Syncing Time Off with Payroll

How does time off sync with payroll?

Purpose: This guide will outline how to manage and understand the sync of your employee's time off with BambooHR Payroll.



How time off syncs with BambooHR Payroll

To ensure your time off categories sync to payroll, you must first set the Time Off category settings to Include this Category in Payroll when creating a new time off category or editing an existing category. You can edit an existing policy by navigating to Settings > Time Off and clicking the gear icon on the category's tile.

If you set the Time Off category to be included in Payroll after you have already started the payroll,  you will need to reset the payroll run to sync the Time Off category. 

Please note, employees can request Time Off at any point. For your employee's time off hours to automatically flow into payroll, you must approve all time off requests for that pay period before you start payroll.

How do I sync time off hours after payroll has started?

Because employees can request time off at any point during the payroll run, it's not uncommon for time off requests to happen during the open pay period. If you adjust and approve an employee's time off hours after you start payroll, a banner will appear on the Payroll tab in BambooHR. You can click View Newly Approved Hours, and a modal will display. If you click Continue Payroll without addressing this banner, the same modal will appear.

Clicking Update Payroll Hours will automatically sync the new hours into your current payroll. Clicking Don’t Update Hours will not sync the new hours, and you will be redirected to the Payroll tab.

If you initially choose Don’t Update Hours and then decide you do want to sync hours, you can do so on the Edit page by resetting the employee’s payroll. Remember that resetting the payroll for an employee will remove any edits previously made to their payroll record.

How time off hours edited during the run payroll process syncs to an employee’s time off balance in BambooHR

  • General Policy: Accrual Time Off policies processed through Payroll, whether through an approved request or entered manually during the payroll run, will update on the time off balance listed on the employee’s profile accordingly. 
  1. When Flexible time off policies are processed through Payroll, an admin must make record those hours on the employee's profile.
  2. When Manually Updated policies are processed through Payroll a manual adjustment to an employee’s time off balance on their profile is required.