How to retroactively change the carryover limit for vacation days

Have you defined a carryover limit for an absence type such as "Paid vacation" and would like to change it later on, even though the limit has already been assigned and is being actively used by employees? This article explains how you can do this and what you should keep in mind when making such a change.

Warning: Changes made to the carryover limit for an accrual policy in Settings > Absence are applied retroactively to the entire absence history of all employees subject to the respective accrual policy! We, therefore, recommend that you read this article carefully before making such a change. If you still have questions, go to the Find Answers section in Personio via Help > Support and Updates > Find Answers.

Changes to a carryover limit as time-limited exceptions

HR managers often find themselves in a situation where the carryover limit for vacation days from the previous year needs to be adjusted for the current year and individual employees only, for example, because employees were unable to take their paid vacation by the standard "expiration date" (generally 31.03) for operational reasons. For these cases, there are two recommended approaches for adjusting the carryover limit in Personio.

Correction via manual adjustments to accrual balances

The first option involves a combination of two relative, manual adjustments to the balances of all employees concerned. This method is particularly useful in terms of efficient, transparent data management, but it is a little more challenging to implement. The first manual adjustment restores remaining vacation back to employees' accounts after the standard expiration date (31.03). A second manual adjustment is then made to deduct the remaining vacation days again, if they have not been taken by the adjusted carryover limit date (e.g. 31.05).

First manual adjustment (e.g. with effect from 01.04)

1. Go to the employee profile and click on Absence. Find and select the absence type whose accrual balance you want to adjust on the right of the window (e.g. Paid vacation).
2. The Carryover expiration row shows how many days will expire by the standard carryover limit date. Write down this number.
3. Manually adjust the accrual balance as follows:
   • Click on Adjust balance.
   • Select the option Adjust balance by number of days.
   • Enter the number of expired vacation days you wrote down in step 2 in the Adjust by box.
   • Select the adjustment/recording date for this change. This should be after the standard expiration date. If the carryover expires on 31.03, for example, we recommend that you set the adjustment date to 01.04.
   • Add a comment explaining the reason for the adjustment, e.g. "remaining vacation from 2019 – deferral of the carryover limit to 31.05.2020."
   • Click on Confirm to save the change.

Second manual adjustment (e.g. with effect from 01.06)

Add up all vacation days taken by the employee during the period from 01.04 to 31.05 and deduct this number from the remaining vacation (use custom reports for this purpose).

• If the result is a negative number, no further adjustments need to be made; all remaining vacation has been taken.
• If the result is a positive number, make another manual adjustment to the accrual balance. This time you need to enter the number you have just calculated as a negative number in the Adjust by box. Set a suitable adjustment date (e.g. 01.06) and add a comment (e.g. "expired remaining vacation from 2019").

Correction by applying a different absence type

If you need to make the adjustment described above for a number of employees at the same time, we recommend that you create a separate absence type, which you can then use to handle remaining vacation flexibly. This involves the following steps:

1. Go to Settings > Absence and create a new absence type, e.g. under the name of "Remaining vacation." It's a good idea to list this absence type directly below the "Paid vacation" absence type. Activate accruals for the new absence type and create an accrual policy for accruing zero days per year. Assign this accrual policy to all employees whose carryover limit you wish to extend.
2. Go to Reports > Custom reports to create a new report for the following criteria:
   – Report type: Point in time
   – Table columns: Name, first name, email, {Paid Vacation} expired days from the carryover
3. Export the report and open the exported Excel file. In the next step, you'll need to import the Excel file to record the expired carryovers as account balance entries in the new "Remaining vacation" absence type.
4. Download and open our Excel template Accrual Balance Upload.
5. Aggregate the two files by transferring the data for all employees to be updated from the export file to the upload template.
   
   

   Upload template columns
   Email	Add the data from the Email column in the exported report.
   Absence type name	Enter the precise name of the previously created absence type – in our example this is Remaining vacation.
   Accrual balance in days	Add the data from the Paid vacation: expired days from carryover column to the exported report.
   Accrual balance date	Enter the date from which you would like the adjustment to be effective, e.g. 01.04.2020.

   Save the import template.
   
   
6. Follow the instructions provided in this article to import the absence accrual balances. Select the file type Absence balance upload for this step.

7. Next, navigate back to the Settings to finalize the process by defining access rights for the Remaining vacation absence type. Grant suggestion rights for people's own data and define appropriate approval processes in Settings > Approvals.

   Only employees assigned an accrual policy for Remaining vacation are able to see and apply for this absence type, even if they also have proposal rights.

   Inform your employees that any remaining vacation days they still have need to be applied for by using this absence type. Future vacation already entered into Personio may need to be transferred from the Paid vacation to the Remaining vacation absence type.

8. To have the deferred carryover limit apply at a later time, simply remove access to the Remaining vacation absence type again at the required date (e.g. 01.06).

Permanent adjustment of the carryover limit for an accrual policy

We recommend that you do not change the carryover limit in the settings for an accrual policy, even if you want to permanently define a different expiration date for the remaining vacation. Instead, create a new absence type with an associated accrual policy and your updated carryover limit. This ensures that historical data remains unchanged.

1. Go to Settings > Absence and create a new absence type including an accrual policy and carryover limit.
2. Copy your employees' accrual balances from the old to the new account, ideally with effect from 31.12 of the previous year. Transfer any vacation that has already been scheduled (use the export and import functions to do this).
3. Allocate the new accrual policy to all employees affected by the change.

4. Go to Settings > Employee roles > Access rights > Absences and transfer access rights from the old to the new absence type. Remove access to the old absence type. This ensures that employees can no longer see or apply for the old absence type, while historical data is transparently retained.

   Don't delete the old absence type! If you do so, historical data will be lost.

   You can decommission the old absence type by optionally creating a policy accruing zero days per year and assigning this new policy to all employees concerned from the time the next accrual policy applies.

5. Define an approval process for the new absence type.