Understanding and Troubleshooting Balances in BitaBIZ
Brief Article Description
This article explains how balances in BitaBIZ are structured and how Payroll Admin can investigate why a balance may not appear to be correct.
Quick Answer
A balance in BitaBIZ is not just a single number. It consists of several transactions, such as transfers, earning, manual adjustments, payouts, and planned days (Used).
If a balance doesn't add up, Payroll Admin should first check the balance history via Payroll Admin → Calendar Access → View History.
Troubleshooting also requires knowing the rules that are active on the employee's policy. A balance may look incorrect even if it is calculated correctly according to the selected policy setup.
Applies To
This article applies to Payroll Admin and for follow-up on these balances:
Vacation
Supplementary balance, e.g. other vacation, OK days, or 6th vacation week
Hour bank
Day bank, e.g. senior days, child's day, extra days off
Prerequisites
You must have access to Payroll Admin.
You must have access to the employee's calendar via Calendar Access.
If you want to compare with reports, you must also have access to relevant reports in HR Statistics → Report Library.
Step-by-Step
Go to Payroll Admin → Calendar Access.
Open the employee's calendar.
Find the balance you want to investigate.
Click on View History.
Review the transactions included in the balance.
Pay special attention to transfers, earning, manual adjustments, payouts, and planned days or hours.
Check the employee's Year Calendar. This shows all registrations for a calendar year. Note that vacation and supplementary balances are settled over a period, e.g. 1/9-31/12 (the following year).
Check which policy the employee is assigned to. Click "View Employee Info" under the employee's name to see which policy the employee is connected to.
Check which rules are active on the policy. Click: Setup Admin -> Modules -> open the policy the employee is connected to.
Optionally, compare with relevant reports in HR Statistics → Report Library.
Check if the report's period, filter, or month is selected correctly.
Check if the employee has changed policy, standard hours, or earning period.
If the balance still can't be explained, the BitaBIZ support team will need the employee's name, email, and expected balance per month or year to investigate further.
Important to Know
Payroll Admin has an overview of employees' balances via Calendar Access.
The overview shows the variables that make up a balance.
A balance can consist of:
Transferred from previous period, applies only to vacation and other vacation
Manual reductions
Manual increases
Manual payouts
Earning according to the earning rules attached to the employee's policy
Planned (Used) days or hours
These transactions together form the employee's vacation left.
Click on View History to see the history behind a balance. Here you can check which entries have affected the balance and when they were registered.
If you are checking a vacation balance with monthly earning, you can also benefit from clicking View Balance per Month. This shows whether planned vacation days are included in the current vacation year or the next vacation year.
Policy Setup Affects the Balance
When troubleshooting a balance, you should always check which rules are active on the employee's policy.
The policy can, for example, control:
whether the employee can use days or hours before they are earned
whether the balance can go negative
how earning is calculated
which period the balance follows
whether vacation left can be transferred to the next period or deleted (applies only to vacation and supplementary balance)
public holidays that are not included in the vacation calculation if vacation is booked over a public holiday.
Always check the employee's policy before deciding if the balance is miscalculated.
Permissions and Access
This troubleshooting is aimed at Payroll Admin.
Employees and approvers have different views and access rights than Payroll Admin. If an employee or manager cannot see a balance or report, Payroll Admin should first check the user's role and access.
FAQ
What does a balance consist of?
What does a balance consist of?
A balance consists of transactions such as transfers, earning, manual adjustments, payouts, and approved usage. You can view the transactions via Calendar Access → View History. You can see all registrations in the Year Calendar.
Why doesn't the balance add up?
Why doesn't the balance add up?
Check the balance history. Pay special attention to transfers, earning, approved days or hours, manual adjustments, payouts, and the selected policy setup.
The vacation report shows something different than the balance in Calendar Access?
The vacation report shows something different than the balance in Calendar Access?
Check if the report shows the same period and the same month. The vacation report always shows vacation earning at the start-of-period of a month. Your policy may be set up for end-of-period earning. End-of-period earning moves the employee's earning one month ahead. This means vacation earned in one month can only be planned in the following month. But in the vacation report - balance per month always shows earning at the start-of-period.
Why can a balance go negative?
Why can a balance go negative?
The vacation balance can go negative if the rules on the employee's policy allow it.
The supplementary balance cannot go negative.
Hour bank balance can go negative if the employee's work hours are on average below standard hours. Or if more time off is taken than earned.
Day bank balance can go negative if more minus days are planned than the balance earns.
Why isn't extra time added to the hour bank?
Why isn't extra time added to the hour bank?
Check if the employee's time registration is actually linked to the hour bank. An employee can have an hour bank balance without daily time registration automatically adjusting the hour bank.
Why isn't a day without time registration deducted from the hour bank?
Why isn't a day without time registration deducted from the hour bank?
The hour bank is affected by registered work hours or absence. If a working day is missing registration, it is not automatically treated as negative time.
A notification flow can be set up under Notifications & Rules -> Time Registration to send a message to the employee if a day is missing a registration.
Where can I see how the hour bank is calculated?
Where can I see how the hour bank is calculated?
Use Calendar Access -> Open the employee's calendar:
annual overview showing all registrations (plus and minus registrations)
weekly overview showing the hour bank's transactions for a week. Here you can see the daily hour bank transactions. As well as the week's total movement.
View History shows manual increases and reductions as well as any payouts or fixed earning.
Check the policy -> Working week
Check the employee's standard hours. This is the basis for ongoing calculation of the hour bank balance. Standard hours can be set up on the policy or the employee's master data card.
Check if ongoing earning is linked to the hour bank balance.
Use Report Library -> Time Registration - with hour bank
Balance log shows all transactions included in an hour bank balance, registrations, manual adjustments, payouts, earning.
Balance per selected month shows the total balance per end-of-period for a selected month.
An employee's supplementary balance (e.g. other vacation, OK days) is calculated incorrectly. What could be the reason?
An employee's supplementary balance (e.g. other vacation, OK days) is calculated incorrectly. What could be the reason?
There is a difference between whether the supplementary balance is settled in hours or days.
Use Calendar Access -> Open the employee's calendar:
annual overview showing all registrations
View History shows manual increases and reductions as well as any payouts, registrations (Used), and fixed earning.
Check the policy -> Open the tabs Other Vacation & Working week
Check the employee's standard hours if the balance is settled in hours. This is the basis for calculating the supplementary balance. Standard hours can be set up on the policy or the employee's master data card.
Check if remaining hours are automatically transferred or deleted at the end of the period
Regardless of whether the balance is settled in days or hours, you must enter the number of days the employee should earn per year. If settlement is set to hours, the system converts days to hours using the entered standard hours.
Use Report Library -> Other Vacation
Balance log shows all transactions included in a supplementary balance, registrations, manual adjustments, payouts, earning.
Balance per selected month shows the total balance per end-of-period for a selected month.
An employee's vacation balance doesn't seem correct. What should I do?
An employee's vacation balance doesn't seem correct. What should I do?
Use Calendar Access -> Open the employee's calendar:
annual overview showing all vacation registrations
View History shows manual increases and reductions as well as any payouts, registrations (Used), and fixed earning.
Check the policy -> Open the Vacation tab
Check Rules. Is the employee connected to Max, Deduction, or Advance. These three methods affect how Availability is calculated.
Check Period. Is the employee connected to the correct settlement and earning period.
Use Report Library -> Vacation
Balance log shows all transactions included in a vacation balance, registrations, manual adjustments, payouts, earning.
Balance per selected month shows the total balance per end-of-period for a selected month.
Should I check country-specific vacation rules when troubleshooting vacation balances?
Should I check country-specific vacation rules when troubleshooting vacation balances?
Yes. When troubleshooting vacation balances, you should always be aware of whether the employee's vacation policy follows country-specific rules. Rules for vacation year, earning, vacation left, decimal vacation, and balance display can vary from country to country.
If the employee follows a Danish vacation policy, pay special attention to the Danish vacation year's overlap between 1/9 and 31/12, vacation left, decimal vacation, and the difference between “Earned” and “Available”. See the article “Setup: Vacation Policy - the Danish Vacation Year”.
If the employee follows Norwegian or Finnish rules, note that Saturday according to the standard rules for these countries may be set to count in the vacation calculation.
Why doesn't the balance change when I update the working week, days off, or holidays in a policy?
Why doesn't the balance change when I update the working week, days off, or holidays in a policy?
Problem
An employee's registration doesn't count the expected number of days. For example:
A full vacation week only counts as 5 days, even though Saturday is now set as a working day.
A vacation day on a holiday isn't counted after the holiday has been removed from the policy.
A registration is affected by a fixed day off that was later removed from the policy.
Reason
When an absence registration is created, it's calculated based on the policy settings that were in effect at the time of registration.
If you later change:
the working week (e.g., making Saturday a working day)
fixed days off
holidays
existing registrations are not automatically recalculated.
Historical registrations therefore keep the calculation that was valid when the registration was made.
Solution
If existing registrations need to follow the new settings, they must be registered again.
Example
An employee registers a full vacation week while Saturday is marked as a day off in the policy. The registration therefore counts as 5 days.
If Saturday is later changed to a working day, the existing registration will still count as 5 days. Only new registrations will count as 6 days.
The same applies if a holiday or a fixed day off is later added or removed from the policy. Registrations that have already been created will not be recalculated.
An employee has changed country or vacation policy, and the vacation balance doesn't match. What could be the reason?
An employee has changed country or vacation policy, and the vacation balance doesn't match. What could be the reason?
If an employee has switched to a new policy with a different vacation period, for example from a Norwegian vacation policy with a calendar year to a Danish vacation policy with a 16-month planning year, the vacation balance may be affected.
The same applies if the employee changes country and therefore gets new holidays. New holidays may overlap with vacation that was already registered under the old policy. Existing vacation registrations are not automatically recalculated according to the new holiday rules, because the registration was created based on the rules that applied at the time of registration.
Therefore, as a rule, the employee should have a new employee profile when the change means a new vacation period, new vacation rules, or a new country policy. The old profile is made inactive, and the new profile is created with the correct policy for the new country.
Check the following:
Whether the employee has changed policy.
Whether the new policy has a different vacation period.
Whether the employee has changed country and therefore holidays.
Whether there were already vacation registrations in the calendar before the policy change.
Whether a new employee profile should have been created instead.
It is not recommended to fix this type of error by only making manual balance adjustments. Use the article “Change of policy” to assess whether the employee should have a new profile.
Troubleshooting:
What you experience: The vacation balance doesn't match after a country or policy change
Typical reason: The employee has a new vacation period or new holidays on the existing profile
What you should check: Policy change, vacation period, holidays, and existing vacation registrations
What you expect to see: There may be a need for a new employee profile instead of a manual balance adjustment