Time Bank

Time Bank is a leave option that allows salaried employees to bank any hours they work in excess of their contracted hours, then redeem them later in the form of time off.

Take for example Jane, a salaried employee contracted for 40 hours a week, but who ends up working 45 hours. Those 5 extra hours worked will end up in her Time Bank. Later, Jane is able to work 35 hours in a week and redeem the 5 hours saved in the Time Bank to meet her 40 contracted hours.

Setting Up Time Bank

To use the Time Bank function for salaried employees in your company, you'll need to turn on the function for any employees who require it, and set up a new Work option they can use to redeem their Time Bank hours. 

Enable Time Bank

To turn on Time Bank for a particular employee, go to People > Employees, select the appropriate employee, and view their Leave tab. Scroll to the bottom and click the Track Time Banked checkbox, activating Time Bank for this employee.

Here, you can also see the number of Time Bank hours accrued. This will accumulate after each pay is sent, if the employee worked over and above their contracted hours.

Set up Work for Time Bank Taken 

In order for employees to redeem or spend Time Bank hours, you'll need to set up a new Work. Our support article on Work shows how to create new Work.

You'll need to set the Time Bank Taken pay item as the 'Timesheet Pay Item' on your new Work. It should look like this:

If your company uses Teams, make sure you add this new Work to their Team via People > Teams.

Using Timesheets

Any salaried employee using Time Bank will need to enter their standard hours into the timesheets. Whenever the sum of their time entries for the week exceeds their contracted hours, the additional hours will automatically be added into their Time Bank.

If you've set up custom pay items for your Work, you will need to ensure they're set to Exclude From Salary, to ensure your employees aren't paid twice. See Recording Time for Salaried Employees for details on how to set up custom pay items correctly.

Redeeming Time Bank Hours

To redeem hours from the Time Bank balance, the employee just needs to submit their time off as a normal time entry, entered against the Time Bank Taken work you've created.

Processing a Pay

For an employee using Time Bank, pays can be processed as normal. When you create a draft pay, the Time Bank Taken pay item will automatically be included if it was used in the timesheets, and will display similar to the image below. The employee's salary for the pay cycle will be reduced by the hours of Time Bank Taken, so they still get paid the exact same amount in total.

If the employee has worked additional hours instead, the pay won't show any additional information. However, when the pay is sent, the additional hours will be automatically added to the employee's Time Bank balance. You can see the movement in an employee's Time Bank balance in their Other Leave History Report.

Time Bank and Leave 

Time taken as leave does not automatically contribute to Time Bank calculations, as leave doesn't inherently have associated hours. 

If leave should be included in the count of total hours for the week, the most straightforward option is creating an easily identifiable Work. The Work can then be used to record periods of leave (in addition to a Leave Request). 

This approach will result in a warning in the Draft Pay that there is time on a day with an approved leave request. However, as long as the Work type used is not associated with an "Additional" or "Replaces Salary" Pay Item, this warning can be disregarded.

Time Bank and Public Holidays 

Public Holidays Worked

If a Time Bank employee works on a public holiday, simply record their hours as normal, ensuring the Work used has an appropriate Public Holiday Pay Item set (e.g. Time and a Half).

Public Holidays Not Worked

Non-worked Public Holidays will not automatically contribute to Time Bank calculations. 

In cases where an employee needs to accrue Time Bank for a period containing a Public Holiday, hours can be manually added to the employee's Time Bank balance.

Alternatively, to record time for the Public Holiday so that Time Bank does take the day into account, you'll need to create a new Work option called 'Public Holiday Not Worked'. Once you've created the Work, get in touch with us at support@payhero.co.nz and we'll help complete the set up, so it can be used for recording unworked public holidays.

Monthly Pay Cycles

Time Bank is calculated on a weekly basis, so it should only be used for employees who are paid Weekly or Fortnightly.