How do my two vacation balances work?

Paycheq tracks two vacation balances: vacation pay saving up this year, and last year’s saving you have left to use.

Many stubs show them as two dollar amounts:

• VAC ACCR: vacation pay saving up this vacation year, for next year.
• HOL ACCR: last year’s vacation pay you haven’t used yet. Vacation you take comes out of it.

Setting it up

1. Open Jobs and tap your job.
2. Check Started this job under Pay schedule. Your anniversary is that date each year.
3. Under Vacation pay, set Vacation year to Anniversary, or leave it at Calendar year if yours starts on January 1.
4. Turn on Vacation balances from a stub. Enter the date the stub was paid. Copy your stub’s saving this year (often VAC ACCR) into Saving YTD, and last year’s left to use (often HOL ACCR) into Left to use.
5. Tap Save.

Paycheq starts from those balances and adds every cheque paid after that date. Vacation pay on each cheque must be off. If it’s on, your vacation pay is already on every cheque, so there are no balances to track.

How the balances change

• Each regular cheque adds your vacation percent of its gross pay to the saving. Overtime, holiday pay and premiums count. Vacation pay itself doesn’t.
• Each vacation day you add with +, then Add vacation, is paid at your regular rate, out of what’s left to use, and no more than what’s left.
• On your anniversary, whatever is left to use is paid out, and this year’s saving becomes next year’s to use. The saving starts again at $0.

The separate cheques

Vacation pay doesn’t come on your regular cheque:

• Vacation days are paid on a cheque of their own, on the regular payday for the pay period they fall in.
• The anniversary payout comes on a cheque of its own, on the first payday on or after your anniversary.

Each of these cheques has its own tax, CPP, EI and net. Your regular cheque’s figures, and its comparison with your stub, stay the regular cheque’s own. On Month and Year, the totals and the list of cheques include them.

Paycheq taxes the payout as a lump sum: the year’s tax with it, less the year’s tax without it. That’s CRA’s method for irregular amounts.

An example

A B.C. job at $19.25 an hour with a 4% tier, which works out to two weeks a year. The stub paid May 1 shows VAC ACCR $1,355.20 and HOL ACCR $1,540.00.

• Three vacation days, 8 hours each, are $462.00. They come on their own cheque on that pay period’s payday, and HOL ACCR drops to $1,078.00.
• The anniversary is June 8. The $1,078.00 still left is paid out on June 12, the first payday after it. The saving built up by then becomes next year’s vacation pay.

Vacation by years of service

If your union contract sets vacation pay by years of service, add it to your contract rules:

1. Open Jobs, tap your job, then Contract rules.
2. Tap Vacation pay and turn on Vacation by years of service.
3. Add a tier for each step: the years of service, the percent, and the hours it’s worth.
4. Set Minimum hours in the year before if your agreement has one.

Paycheq uses the tier for your years of service on the anniversary that ends each vacation year.

Splitting vacation pay over the weeks

Some employers divide your vacation pay evenly over your weeks of vacation, instead of paying each day’s hours at your rate. To match that, turn on Split vacation pay over the weeks in the same place. A tier’s weeks are its hours over 40, so 160 hours is 4 weeks.

• Each week of vacation pays the year’s vacation pay divided by the weeks. A day pays a fifth of a week.
• For the year your stub’s balances come from, enter Weeks left under Vacation pay in Edit job: the weeks of vacation you haven’t taken yet. For example, $1,540.00 left with 2 weeks to go pays $770.00 a week, or $154.00 a day.
• From your next anniversary on, Paycheq divides the full balance by your tier’s weeks.

Some agreements say vacation pay is the percent or a number of hours at your rate, “whichever is greater”. Turn on Pay at least the hours if that’s more only if your stub really tops it up. Then, on your anniversary, next year’s vacation pay is raised to the hours if you worked the minimum hours. With it off, Paycheq uses the percent only. If the hours would be worth more, check with your employer or union.

Vacation by years of service is part of Paycheq Pro, like other contract rules. The vacation year, the balances from a stub and the card are free.

Where to see it

On Pay, the Vacation pay card shows:

• Left to use this year: what’s left of this year’s amount, with the payday it’s paid out on if you don’t use it, and about how many hours it buys.
• Saving for next year: the saving so far, and the percent. It says whether the percent is your contract’s rate or your province’s minimum for your years of service. Without Vacation by years of service in your contract rules, it’s the province’s minimum, such as 6% after 5 years in B.C.

When you enter a cheque stub, you can add its Saving YTD and Left to use to compare them with the estimate.

Estimates only. Not legal or tax advice. Your employer’s payroll may differ.