Best staff holiday tracking software - possibly linked to payroll ?

[Talay]

We need some good holiday tracking software which might be useful to link in with payroll given we might bring that back in house from the accountants.

I was advised to look at Payroll Manager or something similar years ago but we outsourced it for years and I have no idea now.

If we did bring payroll in house, can one system do both ?

 

[mattk]

How many workers do you have?

 

[Newchodge]

I don't know of any payroll software that can accurately assess holiday pay and entitlement for people on varied hours or who get paid anything other than nomral salary. It is a huge gap in the market but it is also complicated. Payroll Manager has a calendar that allows you to enter holiday and so track what has been taken but that is the easiest part of the issue amd can be done equally well with pen and paper.

 

[Cookie monster 00]

I do agree it leaves you in a very difficult position. It becomes very tempting to make sure all staff are on fixed hours per week at a fixed hourly rate that doesn't vary then you can work out holiday pay with great ease.

E.g. for 1 week of the 5.6 at 8.91 working 24 hours per week you just pay £213.84. But then you have the problem that it might not be what the business needs and then you have the tail wagging the dog because theres no simple computer programme that will do it!

 

[Nexilis HR Solutions]

Breathe HR are very reasonable and user friendly. There is no payroll services as yet but they are due to launch one shortly

 

[Cookie monster 00]

Hi Nexilis

I have had a look at breathe with the 2 week free trial. Seems a bit limited in my opinion. Such as holiday is calculated in either hours or days - no option for weeks, which as Newchodge always reminds folk on here the best way to do it is in weeks - especially in contracts etc...

Breathe doesn't scream to me that is capable of handling something like

Week 46 - 10 hrs
Week 47 19 hrs
Week 48 3 hrs 2 days SSP
Week 49 6 days SSP, 4 hrs
Week 50 39 hrs, 2 hrs Overtime


And then using that data to calculate holiday entitlement


I think thats more what I'd be looking for (same as OP) and I think is far beyond the scope/budget - I am sure oracle etc... are capable of working this sort of thing out, but I don't think they're interested in small fry etc...!

I might have not gotten to grips with Breathe but do you know if it does do anything like that?

 

[Talay]

We currently track holidays in Excel. Staff request time off, it is reviewed against all other staff in that location and approved. The problem comes when there are changes, which often happen last minute and can be accommodated from a business perspective because of the known workloads that day or week. Transcribing this back to the Excel spreadsheet is a task we are not perfect at.

Additionally, 365 days a year with 50+ employees and you have nearly 20,000 data input points and it is very easy to make a mistake, to enter data against the wrong line and once compromised, the whole thing becomes a liability more than an asset.

Years ago I played with Kashflow a while and that had some non integrated holiday calendar. I would have thought it was an easy progression for payroll software as all the employee data is already there.

 

[IanSuth]

Just a thought, all temp agencies have to deal with this kind of thing every week. It might be worth looking at some software designed for small temp agencies. They even have to deal with differing holiday entitlements between temps (after 12 weeks have to match the clients entitlement)

Years ago we used to use one called EARNIE but it got taken over by Iris and changed - i am sure there are other more current ones around.

 

[Toon]

We use People HR. Good but expensive as it includes many other things rather than just holidays.

 

[Cookie monster 00]

I have had a slight further thought about this for the calculation with variable hours.

If you can accurately predict the hours over a longer period. Say with an annual hours contract then you could have terms and conditions which state something like:

Annual hours of 1560. Hours of work will vary each week with a minimum of 20 and a maximum of 40.

Paid 5.6 weeks holiday per year.

For each holiday week you'll get pay of 1/52th of the annual hours

This is assuming that the hourly rate was always the same amount, no overtime pay etc...
Might be an option for some folk if you can predict hours over the course of a year with the flexibility to vary the hours each week

 

[Newchodge]

I have had a slight further thought about this for the calculation with variable hours.

If you can accurately predict the hours over a longer period. Say with an annual hours contract then you could have terms and conditions which state something like:

Annual hours of 1560. Hours of work will vary each week with a minimum of 20 and a maximum of 40.

Paid 5.6 weeks holiday per year.

For each holiday week you'll get pay of 1/52th of the annual hours

This is assuming that the hourly rate was always the same amount, no overtime pay etc...
Might be an option for some folk if you can predict hours over the course of a year with the flexibility to vary the hours each week

I'm afraid that doesn't meet the legal requirements. If you have that much certainty it is far better to give a minimum hours contract (20 in your example). then 5.6 weeks' holiday =112hours with the rate of pay, calculated every time they take holiday, as the average of the previous 52 weeks' pay.

 

[Cookie monster 00]

I'm afraid that doesn't meet the legal requirements. If you have that much certainty it is far better to give a minimum hours contract (20 in your example). then 5.6 weeks' holiday =112hours with the rate of pay, calculated every time they take holiday, as the average of the previous 52 weeks' pay.

I think I was trying to avoid the issue of variable hours on a minimum of 20 by instead turning it into a fixed annual amount of hours?

I was proposing that they have an average of 30 hours per week over the year (30x52=1560 hrs). Within a range of 20 to 40 hours per week (to give employee some certainty r/e earnings).

With the contract that makes reference only to the annual hours of 1560.

And then simply pay 30 hours for each full week of holiday pay?

 

[Newchodge]

I think I was trying to avoid the issue of variable hours on a minimum of 20 by instead turning it into a fixed annual amount of hours?

I was proposing that they have an average of 30 hours per week over the year (30x52=1560 hrs). Within a range of 20 to 40 hours per week (to give employee some certainty r/e earnings).

With the contract that makes reference only to the annual hours of 1560.

And then simply pay 30 hours for each full week of holiday pay?

Which diesn't meet the legal requirement that a week's holiday pay must be the average of the previous 52 normal paid weeks, calculated at the commencement of the period of holiday.

 

[Cookie monster 00]

Which diesn't meet the legal requirement that a week's holiday pay must be the average of the previous 52 normal paid weeks, calculated at the commencement of the period of holiday.

I've done bit more reading around and I found this website here

Annualised Hours: Benefits, Challenges & Best Practices | DavidsonMorris

Discover how annualised hours contracts work, their benefits for employers and employees and key considerations for implementing them in the UK.

www.davidsonmorris.com

Which says about annual hours
For example, if the working day is 7.5 hours’ long, for five days a week, then the working week is 37.5 hours and the total for one year would be 1,950 (37.5 x 52 weeks).

You would then deduct annual leave of 150 hours (20 days x 7.5 hours) and statutory bank holidays of 60 hours (8 days x 7.5 hours), which leaves you with a total number of hours for the year of 1,740.

Which reads to me that you can just pay 210 hours at £hourly rate over 5.6 weeks as holiday pay. Without the need to calculate an average assuming each hour is worth the same.

 

[Newchodge]

I've done bit more reading around and I found this website here

Annualised Hours: Benefits, Challenges & Best Practices | DavidsonMorris

Discover how annualised hours contracts work, their benefits for employers and employees and key considerations for implementing them in the UK.

www.davidsonmorris.com

Which says about annual hours
For example, if the working day is 7.5 hours’ long, for five days a week, then the working week is 37.5 hours and the total for one year would be 1,950 (37.5 x 52 weeks).

You would then deduct annual leave of 150 hours (20 days x 7.5 hours) and statutory bank holidays of 60 hours (8 days x 7.5 hours), which leaves you with a total number of hours for the year of 1,740.

Which reads to me that you can just pay 210 hours at £hourly rate over 5.6 weeks as holiday pay. Without the need to calculate an average assuming each hour is worth the same.

The piece you quote makes no mention whatsoever of the amount to be paid.

 

[Cookie monster 00]

The piece you quote makes no mention whatsoever of the amount to be paid.

Thats what I was wondering, because I see it as 2 separate things hours and pay. Which are different. But if pay/hours is at a ratio of 1:1 .

On the basis that your not working variable hours. Your working fixed hours. It just so happens that the fixed hours period is instead of being weekly is annually?

 

[Newchodge]

Thats what I was wondering, because I see it as 2 separate things hours and pay. Which are different. But if pay/hours is at a ratio of 1:1 .

On the basis that your not working variable hours. Your working fixed hours. It just so happens that the fixed hours period is instead of being weekly is annually?

If there is a variation week to week you cannot be certain that the 52 weeks prior to the holiday is always the same as the holiday pay is calculated every time holiday is taken and the annualised hours are calculated over a fixed period.