automatically booked as absences against the employee’s record. How this is achieved is based on three main settings:
- Which bank holiday calendar is assigned to the employee?
SMB allows for multiple concurrent calendars – or schedules – to be managed in the system, allowing you to populate different bank holidays for different territories. The calendar to use is assigned as part of the employee’s working hour record. - Are bank holidays pro-rated against the allocation?
When calculating the base full time allocation, bank holidays can either be pro-rated (all bank holidays for the year are included in the base allocation, regardless of the period covered, then pro-rated where employees are working less than the full year) or not pro-rated, in which case only the bank holidays that fall during working days are included. - Does the working hour pattern assigned to the employee allow for bank holidays?
The working hour pattern assigned to the employee will be set to include bank holidays or not: if not set to include bank holidays, then bank holidays for the duration that the employee has the working hour pattern assigned to them will be ignored.
For a full-time employee, working the full year, pro-rating bank holidays has no effect, as they are pro-rating to 100% of the year. However, when an employee is working less than a full year or working part time, pro-rating can have a significant impact.
Using our 3-day a week employee as described above, with the assumption that there are 8 bank holidays in the full year, one of which falls in the first three months of the year, here’s how these would be calculated based on the different scenarios. We will also assume the employee works Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and that two of the bank holidays fall on a Friday.
With bank holidays pro-rated, the full calculation would run as:
Base Full Time allocation setting: 22 days plus bank holidays
All bank holidays for the year are included in the base allocation, so this is calculated as 30 days as the base full year allocation (22 days holiday plus 8 bank holidays)
How much of the year are they working?: 75%, so the 30 day allocation is pro-rated to 22.5 days
What percentage of the week do they work, based on their working hour pattern?: 60% (3 days out of 5), so the allocation is further pro-rated from 22.5 days to 13.5 days
How many bank holidays are deducted as absence?: 5 days (They were not working for the first bank holiday and two fall on non-working days)
Final allocation: 13.5 days total allocation. 5 days booked as bank holiday. 8.5 days bookable holiday remaining.
If bank holidays are not pro-rated, the calculation would be:
Base Full Time allocation setting: 22 days plus bank holidays
This is calculated as 22 days as the base full year allocation. Bank holidays are added after pro-rating has happened
How much of the year are they working?: 75%, so the allocation is pro-rated from 22 days to 16.5 days
What percentage of the week do they work, based on their working hour pattern?: 60% (3 days out of 5), so the allocation is further pro-rated from 16.5 days to 10 days
How many bank holidays fall on working days?: 5 days (They were not working for the first bank holiday and two fall on non-working days) These days are added to the calculated allocation and then booked as absence.
Final allocation: 15 days total allocation. 5 days booked as bank holiday. 10 days bookable holiday remaining.
So now we can see how the allocation is generally calculated, let’s look at how SMB can help you view and correct the calculation information.
Understanding The Employee’s Calculation
The first step in understanding how the employee’s allocation has been produced is to check the calculation description for the year in question. To see this, first navigate to the employee’s record from the “Employees” option on the main menu, then click on the “View/Edit Allocation” button on the dashboard, in the “Absence Allocation” panel.
The page shown is then broken down into two halves: The top half of the page shows the current allocation and how it has been calculated, while the second half shows the allocation settings for the selected year. For diagnosing the allocation, we are interested in the top half of the page – specifically the “Calculations” description, which will look something like this:
“This allocation covers the period from 01-Jan-2023 to 31-Dec-2023, which is equal to 100% of the annual holiday period.
The allocation has been calculated thus:
All calculations are based on a full-time allocation of 20 days plus public holidays plus any days added from the allocation schedule. As public holidays are pro-rated, this total allocation includes all public holidays in this period which are pro-rated in line with the calculations below.
From 01-Jan-2023 to 31-Dec-2023 (100% of the year), this employee is working to the 'Full time' working hour pattern, which has a holiday percentage of 100.00% of the working week. For this period, a total of 34 days are allocated to the employee, including 9 public holidays. The public holidays have been automatically deducted, leaving a final bookable allocation of 25 holiday days for this period.
For this period, 1 day has been added to the allocation by manual adjustment, 2 days have been carried over from the previous period and 2 days have been added in lieu, leaving a final bookable allocation of 30 days in total.
In addition to the base allocation, this employee has been given 5 additional days from the allocation schedule. This is included in the calculation above and will have been pro-rated in line with the employee's working hours.”
Your calculation may be shorter than this, but the base elements are the same. To understand the calculation, and how to rectify it, we will walk through this a block at a time.
Paragraph 1: Date Range Covered
The first paragraph details the date range the allocation covers. The base full time allocation will be based on the date range shown.
“This allocation covers the period from 01-Oct-2022 to 30-Sep-2023, which is equal to 100% of the annual holiday period. This is shorter than the full holiday period because the employee's leaving date is before the end of the holiday year.”
This is typically the full holiday year, unless the employee has a start date or a leaving date that falls within the holiday year, where you will see an additional line that says something like:
“This is shorter than the full holiday period because the employee's start date is after the start of the holiday year”
Or
“This is shorter than the full holiday period because the employee's leaving date is before the end of the holiday year.”
If the employee has a leaving date earlier than the start of the holiday year (in cases where an employee has a leaving date set but has not yet been marked as leaving the business, they will have an allocation of zero days and a message that says:
“Note: This employee has a leaving date set before the start of this period. If this is incorrect, you may remove the leaving date by clicking here and clicking on the red 'Clear Record' button at the bottom of the Leaving form.”
Fixing The Date Range
If the employee’s start date is incorrect, you can update this by returning to the employee’s dashboard and clicking on the “Edit Details” button, then correcting the Employment Start Date field on that page.
If the employee’s leaving date is incorrect, or the employee should not have a leaving date, return to the employee’s dashboard and click on the “Leaving” option at the top of the page, then click on the “Remove Leaving Date” button to clear the leaving date.
In both cases, the holiday allocation will be automatically updated to reflect the change.
Paragraph 2: Base Full-time allocation
The next paragraph explains the assumptions the system is working to when creating the base full time allocation (the amount that will be pro-rated in line with the hours worked and will read something like this when bank holidays are pro-rated:
“All calculations are based on a full-time allocation of 20 days plus public holidays plus any days added from the allocation schedule. As public holidays are pro-rated, this total allocation includes all public holidays in this period which are pro-rated in line with the calculations below.”
Or like this when bank holidays are not pro-rated:
“All calculations are based on a full-time allocation of 20 days excluding public holidays plus any days added from the allocation schedule. As public holidays are not pro-rated, only public holidays that fall on working days are included in the final calculation and are added to the pro-rated calculation.”
Correcting The Base Full-time Allocation:
If the base full time amount (20 days in these examples) is not correct, check the value in the “Holiday Allocation” field beneath the calculation. If the value is not correct, simply adjust as required and submit the form to recalculate the allocation
If the setting for bank holiday pro-rating is not correct, then return to the employee’s dashboard and click on the “Settings” button in the “Absence Allocation” panel, then click on the “Edit Calculation Rule” button at the top of the page and change the pro-rata setting as required.
Paragraph 3: Working Hours Calculation(s)
Now that the base full time allocation has been set, the system will now work through all working hour patterns assigned to the employee and process the allocation for the part of the year the employee worked to that pattern. In most cases, there will only be one pattern, so a single paragraph like this will be shown. If the employee changed working hours during the year, there will be a paragraph like this for each working pattern:
“From 01-Jan-2023 to 31-Dec-2023 (100% of the year), this employee is working to the 'Full time' working hour pattern, which has a holiday percentage of 100.00% of the working week. For this period, a total of 34 days are allocated to the employee, including 9 public holidays. The public holidays have been automatically deducted, leaving a final bookable allocation of 25 holiday days for this period.”
In this example, the employee has worked to this pattern for the full year:
“From 01-Jan-2023 to 31-Dec-2023 (100% of the year), this employee is working to the 'Full time' working hour pattern”
For this duration, the system then checks the holiday percentage for this pattern (the percentage of a full time allocation the employee would receive working to this pattern):
“which has a holiday percentage of 100.00% of the working week”
Then, the full time allocation for the period the employee has worked this pattern is calculated:
“For this period, a total of 34 days are allocated to the employee”
Finally, the system will work out how many bank holidays fall on working days for the employee and deducts those as absence, leaving the bookable allocation for this period:
“including 9 public holidays. The public holidays have been automatically deducted, leaving a final bookable allocation of 25 holiday days for this period.”
If the working hour pattern has been set to exclude public holidays, then no bank holidays will be attributed and this will be shown in the description in bold, like this:
“From 01-Apr-2023 to 31-Dec-2023 (75.27% of the year), this employee is marked as working to the 'Mon - Wed' working hour pattern, which has a holiday percentage of 60.00% of the working week. This working pattern does not include public holidays, so any bank holidays for this period have not been included in calculations.”
Fix: Check the working hour pattern settings
The two Working Hour Pattern settings that can impact the allocation are the Holiday Percentage (the amount of pro-rated allocation an employee receives working to this pattern) and the option to Include Public Holidays. If either of these are incorrect, they can be changed by going to Administration > Working Hours and editing the pattern named in the description. If you adjust the holiday percentage as required and/or change the setting to Include Public Holidays, check the “Recalculate” button to update any affected allocations and submit the form, this will correct the allocation.
Paragraph 4: Adjustments
Next, any adjustments to the allocation are listed, specifically if any days have been added in-lieu, if any manual adjustments have been added and if any days are marked as being carried over from the previous holiday period. If no adjustments have been made, this paragraph is not shown.
Any adjustments made are added directly to the pro-rated allocation and are not subject to pro-rating, regardless of the employee’s working hours.
“For this period, 1 day has been added to the allocation by manual adjustment, 2 days have been carried over from the previous period and 2 days have been added in lieu, leaving a final bookable allocation of 30 days in total.”
Fix: Check the in-lieu and manual adjustment settings
If the in-lieu or manual adjustment values are incorrect, check the values entered in the “Manual Adjustment”, “Days/Hours In Lieu” and “Carried Forward” fields in the “Set Allocations” panel on the page, then submit the form to recalculate the allocation.
Fix: Check the Carried Forward settings
If the employee does not have any holiday carried forward from the previous year and you believe they should do, the first thing to check is that an Allocation Schedule has been assigned to the employee. (An Allocation Schedule is a set of rules that tells SMB whether an employee can carry unused allocation from one year to the next and whether an employee should have additional leave based on their length of service). To check this, go back to the employee’s dashboard and click on the ”Settings” button in the Absence Allocation panel and check the information at the top of the page – specifically the line “Current Allocation Schedule”. If this reads “Manual. No schedule assigned” then this means that no rules have been applied to the employee and therefore no automated actions are being taken. To change this, click on the “Change Allocation Schedule” button at the top of the page and select the correct schedule.
NOTE: Assigning a schedule will automatically apply any rules relating to increases to the allocation based on length of service, but the function to calculate carry over is only automatically executed on the first day of the new holiday period. If required, you may re-run this function by going to Administration > Maintenance: Run Carry-over Calculations, or simply manually adjust the carry over for the employee by editing their allocation and updating the “Carried Forward” field as required.
Paragraph 5: Allocation Schedule Adjustment
Finally, if the employee has received any additional leave based on length of service applied by an Allocation Schedule, this will be detailed at the end of the calculation description like this:
“In addition to the base allocation, this employee has been given 5 additional days from the allocation schedule. This is included in the calculation above and will have been pro-rated in line with the employee's working hours.”
Fix: Check the allocation schedule is assigned
If the employee does not have any additional leave based on length of service and you believe they should do, the first thing to check is that an Allocation Schedule has been assigned to the employee. (An Allocation Schedule is a set of rules that tells SMB whether an employee can carry unused allocation from one year to the next and whether an employee should have additional leave based on their length of service). To check this, go back to the employee’s dashboard and click on the ”Settings” button in the Absence Allocation panel and check the information at the top of the page – specifically the line “Current Allocation Schedule”. If this reads “Manual. No schedule assigned” then this means that no rules have been applied to the employee and therefore no automated actions are being taken. To change this, click on the “Change Allocation Schedule” button at the top of the page and select the correct schedule.
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