> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.ontime.hosai.app/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Balances and accrual

> How leave balances are credited monthly or annually, carried across the financial year, and topped up by comp-off.

A **balance** is one employee's entitlement for one leave type in one financial year. It goes up through accrual, carry-forward and comp-off credits; it goes down when a request is approved.

## What moves a balance

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Accrual" icon="trending-up">
    Scheduled credit, monthly or annual, according to the leave type's method and rate.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Carry-forward" icon="calendar-arrow-up">
    At the financial-year boundary, unused days move into the new year — up to the type's cap.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Comp-off credit" icon="gift">
    Overtime approved on a holiday or the employee's weekly off adds comp-off days.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Approved leave" icon="minus">
    Debits the balance, in the same transaction as the approval.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

## The accrual run

OnTime checks for due accruals **once a day, automatically**. There is nothing to schedule and no cron job to configure.

An administrator with `leave:config` can also trigger a run for a specific month from **Settings → Leave policies**. This is useful for backfilling after a configuration change, or for confirming what a run would do.

### It is safe to run twice

Each balance records the month it was last accrued through. A run credits only the gap between that marker and the target month, then moves the marker. Running the same month twice credits nothing the second time.

<Note>
  This is why the daily automatic check is a *check* rather than a job — it can fire every day without ever double-crediting, and a missed day is simply picked up by the next run.
</Note>

### What the run reports

A per-type summary: how many months were applied, how many employees were credited, and how many days in total. Carry-forward is reported separately — employees carried and days carried.

## Monthly accrual

For a `Monthly` type, each run credits `accrualRate` days per month of gap. An employee whose balance was last accrued through March, on a run for June, receives three months' worth.

<Warning>
  **Monthly accrual is not capped at the annual quota.** A `Monthly` type with a rate of 1.5 accrues 18 days a year regardless of what the quota field says. The quota informs display and carry-forward; it is the carry-forward cap, not the quota, that limits what survives a year boundary.
</Warning>

## Annual accrual

For an `Annual` type, the whole quota is credited once, when the run first crosses the financial-year start. Employees get their casual and sick leave up front rather than a twelfth at a time.

## Carry-forward

At the financial-year boundary the runner credits, for each employee and type with a carry-forward cap above zero, the lesser of the previous year's remaining balance and the cap. Anything above the cap lapses. Types with a cap of zero start the new year from their accrual alone.

Carry-forward is guarded the same way accrual is — it is recorded per balance, so a run that touches the boundary twice carries nothing twice.

<Note>
  The financial year starts in **April**. This is fixed — payroll and compliance arithmetic assumes it, and the organization profile shows it read-only.
</Note>

## Comp-off

Comp-off does not accrue on a schedule. It is credited when a manager approves overtime that fell on a holiday or on the employee's weekly off, in the same transaction as the approval.

Near the annual cap the credit is clamped rather than refused: an employee close to the ceiling may receive half a day instead of a full one, and a credit that would come to zero is skipped silently. See [Overtime](/help/attendance/overtime).

## Where balances appear

* **Employees** see their own balances on the Leave tab of the employee app, and again in the quote shown before they submit a request.
* **Managers** see the balance an employee would be left with on the approval detail.
* **Administrators** see balances on the employee record's Leave tab, alongside that person's full leave history.

## Employees who join mid-year

Their balance starts at whatever the accrual runner credits from the point their record exists. If your organization grants a pro-rated opening balance on joining, set it before the employee's first request — the runner will not infer it.