Attendance - Introduction

Before you setup Gradience Attendance, you must first understand the three basic components of the software.

1. Time-Off Banks: These are [not] the reasons employees are absent. These are the banks that hold the Time-Off that your employees earn.

2. Time-Off Plans: These make automatic deposits of Time-Off into the Time-Off Banks only if they have been assigned to the employees. If a plan is not assigned, the employee will [not] earn Time-Off.

3. Absence Reason Codes: These can make withdrawals from the Time-Off Banks. These are the reasons people are absent. You apply these codes to dates on the calendar screen.

Time-Off Banks:

Old versions of the software called these Absence Categories. Later versions call these Time-Off Banks.

The software comes fresh-out-of-the-box with three types of Time-Off Banks.
• Vacation
• Sick
• Personal

Some organizations prefer a single category called PTO or Paid Time-Off while other organizations prefer to have Vacation but wish to combine Sick with Personal and call it Sick/Personal, while still other organizations prefer to add-in Comp Time or Floating Holiday or Points, or Occurrences. The program is capable of accommodating such customization but it is essential for you understand the way the software works [before] altering the Time-Off Banks.

Often, people will add Absence Categories / Time-Off Banks like Jury Duty, Tardy, Unpaid Absence, etc. This is a mistake! After all, how much of these kinds of Time-Off do employees actually [earn]?

Absence Reason Codes:

If someone is Tardy, or on Jury Duty, or out on Unpaid Absence, or anytime an employee is absent, simply apply the appropriate Absence Reason Code to the date that the employee was absent. Any Absence Reason Code can be made to make withdrawals from the Time-Off Banks.

Time-Off Plans:

Take full advantage of the software by creating Time-Off plans. These will establish:

• When employees earn Time-Off

• The amount of Time-Off employees earn based on length of employment or even based on the number of hours worked during a period of time

• Whether your Time-Off is earned all at once each year or earned piece-meal throughout the year such as weekly or monthly or every two weeks, etc.

• Whether the [year] is an Anniversary Year, a Fiscal Year or a Calendar Year

• Whether unused Time-Off remaining at the end of one year should carry over into the next and if so, how much

• Whether there should be a waiting period before Time-Off may accrue to employees

Typically, a single Time-Off plan would be assigned to [all] or at least [many] employees even if some have worked there for a short time while others have worked there for a long time. A single Time-Off plan can have multiple [levels] that accrue different amounts of Time-Off based on length of employment. This way, employees keep the same plan throughout their employment but as the years pass, they will earn increasingly higher amounts of Time-Off based on your policy. Time-Off can also be made to accrue to your employees automatically so you never have to do it manually.

The software also comes fresh out of the box with a plan called None. This is a Time-Off plan that accrues [no] Time-Off at all. For example you would assign the None plan to the Vacation Absence Category / Time-Off Bank for an intern who [does not] earn Vacation Time.

Take Your Time!

Avoid frustration. Please take your time following the sequential steps found in the Initial Software Setup Guide. If you rush through this process you may make bad entries based on faulty notions of how the software works. So, please take your time and follow the sequence as laid-out in the instructions. Click HERE to access the Initial Software Setup Guide.