PTO Calculations - Employee daily hours vary

Hello there, @Saphire605.

Let me share some information on how QuickBooks handles the calculation of your employee's Paid-Time-Off.

With QuickBooks Desktop, your employee's PTO calculation depends on how you set it up in the system or how it will accrue.

Base on your calculation, since your employee's working hours vary, their paid time off is directly dependent on their hours worked. Just make sure to enter the  maximum number of hours each employee should work per week.

If it's 40 hours per week ( the most common hours work per week), here's how:

1. Figure out how many hours your employee works in a year.
2. Multiply it with the number of weeks in a year.

   40 hours (Hours in 1 work week) x 52 weeks = 2,080 hours

3. Subtract the number of hours amount allocated for PTO.

   2080 hours – 40 hours (Allocated PTO) = 2,040 hours

   2,040 hours – 40 hours (5 paid vacation days off = 40 hours) = 2,000 hours per year

4. Divide the number of allocated vacation hours by the total hours per year .

40 hours (Hours in 1 work week) ÷ 2,000 yearly hours worked = .02 hours

By using the following calculation, it means your employee will earn .02 hours of PTO per day.

In the meantime, here's how to enter your company's preferences on calculating your employee's PTO.

On the other hand, here's how to set up your employee's individual PTO:

1. Go to the Employees menu and click the Employee Center.
2. Double-click the name of the employee on the Employees folder.
3. Click the Payroll Info tab on the right side.
4. Select the Sick/Vacation tab.
5. Fill in the details for hours available and hours used on the Sick information.
6. Click the drop-down arrow for Accrual period and select Every hour on paycheck.
7. Enter the Hours accrued per hour paid.
8. Click OK after filling in the other details.

Should you have other questions about managing your employee's PTO calculations, feel free to visit the Community. I'm always here to help.

@IamjuViel 

I don't see a comment regarding my post. 

Did you post something?

Thanks for getting back to the QuickBooks Community, @Saphire605.

My colleague @IamjuViel already responded to your concern. If you're not able to see her answer, you can try to sign out and sign in back to your Intuit account.

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Hi@IamjuViel  thanks for getting back to me.

I get how it is calculated. 

I guess my question is more, for when they want to take one day, prior to when they have worked one year and they don't work the same amount of each day.  How I determine if they should get paid 6 hrs for that day or 8 hours?  

Calculating PTO accruals by hours worked offers flexibility, @Saphire605.

The by hours worked accrual rate ensures that employees only earn time off by the number of hours they actually work. This may result to earning less than or more than the other rates would provide. This is particularly great for employees who work a variable number of hours per year or take periods of unpaid leave. By using this rate, you can have the accrued time off only reflect that time spent at work. 

Determining whether your employee should get 6 hrs or 8 hrs credit on the day of their PTO depends on your company’s Paid-Time-Off policy.  Also, I’d recommend consulting your accountant so you’ll be guided accurately in setting and providing PTO to your employees.

Feel free to visit us here in the Community if you have other questions about provisioning your employee’s with Paid-Time-Off. I’m always here to help.

I too am trying to set up PTO.  Ours is that an employee earns .04 minutes per hour worked.  I entered that in the Employee Center, Sick/Vac slot. When I enter their pay hours into the paycheck, it took 79 hours worked but came up with hours earned at 5:16.  It should be 3:16. I cannot figure out where the other 2 hours are coming from.  HELP  

Hi @Valentine2,

Welcome to the Community. I know how it bothers you to see PTO Hours show incorrectly on Paycheck.

Currently, there's an open investigation about Accrued PTO Hours show incorrectly on Paystubs after upgrading to QuickBooks 2019 under INV-30055. Our engineers are now working to identify the cause to fix this as early as possible.

I want to make sure we get you back to business by adding you to the affected user's list. If you've experienced this issue after upgrading, I'd suggest you contact our Customer Support team and ask them to link your company to the investigation. Once added, you'll receive email updates on this matter.

Otherwise, let's correct the information in the Hours available as of [date] fields in both the Sick and Vacation sections. Here's how:

1. Go to the Employees menu, then choose the Employee Center to access your list of employees.
2. Double-click the employee to open the Edit Employee window.
3. Click the Payroll Info tab, then click the Sick/Vacation button.
4. Correct the information in the Hours available as of [date] fields in both the Sick and Vacation sections.
5. In the Sick and Vacation window, click OK.
6. In the Edit Employee window, click OK. 

For more information, refer to this help article: Sick and vacation time incorrect or not accruing on paychecks. It includes steps to fix in case you encounter an issue such as sick and vacation time didn't accrue on your employee paycheck.

For your future reference, I'm also adding a help article with links to different topics that you can use when choosing a method for calculation, setting up sick or vacation, and much more. Read through: Set up and pay sick and vacation time.

Please know that you can always get back to this post if you have further questions. I'm always here to help.

79x4=316 minutes=5 hours:16 minutes 

I don't understand why your calculation shows the PTO hours of 40 deducted twice in step 3. Please clarify if the employee in the example is due 80 hours total in the year (40 for PTO and 40 for vacation). 

Thank you.

Thanks for chiming in on this thread, BluebirdBooks.

Let me clarify some info regarding the steps shared above.

The example provided by my colleague juVielL is for the employee who has a total of 80 hours per year. As for the calculation, 40 hours is allocated for PTO, while the other 40 hours is for the 5 paid vacation days off. 

I'd like to re-share this article for more details about tracking the time off: Set up and track time off in payroll.

You can always drop a reply here if you have more questions regarding your account. I'll be around to help you out. Stay safe.

I find my PTO time is calculated for hours paid. Therefore if the employee used vacation or sick days they accrue PTO time on these hours. I want PTO only on time WORKED. not hours paid.

Can this be done?