How can I set an employee to accrue 1 hour of sick time per 30 hours worked up to 40 hours per year as now REQUIRED by CA State law?

We appreciate you for providing us with in-depth details of your employee's time off concern in QuickBooks Online (QBO), allendhoekod.

Yes, QuickBooks Online (QBO) is always in compliance with the payroll and tax policy coming from your state. We can manually set up it under Sick pay, then select 30 hours/year (accrued each pay period) with max of 30 hours. If you can't edit it, then, just choose Add new paid time off policy for the employees. See the screenshot for your reference:

Here's how to edit your policy with:

1. Go to Payroll, then Employees (Take me there).
2. Choose your employee.
3. From Pay types, tap Start or Edit.
4. Scroll down to the Time Off Policies section. Next to the Paid time off or Unpaid time off, enter the current balance. Or if you want to change the policy, select Edit ✎ then choose how the hours are accrued, Hours per [time period] worked, and Maximum allowed (optional), then select Save.
5. When finished, press Save.

To learn more about setting up and tracking time off, vacation, and sick pay for your employees, check out this article: Set up and track time off in payroll. However, if you’re unable to change or update the paid time off policy, I recommend you get in touch with our Payroll Support Team. They'll pull up your account in a secure environment and help you with this one.

Additionally, here's a link that'll help you manage payroll tasks. It has topics with articles to guide you along: View all help for QuickBooks Online Payroll.

Drop a reply anytime if you have follow-up questions or concerns about payroll. I'll be glad to answer them for you. Take care and have a great day ahead.

I'm afraid you totally missed the point. CA law requires us to give 40 hrs of sick time per year with an accrual rate of at least 1 hr per 30 hours worked. That means they will accrue the 40 hrs in about 7 months of full time work. The only options in QBO cause the sick time to be accrued evenly over the course of the whole year - whether it be per hrs worked or per pay period. That does NOT comply with CA law. It doesn't accrue the hours quickly enough. Your example shown is even worse by only accruing 30 hrs of sick time over the course of the whole year (not enough hrs to comply and not accrued fast enough). QBO needs to change the set up to allow us to set an accrual rate (1 hr per 30 hrs worked) up to a certain maximum (40 hrs) per year. The only option available in QBO that complies is to give the employee the whole 40 hrs up front which is not desirable in many situations. This needs to be fixed now. The new law took effect Jan 1.

I can assist you with managing your sick time accruals in QuickBooks Online Payroll based on California regulations, @allendhoekod, @allendhoekod.

As per the new state law in California, employees are eligible to accrue up to 40 hours of sick time per year, which is equivalent to 5 days. To comply with this requirement, I suggest setting up the pay period to accrue sick time based on the number of hours worked, and setting 40 hours as the maximum limit for sick time accrual per year.

By configuring the pay period to accrue sick time based on hours worked and capping the total accrual at 40 hours per year, you can align with the new state law while also ensuring that employees receive their entitled sick time.

I have attached a screenshot below for your reference.

I'm adding this article for more details: Set up and track time off in payroll. Also, you can check out this article for more compliance information: Information on new taxes, state rate issues, and more!

In addition, if you're looking for more information about various tax-related topics such as tax forms, withholdings, unemployment, e-filing, and payment options. It's always a good idea to stay informed about tax-related matters to ensure you fulfill your obligations and make informed decisions.

• Understand payroll tax wage bases and limits.
• Access state agency websites for payroll.

By following the outlined steps, you can adjust your maximum sick hours to comply with California regulations. If you have additional inquiries related to QuickBooks, please don't hesitate to ask them here in the Community.

Again you have missed an important point of the new law. Your example still causes QBO to accrue the 40 hrs over the course of the whole year by simply dividing the 40 hrs over each pay period over the whole year. Simply giving it a Description name of "1 hr per 30 hours" does NOT cause QBO to accrue the hours at that rate. As of 1/1/24, CA law requires the sick time to accrue at an accelerated rate of at least 1 hr per 30 hours worked. That means a f/t employee will accrue those 40 hrs over about 7 months instead of 12. (A p/t employee would accrue them more slowly.) This is a very important point that your team is not getting. QBO's only option is to accrue the specified number of hours of sick, vacation, etc over a 12 month period, whether it be per hours worked or per pay period. That is no longer acceptable for sick time in CA. Despite your team's claims, QBO is not in compliance with this new point of CA law and won't be until you add an option to the user interface allowing us to specify the rate at which the hours are to accrue per hours worked for CA employees. I am sorry CA has to be such a pain, but what are you going to do to add this ability? Thank you, Allen

We understand the urgency and importance of complying with the new California law regarding sick time accrual. We greatly value your feedback and understand that customer input is crucial for us to improve our products and services. We appreciate your understanding that limitations can sometimes be a part of any product, and we strive to address them to the best of our ability.

We recommend sending your feedback to our Product Development Team. We would be more than happy to hear from you. Your insights will help us enhance the user experience and ensure that we continue to meet your needs effectively. Here is how:

1. Click the Gear icon in the upper-right corner.
2. Select Feedback under Profile.
3. Share your feedback.
4.  Click Next to submit.

Our product engineers will consider your suggestions, and you can always check the status of your request through this link: QuickBooks Online Customer Feedback. 

You can utilize these articles to guide you in the future:

• Enter sick pay or vacation pay hours for salaried employees.
• Override an employee's salary in Online Payroll.

Feel free to post here again if you have further QuickBooks-related concerns. We are available 24/7 to lend a hand with each of your queries. Stay safe!

I wanted to jump in and also add, for us employers who do 10 hour days, 4 days a week, for our employees, we have to pay the "greater" amount of 40 hours or 5 days whichever is more, which for us means we have to pay 50 hours per year. On top of that, we also are required, if we do the accrual method, to "rollover" up to 80 hours, which means we need to track up to that. For our employees who are using their hours over the course of the year, the accrual will constantly be going up and down with a cap of 80. How does that track on QBO for their paystubs? Are we constantly running reports to make sure we are not paying out over 50 hours? We cannot cap it at 50 because we have to have the ability to rollover up to 80 with the accrual method.

California Paid Sick Leave: Frequently Asked Questions

Maybe the people at QBO can read these questions as they are everything we as employers are trying to work through. I just got off the phone with QB Help and they didn't even know this was a law for California. We really need some answers and help QB. Thanks

If my employees do not use all their sick days, do we owe them?  And if we do, can I pay them during the last quarter?  I don't want to accure them for the following year.  Normally they all use all their sick leave.

Hi AA2023,

I'm here to share more information about your employee's unused sick days.

Yes, you're correct. Whenever your employees have not used up all their sick days, you'll have to compensate them. Since you want to record the hours for the last quarter, you can record a paycheck manually. I've added this article for the detailed steps of the process: Manual enter payroll.

Furthermore,  you can check this link as your guide about managing employees' time off: Set up and track time off.

You can also browse this article whenever you have concerns about paying employees: Payroll.

I'm always around if there's anything that I can help you with payroll. 

In Ca if sick days are not used in the year they are lost, you don't have to pay them out like vacation.

See my screenshot with questions:

The policy we are using for CA is: they can use up to 40 hrs per year and accrue up to 80 hrs per year. What do we put in the Description field and what do we put in Max allowed field? 40 or 80 on the QB Online set up screen?

Policy:Employees may earn a maximum of 10 days or 80 hours paid sick time (whichever is greater). After you have reached this maximum amount, no additional paid sick time will be earned until some or all of your accrued paid sick time is used.

The maximum amount of paid sick time you are allowed to use in each calendar year period is five days or 40 hours (whichever is greater), regardless of how much paid sick time you have earned.

Does QB Online track when they have used their 40 hrs of accrued Sick pay? Does it flag the employee if they have used their 40 hours per CA law?

I appreciate you for joining this thread, @jgau.

Let me help and provide information about the Sick Pay Policy for CA in QuickBooks Online Payroll (QBOP).

Firstly, the feature to flag the employee if they have used their 40 hours per CA law is now unavailable, only max accruals. You may verify this further by creating paychecks and maxing out a California employee's accrual hours.

In addition, regarding the maximum hours, it should be 80 hours since it's the maximum accrual set up in QBOP and not the allowable hours to be used for sick or Paid Time Off (PTO). As for the description, it will depend on you to choose a description as long as you can easily recognize it.

I'll also add these articles to guide you adjust or prorate an employee's fixed salary and manage payroll schedules.

• Override an employee's salary.
• Set up and manage payroll schedule.

Don't hesitate to leave a comment below If you have follow-up questions about work sick pay. I will answer them in any possible way.

California does not require a payout of accrued sick days.  They can expire at the end of the calendar year, if the employer chooses that option.