Family and Domestic Violence Leave Setup

All employees under the Fair Work system can now access 10 days of Paid Family & Domestic Violence Leave per 12-month period. The full 10 day leave entitlement will be available upfront and will renew on the employee’s work anniversary.

It is not cumulative from year to year like other leave entitlements under the National Employment Standards and it won’t be pro-rated for part-time or casual employees.

Step-by-step guide

The following instructions detail how to configure a paid family and domestic violence leave type in your account. There are two options available:

1. No leave balance maintained - employees apply for leave and no balances need to be maintained
2. Balance based leave type - the Payroll officer will be responsible for assigning and removing a balance for this custom leave type in order for the leave to be used

Method 1: No leave balance maintained

1. Go to Payroll Administration > Payroll Setup > Pay Component Sub Type
2. Locate 'Compassionate Leave-Paid', and click View next to it
3. Go to Actions > Make Copy
4. Set the Name to "Special Leave" or similar e.g. Other, Miscellaneous, etc. (payslips must not mention family and domestic violence leave wording)
5. Untick ‘Show In ESS’. This ensures applying for this leave is a Payroll Officer only function.  If you wish for this leave type to be visible to employees for selection in Employee Centre/MyPay then you would have show in ESS and Show in ESS Subsidiary fields set accordingly.
6. Optional : set the Payslip Group field to “Not Displayed” if you don’t want the transaction line to display on payslip.  There is also another coding option available for the gross amount of this leave type to be included in the Base Salary/Normal Time line Amount should you want to go down this path.  See instructions down below.
7. Optional : set the Display Colour that is visible on the Leave Calendar if you are going with this option (see colour examples at https://www.w3schools.com/html/html_colors_hex.asp)
8. Click Save

You can then create Leave Requests for your employees using this new "Special Leave" Pay Component Sub Type.

Method 2: Balance based leave type

Step 1: Set up the Leave Accrual Pay Component Sub Type

1. Go to Payroll Administration > Payroll Setup > Pay Component Sub Type
2. Locate 'Annual Leave Accrual', and click View next to it
3. Go to Actions > Make Copy
4. Set the Name to "Special Leave Accrual" or similar
5. Click Save

Step 2: Set up the Leave Taken Pay Component Sub Type

1. Go to Payroll Administration > Payroll Setup > Pay Component Sub Type
2. Locate 'Compassionate Leave-Paid', and click View next to it
3. Go to Actions > Make Copy
4. Set the Name to "Special Leave" or similar e.g. Other, Miscellaneous, etc. (payslips must not mention family and domestic violence leave wording)
5. Untick ‘Show In ESS’. This ensures applying for this leave is a Payroll Officer only function.  If you wish for this leave type to be visible to employees for selection in Employee Centre/MyPay then you would have Show in ESS and Show in ESS Subsidiary fields set accordingly.
6. Set the Leave Accrual Parent Subtype to the accrual code created in step 1, e.g. "Special Leave Accrual"
7. Optional : set the Payslip Group field to “Not Displayed” if you don’t want the transaction line to display on payslip.  There is also another coding option available for the gross amount of this leave type to be included in the Base Salary/Normal Time line Amount should you want to go down this path.  See instructions down below.
8. Optional : set the Display Colour that is visible on the Leave Calendar if you are going with this option (see colour examples at https://www.w3schools.com/html/html_colors_hex.asp)
9. Click Save

Step 3: Set up Custom Leave Accrual Rate type

1. Go to Payroll Administration > Leave Management > Leave Accrual Rates
2. Locate ‘Personal/Carers Leave 10 Days', and click View next to it
3. Go to Actions > Make Copy
4. Set the Name to "Special Leave Accrual" or similar
5. Set the Leave Type to your leave taken code e.g. Special Leave
6. Set the Accrual Sub Type to your leave accrual code e.g. Special Leave Accrual
7. Set the Leave Accrual Method to Lump Sum
8. Set the Hours to 0
9. Click Save

Step 4: Assign the Leave to an employee (when required)

1. Go to Payroll Administration > Leave Management > Additional Leave > New
2. Set the Employee
3. Set the Leave Accrual Rate to your custom leave type e.g. Special Leave Accrual
4. Optional : amend the Total Hours Per Period to the full time equivalent - it won’t be pro-rated for part-time or casual employees
5. Set the First Accrual Date to their last work anniversary (An overnight System Script will run to populate the hours entitlement.)
6. Click Save

You can then create Leave Requests for your employees using this new "Special Leave" Pay Component Sub Type.

For future balance checks, you can navigate to Payroll Administration > Leave Management > Additional Leave to check on an employee’s balance. 

Anniversary Review of Hours Balance

As this custom additional leave type is not setup with an Annual Accrual Frequency, the balance as a standard will not increase on each anniversary, this reduces the risk of the accumulation of leave hours.

So with keeping this in mind, if the employee has not taken any Special Leave their balance remains as the full entitlement - no adjustment required.

If the employee has taken Special leave then you will need to manually increase their leave hours balance via the New Leave History Record button on that LAT Additional Leave Record screen to bring their Total hours up to the full entitlement they are due.

Combining the leave type amount to show in Base Salary/Normal Time on the PDF Payslip