The work time balance (overtime/minus hours) of a team member is not automatically carried over at the year-end, but starts again at zero on January 1st. Here we explain why this is the case, how you can consciously carry an existing balance into the new year, and how this also works with remaining vacation days from the previous year.
Why is the balance not automatically transferred?
Belbo assumes in principle that an overtime or minus hours balance existing at year-end has already been balanced – for example, by reducing it through vacation days or by paying out the overtime. For this reason, time tracking automatically resets the "Result since beginning of year" balance to zero on every January 1st.
If a team member's balance was not balanced at year-end, the value is lost and no longer appears anywhere in the new year – it must then be manually and consciously transferred to the new year.
Manually transfer balance at year-end
To carry over an existing balance from the previous year, book a time compensation on January 1st of the new year for the affected team member in the amount of the remaining balance:
- Go to Settings > Time Tracking in January of the new year.
- Click on the number in the row "Result since beginning of year (overtime/minus hours)" for the affected team member (this is still at zero at this point).
- Enter 1/1 as the date for the compensation entry and provide a reason, e.g. "Balance carried forward from previous year".
- Depending on whether a positive or negative balance is to be carried forward, select the mode "Build up hours" or "Reduce hours".
- Enter the number of minutes from the previous year's balance and save the compensation entry.
- Determine the number of remaining vacation days (or hours) of the team member from the previous year.
- Convert these based on the team member's target working time into minutes, e.g. 2 remaining vacation days at 8 hours = 960 minutes.
- On January 1st, book another time compensation in the "Build up hours" mode for this number of minutes, e.g. with the reason "Remaining vacation previous year".
- The remaining vacation is now available to the team member as an overtime credit and can be taken in the new year regularly as overtime reduction.
From now on, the transferred balance counts again towards the "Result since beginning of year" for the new year.
Video
We have also recorded the process as a video:
Carry over remaining vacation
Just like the overtime/minus hours balance, a team member's remaining vacation is also not automatically carried over at year-end. There are two options for this:
Option 1: Enter as absence (simple)
You simply enter the remaining vacation in the new year as an absence in the schedule/calendar when it is taken – just like regular vacation.
Disadvantage: The remaining vacation is not balanced in this case. Belbo does not maintain its own account of how much remaining vacation has already been taken or how much is left – you must keep track of when the remaining vacation is used up.
Option 2: Show via work time balance (with balance tracking, more complex)
More complex, but with clean balance tracking: you convert the remaining vacation into hours and book these hours as additional overtime on the work time balance. This way you can see at any time exactly how much remaining vacation is left, and the reduction occurs like a regular overtime reduction.