Overview

The New Zealand Holidays Act 2003 is the fundamental piece of legislation outlining leave entitlements for employees.  It's acknowledged that the Act is a complex piece of legislation and issues of implementation have  posed challenges for a range of public and private sector organisations.

But we'll help you stay compliant with the Act through the leave management smarts in MYOB Essentials.

Take a look at this short video to get an overview of how leave works.

Setting up leave entitlements

After each 12 months of continuous employment, an employee is entitled to not less than four weeks’ annual holidays as paid time off work. Some employees may agree to be paid at least eight percent of gross earnings in addition to their usual pay instead, but only if they meet specific criteria.

You may offer your employees more than the minimum. An employee’s annual holidays entitlement remains in force until the employee has taken the holidays or it's been paid out under s28B of the Act.

To learn more about the ins-and-outs of annual leave, see the Employment New Zealand website.

For help setting up leave in MYOB Essentials, see Set up leave.

Paying leave

When you pay your employees, you can include paid leave in the pay run. Choose the type of leave you're paying and MYOB Essentials helps you determine the applicable pay rate.

For step-by-step instructions on paying leave in MYOB Essentials, see Paying leave.

There are specific rules which apply to certain leave types, so we've created these help topics to assist:

• Unpaid leave
• Family Violence Leave
• Annual closedowns (New Zealand)
• Leave calculations
• Paid parental leave (New Zealand)
• Processing a final pay
• Cashing up annual holidays

Managing leave entitlements

Once you're set up and paying leave, you'll likely want to keep an eye on things. MYOB Essentials makes it easy to view your employees' leave balances and make any required changes.

It's also important to be across any leave impacts if an employee's work pattern changes. We've created this help topic which goes into more detail about this: Updating leave balances in New Zealand

For more details see Managing your employees’ leave.