Create accrual policies – Personio

Tip:
If you’re using the setup experience, follow its steps to complete the setup there.

Accrual policies indicate how many times employees can take a specific absence type. Whether you need to create an accrual policy for an absence type depends on how many times employees can take the absence:

An unlimited number of times: You don't need to create an accrual policy, as you are only recording the number of days/hours, instead of deducting them from a total count. For example: sick days and remote work.

A limited number of times: You need to create an accrual policy, so that the system automatically subtracts the number of days/hours taken from a total count. For example: paid vacation and parental leave.

Create a new accrual policy for an absence type

To create a new accrual policy for an absence type, follow these steps:

Go to Settings > Work Hours and Absences > Absence.
Select the absence type you want to create an accrual policy for.
Click Add new accrual policy to open the creation drawer.
Fill out each of the sections in the drawer, described in detail below.
Check the final policy summary, and click Confirm and create.

General settings

Enter a name for the policy, and choose an option in the Country-specific rules dropdown menu. If you choose a country, you will:

Access exclusive recommended settings.
Ensure that the policy you create is compliant with that country's regulations.
See country-specific recommendations during the policy creation.

Granting

Decide how many days or hours to grant, and when and how to grant them:

Setting	Description
Annual entitlement	The amount of hours/days granted in a year.
Accrual year start	The day when the holiday year starts and the employee starts receiving their entitlement. Carry-over rules apply from this day.
Granting method	How the employee receives the entitlement: For hourly absences, choose either to grant all at once, or in monthly installments. For daily absences, choose between the following options: yearly, half-yearly, quarterly, and monthly. If you choose the monthly option, decide if the employee receives the entitlement at the start of every month, or at the end of every fully worked month. This applies to both daily and hourly absences.
Apply temporary granting mode at employment start?	With this option, you may limit the entitlement granted at the start of a new employment. Choose how many months this rule applies for, and how many days or hours to grant during each month. At the end of this period, the standard granting method comes into effect.

Proration

With these settings, you can decide if and how to reduce an employee's entitlement proportionally, based on their working time or when they join or leave in the middle of a cycle. These options are available for both daily and hourly absences.

Setting	Description
Proration at the start/end of employment	When an employee joins or leaves the company mid-cycle, you can choose to: Not prorate the annual entitlement, granting it in full. Prorate based on the months remaining in the cycle. Prorate based on the days remaining in the cycle. For example: An employee with an annual entitlement of 24 days joins the company on May 10th. You decide to prorate it. With monthly proration, they receive 14 days: (24 days a year / 12 months) x 7 remaining months. With daily proration, they receive 15.35 days: 14 days as above + (2 days a month / 31 days) x 21 remaining days. The rounding rule explained below applies.
Proration for part-time employees	When an employee works a reduced amount of days or hours, you can choose to: Not prorate the annual entitlement, granting it in full. Prorate by weekly working days: The system takes into account the number of days employees work in a week against their work schedule’s reference value. Prorate by weekly working hours: The system takes into account the Weekly hours attribute in the employee’s Personal Info tab. The system also prorates tenure-based extra entitlement according to this rule. For example: An employee works 15 hours over 3 days of the week. You assign them an accrual policy with an entitlement of 24 days, and decide to prorate it. With the weekly working days proration, they receive 14,4 days: 24 x 3/5. The rounding rule explained below applies. With the weekly working hours proration, they receive 9 days: 24 x 15/40.
Rounding rule	This applies to yearly granting cycles, when the annual entitlement is not a whole number. The rounding rule doesn't apply to monthly entitlements.

Carryover

Decide if employees can carry any unused entitlement to the following years. If so, you may limit the number of days or hours they can carry over, and set a cutoff period measured in months.

Before changing the carryover settings of an already existing accrual policy, read our dedicated article.

Tenure-based rules

Decide if you want to reward tenured employees with permanent extra entitlement. You may choose between one-off or recurring rewards:

For one-off rewards, set how many days or hours to reward, and after how many years to reward them. Click Add Rule to add more rewards.
For recurring rewards, set how many days or hours to reward, and the reward frequency, in years. Click Add end-point to stop the rewards after a certain amount of years.

If you have set the accrual year to start on a date other than the employee’s anniversary, set a reward granting moment.

You can choose to either grant the reward on the accrual year start after the employee’s work anniversary, or on the anniversary day. If you choose the latter, you may prorate the reward in the first year of granting, based on the anniversary date.

Assign the accrual policy to employees

Before going ahead and assigning the accrual policy to the employees, make sure that you are happy with the accrual policy settings, as you won't be able to edit it once it has been assigned to the employees. You can only edit accrual policies while they are not assigned to any employee.

To assign an accrual policy to a single employee, go to their profile and click Absence > relevant absence > Assign policy.

To assign the accrual policy to several employees at once, follow these steps:

Go to Employee list.
Select all the employees you want to assign the accrual policy to and click Actions > Change accrual policy.
Select the relevant absence type and the accrual policy you would like to assign.

In Applicable from, select one of the following options:

Hire date

The new policy is assigned retroactively, with effect from the employee's hire date. All previously assigned accrual policies are overwritten.

When assigning the accrual policy to an employee for the very first time, select the Hire date option.

Start of the current period

The new policy is assigned retroactively. Depending on the option you have selected for the application of the policy setting (Accrual year start), the policy is assigned either with effect from the specific date of the year you have selected of the current accrual year or from the current anniversary of the employee hire date.

Next entitlement period

The new policy is assigned with future effect. Depending on the option you have selected for the application of the policy setting (Accrual year start), the policy is assigned either with effect from the specific date of the year you have selected in the next accrual year or from the next anniversary of the employee hire date.

Click Update policy to implement the changes.
Vacation time will then be automatically calculated based on the assigned accrual policy. The validity date is clearly displayed once you have selected your preferred application option.
Optional: To display a historical overview of all assigned accrual policies, click Show history > Policy History.

Archive, copy, or delete an accrual policy

Archive an accrual policy

When you archive a policy, you won't be able to assign the policy to employees anymore. Employees who are still assigned to the policy still see it and use it as the basis for their accruals. In other words, archiving the accrual policy doesn't affect the employees' absence balances and entitlement. This action is permanent, and you won't be able to restore the accrual policy. Follow these steps:

Go to Settings > Work Hours and Absences > Absence and select the relevant absence type.
Scroll down to the relevant accrual policy.
Click the accrual policy, then the three dots > Archive.
In the pop-up window, click Archive to confirm.

Copy an accrual policy

When you create a copy of an accrual policy, the duplicate will include all the same settings but won't be assigned to any employee. Follow these steps:

Go to Settings > Work Hours and Absences > Absence.
Select the relevant absence type.
Scroll down to the relevant accrual policy.
Click the accrual policy, then the three dots > Create Copy.
In the pop-up window, click Create Copy to confirm.

Delete an accrual policy

When you delete an accrual policy, it will no longer appear anywhere in Personio. This affects the employee's absence balances and entitlement. All the data, including any absence periods, is removed. This action is permanent, and you won't be able to restore the accrual policy. Follow these steps:

Go to Employee list from the main navigation bar.
Select all the employees who have the accrual policy currently assigned to and click Actions > Change accrual policy.
Select the relevant absence type, but a different accrual policy. Click Update policy .
Go to Settings > Work Hours and Absences > Absence and select the relevant absence type.
Scroll down to the accrual policy that is now assigned to 0 employees.
Click the accrual policy, then the three dots > Delete.
In the pop-up window, click Delete to confirm.

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