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PTO: policies, accrual, and using time off
PTO accrues automatically every time you run payroll; balances and history live on each employee's record.
- Set the accrual rateBooks & Payroll → Employees → click an employee and set "PTO accrual (hrs / pay period)" — e.g. 3.08 ≈ 80 hours a year on a biweekly schedule. Save.
- Find the PTO cardOnce an employee has been saved, their form shows a PTO card with the current Balance in hours and a note confirming the auto-accrual rate.
- Accrual runs itselfEvery payroll run adds the accrual automatically for each employee with a rate above 0 — you never add accrual by hand.
- Log time takenIn the PTO card, set Kind to "taken," enter the Hours and Date and an optional Note, then click "Add PTO entry." Taken hours subtract from the balance.
- Make corrections and carryoverUse Kind = "adjustment" for year-end carryover or to fix an entry — positive raises the balance, negative lowers it.
- Review the historyBelow the form, every transaction is listed — date, kind, hours, note — accruals, taken time, and adjustments together.
Good to know- The accrual field's placeholder is a handy reference: 3.08 hrs/period ≈ 80 hrs/year biweekly.
- Set the rate to 0 for employees who don't get PTO. 1099 contractors never accrue, whatever the field says.
- Balances are checked one employee at a time from the Employees list — there's no all-employees PTO overview page yet.
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