A time off policy decides how employees earn one kind of time off, such as vacation or sick leave, and how much they can keep and use. A General Manager sets policies under Company Settings › Accruals with Add policy, which offers examples to start from, California paid sick leave among them. A policy applies to nobody until employees are put on it.

Putting employees on a policy. Click the Employees count on a policy to see everyone in the company, filter by site, tick the people you want and choose Put on policy. You pick one start date for the group. If the policy limits time off in days, you also set how many hours make up each person's workday. The same list takes people off a policy. A manager can also put one employee on a policy from the Accruals tab when editing that employee. An employee is on only one policy for each kind of time off, so putting someone on a new vacation policy ends their old one the day before.

New employees. Turn on Put new employees on this policy automatically and everyone added from then on joins the policy from their hire date. It does not add people already employed. The California sick leave preset has it on, because the law covers every employee from their first day. Only one policy for each kind of time off can do this.

Balances are calculated, not stored. A balance is worked out from the employee's time cards and approved time off every time it is shown. Edit a punch and the balance moves with it. Starting balances and corrections are recorded as adjustments with a reason, and nothing is ever overwritten.

Limits. A policy can cap how much is used each year, how much can be kept, and how much carries into the next year. When a limit has both hours and days, the larger applies. For example, "40 hours or 5 days" gives someone on 10-hour shifts 50 hours. A day counts as the employee's workday length, set when the policy is assigned to them.

Requests. The request form shows what is available before it is sent. A request that needs more than the balance, starts before the waiting period ends, or goes past the yearly use cap is refused with the reason, both when it is filed and again when a manager approves it. A manager can still enter time off directly on Team Time Off.

California paid sick leave. The preset follows Labor Code section 246. Employees earn at least 1 hour for every 30 worked, from their first day, overtime included, and can use it from their 90th day. It allows up to 40 hours or 5 days a year, whichever is more, and keeps up to 80 hours or 10 days. Anyone rehired within a year of becoming inactive gets their balance back. You can make it more generous but not less. It is included on every plan. Cities such as Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego have their own rules, which can require more.

Starting balances. Use Import balances on the Accruals settings tab to load everyone's balances from a spreadsheet when you start. The file is checked first, and nothing is imported unless every row is valid.