In Sage 50 you can choose whether or not sick leave and vacation can be carried over into the new year. You can also set a limit on the maximum number of hours an employee can accrue. But you can’t set a limit on the number of hours that can be carried over into the new year; the carry-over is simply all or nothing. However many of the states that have passed mandatory sick leave laws don’t allow restrictions on the number of hours that employees can accrue, but the they do allow a cap on the number of hours that can be carried over from year to year.
The easiest way to deal with this problem is to set up your sick leave (or vacation) so that the balance carries over from year to year. (This setting can easily be changed in the Payroll Settings wizard.) Then, after the last payroll of the old year and before the first payroll of the new year, you will need to manually adjust the balance of anyone who is over the limit. To determine each employee’s balance you can either use the Vacation And Sick Time Report or look at the pay stubs from the last payroll of the year.
To make the adjustment, simple enter a dummy payroll check with no other pay or deductions on it.
- Go to the Tasks menu and choose Payroll Entry.
- Enter the employee’s ID
- Make up a check number. I usually use something like “SICK ADJ 2018-001”. If you leave the check number blank Sage 50 will think you have payroll checks waiting to be printed.
- Set the date to either December 31st of the old year or January 1st of the new year. If you have a payroll on one of those dates, then I recommend using the other for your adjustment date.
- Set all pay, tax, or other fields to zero.
- Enter the amount of the adjustment in the SICK_Remain (or VAC_Remain if you’re adjusting vacation) field. For example, if employees are allowed to carry over 40 hours of sick leave and this employee has accrued 50 hours, you’ll enter -10.
- Click the down arrow next to the Print button and choose Print Preview, then click the Print Preview button. Confirm that the balance in the Year To Date column is correct.
- Click the Save button.
Repeat that process for each employee that is over the limit. The check number will automatically increment as long as you keep the Payroll Entry window open. Once you’re finished you can run the Vacation And Sick Time Report to double-check each employee’s balance. If you want printed documentation of the adjustments you just made you can print the Payroll Register for the date you used on the adjustments or you could print each “paycheck” on plain paper.
