Full Time Contractor Accrual

Most leave types accrue on a calendar schedule — a fixed number of days per month, or a lump sum once a year. The Full Time Contractor accrual behaviour is different: leave accrues based on business days actually worked, which suits contractors and freelancers who only earn leave for the days they actually work.

Setting It Up

Select Full Time Contractor from the Accrual Behaviour dropdown when creating or editing a leave type under Settings → Leave Types.

Note

For this accrual behaviour, the Days field changes meaning. Instead of “days per annum,” it becomes the number of business days that must be worked to accrue 1 day of leave — for example, 17 for annual leave or 26 for sick leave. If left blank, it defaults to 17.

How It Works

Whenever something happens that could affect the balance — a leave request is submitted, approved, declined, or cancelled — TeamHub recalculates the balance for that leave type from scratch:

Days Worked = Business Days Since Opening Date − Approved Leave (any type)
Days Owed   = floor(Days Worked / Days Required Per Accrual)
New Entry   = Days Owed − Days Already Posted

See Business Days for exactly how “business days” is calculated — including working-day schedules and public holiday / custom calendar exclusions.

Only the difference between what’s owed and what’s already been posted is added as a new entry, so nothing is ever double-counted, and a day only appears once it’s fully earned.

Positive and Negative Accrual

Positive accrual is the normal case: as an employee works more days, the total owed crosses the next whole-day threshold and TeamHub posts a new accrual entry for the difference.

Negative accrual can happen because the balance is always recalculated from scratch rather than simply added to. If an employee’s leave is backdated or approved after the fact for dates already counted as worked, the recalculated total can drop below what’s already been posted. When that happens, TeamHub posts a negative adjustment entry that claws back the difference.

Note

A negative adjustment is expected, automatic behaviour, not an error — it almost always means a leave record was added or changed for a date in the past.

Balances Can’t Be Manually Edited

Because the balance is continuously reconciled from the formula above, manually adding, editing, or deleting an opening, accrual, or adjustment entry on a contractor-accrual leave type is blocked for regular admins — the next automatic run would just recalculate over it. System administrators retain the ability to edit or delete existing entries for support purposes.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why did a negative entry appear on this employee’s balance?: A leave record affecting the days-worked calculation — usually a backdated or late-approved booking — reduced the number of days actually worked, so the system posted a corrective adjustment.
Why can’t I add or edit a balance entry for this leave type?: Contractor-accrual leave types reconcile their own balances automatically, so manual entries are blocked for regular admins. Contact a system administrator or support if a correction is genuinely needed.