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Set up and track time off in payroll

by Intuit• Updated 1 month ago

Learn how to set up and track time off, vacation, and sick pay for your employees in QuickBooks Online Payroll and QuickBooks Desktop Payroll

With QuickBooks Online Payroll and QuickBooks Desktop Payroll, you can set up and track the time your employees take. First, you’ll set up time-off policies like paid or unpaid time off, sick pay, and vacation pay. If you need to, you can add time off at any point if someone needs more.

Note: If your account integrates with QuickBooks Time, you can set up your time off policies there to match what you set up in your payroll account. You and your team members can track time off using QuickBooks Time, which will sync back to payroll.



How to set up time off in payroll

Before any of your employees can take time off, you first need to set up a time off policy. Set up vacation or sick pay with these steps for your version of payroll.

Note: Not sure which payroll service you have? Here's how to find your payroll service.
  1. Go to the Payroll, then select Employees (Take me there).
  2. Select employee’s name.
  3. In the Pay types section, select Start or Edit ✎.
  4. In the Time off pay policies section, select Add new unpaid time off policy from the Unpaid time off ▼ dropdown.
  5. Select the required option from the Hours are accrued ▼ dropdown and enter the Hours per year and Maximum allowed (optional) fields.
  6. Select Save.
  7. For Sick pay, select Add new sick pay policy from the Sick pay ▼ dropdown.
  8. Select the required option from the Hours are accrued ▼ dropdown and enter the Hours per year and Maximum allowed (optional) fields.
  9. Select Save.
  10. When finished, select Save.

Set up a vacation or sick pay policy for your employees.



How to change your time off policy

Need to update your existing policy? Be sure to update your payroll.

Edit your policy with:

  1. Go to the Payroll, then select Employees (Take me there).
  2. Select employee’s name.
  3. In the Pay types section, select Edit ✎.
  4. In the Time off pay policies section, select the policy, you want to edit from the Unpaid time off and/or from the Sick pay ▼ dropdowns.
  5. Select Edit ✎ next to the policy to make changes. Or update the Current balance.
  6. Edit the policy, then select Save.

Edit a vacation or sick pay policy.



How to add paid or unpaid time off

Need to give an employee more time off? Here's how to add more time.

  1. Go to the Payroll, then select Employees (Take me there).
  2. Select the name of the employee.
  3. In the Pay types section, select Edit ✎.
  4. In the Time off pay policies section, next to the Unpaid time off field, enter the current balance. Or if you want to change the policy, select the policy you want to change from the Unpaid time off ▼ dropdown.
  5. Select Edit ✎ next to the policy to make changes.
  6. Select Save.
  7. For Sick pay, enter the current balance. Or if you want to change the policy, select the policy you want to change from the Sick pay ▼ dropdown.
  8. Select Edit ✎ next to the policy to make changes.
  9. Select Save.
  10. When finished, select Save.
  1. Select Employees.
  2. Select the employee name.
  3. Select Payroll Info, then select Vacation Pay for [Employee Name].
  4. Enter the amount that is currently available for the employee in the Pay ($) available as of mm/dd/yyyy field and select OK. Note: This is the total amount of pay available as of the date you add vacation to the employee profile.
  5. Select Accrual Hours for [Employee name].
  6. Enter the number of hours that are currently available for the employee in the Hours available as of mm/dd/yyyy field. Note: This is the total amount of hours available as of the date you add sick to the employee profile.
  7. In the Accrual period ▼ dropdown menu select one of the four accrual periods for sick time listed above.
  8. In the Hours Accrued field, enter the number of hours that will be accrued (based on your selection in step 6).
  9. In the Maximum number of hours field, enter the maximum balance of sick hours that the employee can have.
  10. If you do not allow hours to roll over to the next year, select Reset hours each new year?.
  11. Select OK to record your changes.

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