Aggregation scope, ceilings, and accrual#
For: Manager | Admin You’ll need: A policy where you’ve already chosen a tracking mode — see Tracking modes — balance, spell, and unlimited.
Two different windows govern a leave policy, and it pays to keep them apart. The leave year — a company setting, not a policy field — decides when balances reset. ‘Aggregation scope’ — a field that only exists on spell policies — decides how sick spells accumulate against their continued-pay ceiling. This article walks through both, then the fields that size the entitlement and land hours in the balance.
The leave year — a company setting#
The window over which a balance policy grants and resets its entitlement comes from your company’s ‘Leave year mode’, not from the policy: either a fixed date anchor shared by everyone (a calendar or fiscal year), or each person’s hire anniversary, so the balance resets on their work anniversary instead of on 1 January. See How to set up the leave year.
Aggregation scope — spell policies only#
On a spell policy, ‘Aggregation scope’ decides how per-spell bookings accumulate against the ceiling:
‘Per illness (no aggregation)’ — every illness draws on its own ceiling.
‘Per PIW (auto-linked by window)’ — absences close together merge into one period of incapacity automatically.
‘Per PIW (admin-linked)’ — merging is your call, via a checkbox at review time. See EFZG §3 spell linking.
‘Per service year (cumulative)’ — all spells in the same service year share one ceiling.
‘Per calendar year (cumulative)’ — all spells in the same calendar year share one ceiling.
Balance policies don’t have this field — their window is the leave year above.
Service years#
“Years of service” — the number a tier ladder is matched against, and the window a per-service-year scope runs over — always counts from the person’s hire date. There’s no field to configure and nothing that can drift: someone who changes employment type or moves location keeps the seniority they’ve earned.
Ceiling mode — flat vs. tiered (spell policies)#
‘Ceiling mode’ shapes the continued-pay ceiling on a spell policy:
Flat — one ceiling for everyone, entered in ‘Max consecutive weeks’.
Tiered — the ceiling steps up at service-year thresholds. Add the rungs of the ladder under How to manage tiers on a leave policy.
Deduction method#
When a request is approved, how many hours come off per booked day? Four choices:
‘Value method’ — contracted hours divided by days per week. Refused for employment types with zero contracted hours (casual, on-call staff).
‘Time method’ — the working time the absence actually covers.
‘Fixed rate’ — a constant number of hours per day.
‘Average method’ — the rolling average of the person’s clocked hours over a recent window. Use it for variable-hour staff so part-timers don’t burn full-day entitlements on a half-day shift.
Accrual method and interval#
How does the balance grow during the year?
‘Annual grant’ — the full entitlement is granted up front when the leave year rolls over, prorated by hire date for new joiners in fixed-date mode.
‘Monthly accrual’ — a slice of the entitlement per interval. The separate ‘Accrual interval’ field sets the slice: Monthly posts 1/12, Weekly posts 1/52 — each posted on the last day of its interval. An interval that someone’s hire date or termination date cuts short is prorated by its days.
‘Hourly accrual’ — entitlement accrues per paid hour — worked time minus unpaid breaks — at the ‘Hourly accrual rate’, posted when time entries are confirmed.
Interval accruals fire from a daily background task; hourly accrual fires the moment a time entry is confirmed. Either way, the row shows up in the How to view the leave ledger as an Accrual transaction. Hourly accrual skips declined shifts, and hours written by an automatic clock-out accrue only once someone confirms them. Accrual only ever runs on balance-tracked policies.
Entitlement hours and the two caps#
‘Entitlement hours’ is the per-year grant. Two caps keep accrual honest:
‘Max balance’ — the running balance can never exceed it; an accrual that would push it over is silently capped.
The entitlement itself — once the year’s accrued total reaches ‘Entitlement hours’, accrual stops for the rest of the year, even if bookings have brought the balance back down.
Worked example — proration for a new joiner#
Fixed-date leave year 1 January – 31 December, entitlement 200 hours, annual grant. Ana joins on 1 April 2026. She is employed for 275 of the year’s 365 days, so the rollover writes a single Grant of 200 × 275 / 365 = 150.68 hours, dated 2026-01-01.
In hire-anniversary mode there is no proration: Ana’s leave year starts on 1 April and opens with the full 200 hours.
How it shows in the app#
On the policy form, these fields sit in their own fieldsets, shown or hidden by the tracking mode you chose. In the ledger, you’ll see the effects: Grant and Carry-over rows when the leave year rolls over, Accrual rows on the schedule above, and Booking rows on approval.
Verify it worked#
Open How to view the leave ledger and filter ‘Transaction type’ to the row you expect — Grant for an annual grant, Accrual for a monthly or hourly one. The amount matches the entitlement (prorated by hire date in fixed-date mode), and Reports → Leave year overview shows the same figure in its ‘Granted (h)’ column.