Q. Can I change the increments employees are able to select when requesting annual leave in BrightPay?

A. No, it is not possible to customise the increments for leave requests in BrightPay.
The available options are pre-programmed and fixed: employees can only request leave in units of ¼, ½, ¾, or a full day. You cannot add or change these increments.

Q. How do I recover overdrawn annual leave on a final payslip??

A. In most payroll systems, overdrawn annual leave (where an employee has taken more leave than they've accrued) is normally recovered as a gross reduction rather than a net deduction.

Here’s how it typically works:

• Gross Reduction (the standard method):

  • The value of the excess leave is deducted from the employee's gross pay.
  • Tax and NI contributions, and any other statutory deductions are then calculated based on the reduced gross amount.
  • This ensures the employee only repays the net value they actually received, after tax and statutory contributions are taken into account.

Note: If the value of the overdrawn leave is greater than the employee’s final gross pay, you may need to recover the remaining balance separately. This should be handled according to the employment contract, if uncertain please seek guidance from HMRC. 

Q. Does BrightPay support Annual Leave Purchasing?

A. BrightPay does not have a setting for Annual Leave Purchasing, however as buying annual leave lets an employee trade a portion of their gross salary for extra days off via a salary sacrifice arrangement - it is possible to set up a new deduction type in the Employer section for this purpose and add it to the employee(s) payslip. BrightPay is unable to advise on the logistics of setting up this type of deduction - please check with ACAS for any information required. Remember, as with all salary sacrifice arrangements, deductions cannot reduce an employee's pay below the National Minimum Wage. If extra days are purchased by an employee, you can adjust the annual leave entitlement accordingly with the employee's record.