Adding Bereavement Leave to a Timesheet for a Qualifying Casual Employee

When adding bereavement leave to your casual employee's timesheet, some manual adjustments might be needed. This article will take you through this process.

Updated: August 2023

Important information to note before you start:

• Bereavement leave is provided in two levels of entitlement, although employers may provide more:
  • three days for a close family member, and
  • one day for any other person if the employer agrees.

The Thankyou Payroll system and bereavement leave under the '8% of Gross Earnings (temp and irregular scenario)' leave setting:

• As casual employees do not have 'otherwise working days', they can take bereavement leave on any day they are offered work.

• The system defaults to paying bereavement leave at the average daily rate under the '8% of Gross Earnings' leave setting because a casual employee doesn't have a set work pattern the system recognises. The setting to pay at the ordinary rate (hourly rate) can be manually chosen in the Costing Screen.

• If part days of bereavement leave are taken, you will have to do manual adjustments in the Costing Screen.

• This is the same for all employees with the '8% of Gross earnings (temp and irregular scenario)' setting.

Adding Bereavement Leave to a Casual Employee's Timesheet

Let's look at a timesheet for a casual employee who has qualified for the bereavement leave entitlement:

1. The timesheet will be empty as a casual employee doesn't have default work days. If your employee has worked standard hours, use the first row to fill these in. Add a new row to the timesheet by clicking on the green + sign.
2. Select the payment type: 'Bereavement' from the dropdown menu on the left of this row.
3. For the bereavement leave entry, fill in the number of hours the employee is taking leave for the day in question.
4. Adjust the 'Standard Pay' row entry for the corresponding day. Ensure that there are no entries in this day's box if they are taking a full day of bereavement leave. This will ensure that the employee is not paid twice for the same day. 
   1. If your employee is not taking a full day of bereavement leave, enter the hours worked and the hours on leave into the corresponding fields. You have to also manually change the number of hours usually worked on this day to match as well as the calculation used. You do this in the Costing Screen after you have updated and saved the timesheet. In this example, the employee is only taking 2 hours of bereavement leave:
      
5. Update and Save this timesheet. The timesheet boxes will be green when the timesheet has been saved, as in the example.
6. Check the 'Gross balance' for the pay period to ensure that this is correct.
7. The 'Pay day transfer' amount is what the employee will receive in their bank account.
8. To check that the bereavement leave is calculated at the expected rate, left-click in the green timesheet box for that entry. This will bring up the cost calculation screen, which shows the pay calculation details. Follow the link to an article on how to interpret this screen.