Initializing Employees' Time Accounts – timr Support

1. Initialize Time account

To set up the time & vacation account, go to the "Time Account". There you select the relevant user and choose "Initialize time account".

1.1. Initialize a new employee

1.1.1. User

To initialize a new employee, select "Employee starts new in the company".

1.1.2. Working time

In the area "Working time" you now define the Work schedule model, monthly overtime allowance and All-In option.

Work schedule model

Here you select the work schedule model that you have previously defined for the employee in the "Administration/Work schedule models" menu.

The work schedule model with the defined weekly working time and the target time per day is the basis for timr to automatically calculate hour and vacation balances. Based on the work schedule model, public holidays or paid absences such as sick leave are also automatically and correctly accounted for in timr.

More information on how to configure Work schedule models you can find in this article.

Monthly overtime allowance

If overtime allowance has been defined in the employment contract, you can specify it here or choose All-In as an option.

If no overtime allowance or all-in has been agreed with the employee, simply leave these fields blank or set the value to 0.

1.1.3. Vacation/holidays

Here you enter the employee's vacation account details.

Unit of vacation account

Define whether leave is managed in days or hours on the leave account. The value of leave entitlement in hours is the same as in days.

Note: You should carefully consider which unit (hours or days) makes sense for the employee before setting up the time account. The unit is selected before the time account is initialized and cannot be changed after initialization!

In days: If the weekly working time for your employees is constant and also evenly distributed over the weekdays, the unit in days is the best solution.

In hours: If it is planned that an employee changes the working time model, i.e. the weekly working time increases or decreases, or the target hours vary depending on the day of the week, the leave account should be managed in hours.
If you select "Hours", the vacation entitlement in the "Vacation per year" field will still be in days. However, the actual vacation entitlement will then be calculated in hours, based on the daily hours average of the weekly working hours.

Example how vacation in hours is calculated: If an employee has a 5-day week in which he works 8:30 hours from MO-DO and 6 hours on FR, the daily average is calculated from these working hours (8 hours in the given example). If an employee has 25 days of vacation, the vacation balance is initialized to 25x8 = 200 hours.

Vacation entitlement per year
Here you specify the general annual vacation entitlement of the employee.

Start of the vacation year
Specify the start of the vacation year. The start of the vacation year is usually either 01/01 or the employee's entry date.

Holiday calendar
Enter the holiday calendar valid for the employee. You can create and edit the public holiday calendar in the "Administration/Holidays" menu.

1.1.4. Start balance

In the last step of the initialization you define the first working day. If the first working day and the start of the vacation year do not coincide, you can enter the aliquot vacation entitlement for the first year here.

Example1: First working day is 1.3. and the vacation year starts with the entry date, i.e. also on 1.3., no aliquot first year leave needs to be entered here, as timr automatically adds the leave entitlement.

Example2: The first working day is 1.3., but you have set the vacation year as 1.1. In this case, enter an aliquot first-year vacation. The entitlement if you start in March is therefore 10/12ths. In the following year on 1.1. timr automatically adds the new entitlement.

1.2 Initialize existing employee

1.2.1 User

To initialize an existing user select: "Initialize time account for an existing user".

1.2.2. Working time

In the "Working time" area, you define the working time model and information on the overtime flat rate or all-in. For more details, see "1.1.2. Working time".

1.2.3. Vacation/Holidays

Here you store details of the employee's vacation account. Further details can be found above under "1.1.3. Vacation/Holidays".

1.2.4. Balance

In the last step of initialization you can enter the balances of the time account and the leave account. For example, if there is overtime from the time before initialization or remaining vacation, it will be entered here.

Balance by
For "Balance by", select the date on which you want to specify the hours and leave balance for the start of the time account.

Note: The date of "Balance by" must be the day before the date on which you want to start the time account. For example, if you want to start the time account on 1/1/2021, select 12/31/2020 for "Balance by".

Balance Time Account
At Balance Time Account you enter the plus or minus hours the user has at the start of the time account. Of course, the employee can also start at 0.

Balance Vacation Account
For Balance Vacation Account, specify the remaining leave entitlement the user has from the initialization of the Time & Vacation Account until the end of the current leave year.

Note: timr adds the entitlement for the coming year automatically each time the leave year starts.

Example1: If the leave year starts on 01/01/2021 and the initialization is done with 12/31/2020, the entitlement for 2021 will be added automatically.

Example2: If the initialization is carried out with 31.01. and the vacation year begins on 01.01., then the aliquot vacation entitlement for the remaining year must be entered, i.e. 11/12th. Only in the following year the entitlement will be added automatically on 01/01.

Example3: If you define during initialization that the vacation year begins on 01/31, the new entitlement will only be added on this date.

Complete the configuration with "Initialize time account".

2. Reset or undo initialization

If after setting up the time account you find that you have not entered the hour or vacation balance correctly, you can undo the initialization. To do this, go to the edit icon next to the initialization in the Time Account. Select "Undo" here and confirm this in the next message window.

Afterwards, you can set up the time account again as described above under 1. Initialize time account.

Note: Undoing the initialization has no direct effect on time entries that have already been entered, but only affects the information on the hours and leave balance at the start of the time account.

If you have already created a monthly closing, you must first undo this as well in order to undo the initialization. If there are multiple balances, they must be undone from "top to bottom".

Tip: If you have forgotten to post the balance for the time account or the remaining vacation from the previous year and have already made several closings, you also have the alternative of correcting the time account (balance overtime) or the vacation. Both correction entries appear as an entry in the "Time & leave account" and are taken into account in the time or leave account.