Edit carryover settings for time off – Personio

This article explains how to change the carryover entitlement or carryover expiration date for your employees. It covers the following use cases:

Changing carryover entitlement from the current or previous accrual year
Changing carryover entitlement from accrual years before the previous one

You can make these changes for all employees on any given time off policy or for individual employees. This article also explains how carryover works when an employee switches policies.

Before you start

Permissions

To follow the instructions in this article, you need the following permissions:

Change carryover entitlement from the current or previous accrual year

For all employees on the same policy

For this use case, you can edit the carryover settings of the existing time off policy. The changes apply to all employees currently assigned to that policy. The process is the same whether you want to change the carryover entitlement or the carryover expiration date.

Follow these steps:

Edit the existing time off policy.
In the Entitlement step, go to the Carryover section.
Edit the carryover settings as needed.
Set the effective date. To pick the right option, refer to the table below.

The system automatically recalculates the employees’ carryover. It also reflects it in their balance overview.

For individual employees

For this use case, you need to copy the existing time off policy and edit the copy's carryover settings. Use this method when only some employees need different carryover settings than the rest of their policy. This might be one employee or several. The process is the same whether you want to change the carryover entitlement or the carryover expiration date.

If the employees are assigned to different time off policies, repeat these steps for each policy.

Follow these steps:

Copy the existing time off policy currently assigned to the employee(s).
Go to the copied policy and click the three dots to edit it.
Edit the copied policy’s carryover settings as needed.
Switch the employee(s) to the copied policy. The Effective from date you choose has effects on the carryover. Refer to the table below.

Choose the right Effective from option

The Effective from date you choose determines which accrual year the new carryover settings apply to. The options have different names depending on where you set them: when editing a policy and when switching an employee to a policy. The table below shows the options you most commonly need for carryover changes.

You want to change…	When editing a policy, select…	When switching an employee to a policy, select…	Effect on carryover
The carryover from the previous accrual year	Use the date picker to select the beginning of the previous accrual year.	Custom date, then select the beginning of the previous accrual year.	This changes the carryover that moved from the previous accrual year into the current one. For example, if today is 1 October 2026 and your accrual year starts on 1 January, select 1 January 2025.
The carryover that moves from the current accrual year into the next one	Current accrual period	Start of current entitlement period	The new policy settings start on the first day of the current accrual year. However, the new carryover rules apply to the carryover at the end of this year. They don't change the carryover the employee already received at the start of it. For example, if today is 1 October 2026, the new rules apply to the days that carry over from 2026 into 2027. They don't change the days carried over from 2025 into 2026.

Most carryover changes affect the current or previous year. If you need to change the carryover for future years instead, select:

Next accrual period (when editing a policy), or
Next entitlement periods (when switching an employee to a policy).

The new rules apply from the start of the next accrual year. For example, if today is 1 October 2026, they apply from 1 January 2027 and affect the carryover from 2027 into 2028.

The following options are also available, but we don’t recommend them for carryover changes:

Today: Only select this if today is the first day of the accrual year. Otherwise, it changes how the system prorates entitlement. It can leave you with several different carryover settings within a single accrual year.
Other custom dates: Selecting a date that isn't the start of an accrual year has the same effects as Today, and may also affect entitlement calculation and rounding.
Hire date (only available when switching an employee to a policy): This irreversibly changes the employee's time off balance for their entire history.

Change carryover entitlement from accrual years before the previous one

You can only back-date policy changes to the beginning of the previous accrual year (as described in the section above). To change the carryover from earlier years, you need to adjust it manually instead. You can do this for an individual employee or for multiple employees in bulk. The same applies if you want to change the carryover expiration date for those years.

Add carryover days

To add more days to an employee’s carryover, apply an expiring adjustment, making sure to:

Set the number of days you want to add to the balance.
Select the first day of the accrual year as the adjustment date.
Select the expiration date by which the employee must use the carryover.

You can also do this in bulk for several employees at the same time.

Remove carryover days

To remove days from an employee’s carryover, apply an absolute adjustment, making sure to:

Set the number of days you want the employee to carry over.
Select the last day of the previous accrual year as the adjustment date.

This fully overwrites the overall time off balance and its history, setting the balance to the amount you choose. You can also do this in bulk for several employees at the same time.

Extend the carryover expiration date

To extend the expiration date of the existing carryover, follow the steps below. Wait until close to the expiration date, when it's clear how many days are due to expire. Otherwise, the employee might end up with extra days.

Make a note of how many carryover days the employee has left:
- Go to the employee’s profile > Time off.
- To the right of the page, click the relevant time off type.
- In the Balance tab, see how many days are expiring.
Apply an expiring adjustment, making sure to:
- Add the same number of days the employee has left.
- Select the day after the carryover originally expires on as the adjustment date.
- Select the new expiration date by which the employee must use the carryover.

Understand how carryover works when you switch policies

You might switch an employee to a different time off policy partway through an accrual year. Likewise, you might edit a policy, in which case the employee moves to the latest policy definition from its effective date.

The following depend on whether the policies share the same accrual year:

Which carryover rules apply
When the system carries over the entitlement

The scenarios below explain what happens in each situation.

Scenario 1: Policies with the same accrual year

You assign two time off policies within the same accrual year, and their carryover rules differ. In this case, the settings of the last policy assigned in that year apply to the remaining entitlement of that year. The system applies the carryover rules of the assigned policy at the end of the accrual year. The same is true when you edit the carryover settings of a policy.

Example:

You assign an employee Policy A. It has an accrual year that runs from 1 January 2026 to 31 December 2026. Its carryover rules allow up to 5 days to carry over.
On 1 July 2026, you switch the employee to Policy B. It has the same accrual year, from 1 January 2026 to 31 December 2026, but its carryover rules allow up to 10 days to carry over.

In this case:

From 1 July 2026, Policy B applies to the employee's remaining entitlement for 2026.
The system applies Policy B's carryover rules at the end of the accrual year, on 31 December 2026. Policy A's carryover rules no longer apply.

To keep your carryover settings simple, we recommend setting the effective date to the start of the accrual year when possible.

Scenario 2: Policies with different accrual years

You assign two time off policies with different accrual years. In this case, each policy's carryover rules apply to its own accrual period. The system carries over the entitlement from the first policy as soon as the second policy takes over.