Note: Time Away From Work (TAFW) is available to Toast Payroll Pro users. The TAFW module lets employees and managers track, earn, and use paid time away in buckets such as vacation, PTO, sick, personal, and bereavement. For first-time setup, see Toast Payroll: Get Started With Time Away from Work (TAFW).

To create a new TAFW tier or policy, or to change an existing one, contact Toast Customer Care through the blue chat button in the lower-right corner of any Toast Payroll page. Tier and policy changes are not made from the TAFW dashboard. When you reach out, have your policy details ready, such as which types of leave the tier should include (vacation, PTO, sick, or other), the accrual rate, the accrual frequency, any carry-over rules, and any caps. To learn how tiers, types, and rules fit together before you reach out, see Toast Payroll: Get Started With Time Away from Work (TAFW).

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Accrual rates cannot be customized for individual employees within a tier. TAFW tier accrual rates are universal for every employee assigned to that tier, based on their tenure. If you need one or more employees to accrue at a unique rate, a new TAFW tier has to be created for them with their specific accrual information. Contact Toast Customer Care through the blue chat button in the lower-right corner of any Toast Payroll page to create a new TAFW tier.

If instead you need a different pay rate for the hours an employee is paid for TAFW, navigate to the employee's profile > Employment > Recurring > Add+ and complete the following:

Expected outcome: The new pay rate appears on the employee's Recurring tab and applies to future TAFW payouts for that earning.

Note: If an employee already has an earning code set up for Sick, PTO, or another TAFW type at a different rate than what you need, the existing one must be end-dated so you do not receive two line items for time off pay on their paystubs.

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You cannot keep a carry-over bucket on its own without its parent tier. All TAFW buckets, including carry-over buckets, are displayed for an employee based on the TAFW tier they are assigned to. While carry-over buckets can be added manually by import, the parent bucket must exist in the employee's newly assigned tier. For example, if an employee is in tier A with 20 hours of PTO (Carry Over) and is moved to tier B, their buckets refresh with tier B buckets, and the PTO (Carry Over) bucket can only be imported if tier B also has a PTO (Carry Over) bucket.

If an employee is moved to a tier with no buckets, no carry-over buckets can be added for them. One option is to add buckets that never accrue to the None tier; most employees in that tier then have no TAFW hours, but hours can still be added manually if needed.

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When an employee is not accruing hours as expected, check the tier assignment and earning code setup. Navigate to Employee Profile > Time Off > Time Away Plan and confirm the employee is assigned to a tier with an active type. Then check the earning code setup for TAFW Accrual Eligible. The earning codes most commonly set as TAFW Accrual Eligible are Regular, Salary, Overtime, and Double Overtime. This setting can be flagged or unflagged only on an existing earning code, and some companies specifically request that Overtime and Double Overtime not be TAFW Accrual Eligible.

If the employee is salaried, also check whether the timesheet is tied to payroll by navigating to Employee Profile > Position > Edit and reviewing the Is Timesheet Tied to Payroll? setting.

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Hours disappear after a tier change because changing an employee's TAFW tier zeroes out their current buckets and creates new buckets based on the new tier. The employee then begins accruing based on the new tier. If the new tier accrues only once a year, the employee will not accrue those hours until the accrual date.

The hours from the previous buckets are shown on the Accrual History tab of the employee's Time Off page. If needed, add those hours manually to the employee's new buckets. To make a manual adjustment, see Toast Payroll: Make Adjustments to Time Away From Work (TAFW).

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A TAFW balance can disappear after a position change because a new position may not have the same default TAFW tier, which can move the employee to a tier of Not Applicable and remove their balances. Check the employee's tier by navigating to Employee Profile > Time Off > Time Away Plan. If the tier is now Not Applicable or incorrect, the employee will need to be reassigned to the correct tier, and any missing hours may need to be added back. To reassign a tier, see Toast Payroll: Assign an Employee to a TAFW Tier. To set a default tier for a position so this does not recur, see Toast Payroll: Assign a Default TAFW Tier to a Position.

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Manually added hours that don't appear in a bucket are usually outside the bucket's active date range. When you manually add hours on the Current Plan Details tab of an employee's Time Off page, the system asks for a date for when the hours should take effect. The hours display only if that date falls within the Period Start and Period End dates, also shown on the Current Plan Details tab.

If a date is entered that is before the Period Start date, those hours will never appear in the employee's bucket. If a date is entered that is after the Period End date, those hours appear once the TAFW resets and that date falls within the new Period Start and Period End dates.

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A manual accrual addition appears in the Available Balance after the system's nightly reset, so it generally displays the next day rather than instantly. Confirm the effective date you entered falls within the current Period Start and Period End dates on the Current Plan Details tab; if it falls outside that range, the hours will not display in the current bucket.

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TAFW comes out of the bucket automatically when the request is made, not when it is paid out on payroll. The hours are subtracted from the employee's Available Balance and move into the Upcoming column. If the request is denied, the hours go back into the bucket.

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When a TAFW request is deleted, the hours are removed from the Upcoming column and added back to the employee's Available Balance bucket. When the time was first requested, the hours were subtracted from the Available Balance bucket for the type selected and shown in the Upcoming column. Deleting the request reverses that. You can review this on the Current Plan Details tab by navigating to employee profile > Time Off > Current Plan Details.

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If hours do not return to the bucket after a request is deleted, the employee's TAFW tier most likely changed since the request was made. In that case, the bucket they requested from now appears on the Historical Plan Details tab and holds hours that are no longer available to the employee.

To confirm this, check the Requests tab and change the Status filter from Approved to Deleted. This shows which tier the employee had when they requested the hours. If that tier matches the tier on the Historical Plan Details tab, the hours were returned to the previous bucket.

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A TAFW request is approved automatically when no approval workflow is set up. If a Time Away From Work approval workflow is not configured under Settings > Workflow > Time Away, any employee request is approved automatically. To set up an approval workflow so requests route to a manager, see Toast Payroll: Customize Workflows.

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A TAFW request does not appear on payroll or a timesheet most often because it was not approved before timesheets were approved or payroll was started. Until a request is approved, it is not considered taken and does not affect the employee's TAFW buckets. If this happens and you want to add the request after the fact, see the next question on recording past-dated requests.

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Yes, you can record past-dated TAFW requests in Toast Payroll. Employees can submit past-dated requests, and employers who manage TAFW can submit past-dated requests on behalf of other employees. This usually happens when an employee misses a day due to illness and records the sick day later.

If the pay period covering the request date has already been posted, the request hours are deducted from the leave entitlement, and the leave hours must be added manually to a future-dated payroll for the employee to be paid out. To do this, navigate to the employee's profile and select Time Off > Requests, select the appropriate TAFW bucket using the edit pencil icon, and in the pop-up window select Decrease Overall Balance and toggle Update Taken? to Yes. Complete the remaining details and select Finish.

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An employee can request time off for a date after their TAFW reset. The requested hours will not display as upcoming or affect the current bucket. Once the bucket resets, the hours then display as upcoming and are subtracted from the new bucket's total. If a carry-over bucket is created at the reset, the request will not use the carry-over bucket but will still use the new main bucket.

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To pay out TAFW for a terminated employee, you can include the payout as a step in the termination process. To customize the termination template to include a TAFW payout, navigate to Settings > Status Changes and follow the instructions in Toast Payroll: Create Termination Templates and Reasons.

If you want to pay employees out outside of termination, do so manually: add the hours directly to payroll, then manually subtract them from the TAFW buckets on the Current Plan Details tab for each employee at employee profile > Time Off. If you want a different TAFW earning code labeled as a payout, that earning code may need to be created by Toast; contact Toast Customer Care through the blue chat button in the lower-right corner of any Toast Payroll page.

Note: When an employee is terminated, they no longer accrue additional hours unless they accrue based on hours worked and are paid out after their termination. The amounts already accrued still display on their TAFW dashboard and on reports for payout purposes.

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No, a TAFW payout from the termination module cannot attach to an off-cycle payroll. When you complete the TAFW step of a termination template, the list of check dates shows only the check dates of the normal payroll calendars created for the employee's pay group. Off-cycle payrolls do not appear on this list. To attach the payout to an off-cycle, use this step to calculate how much the payout should be, then add it manually to the off-cycle as needed.

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To update TAFW buckets after a PTO payout, adjust the employee's balances on their TAFW dashboard after adding the payout to the Employee Earnings step of payroll. Navigate to the employee's profile > Time Off > edit pencil to make the adjustment. If you need to update 15 or more employees, contact Toast Customer Care through the blue chat button in the lower-right corner of any Toast Payroll page about importing the adjustment.

Note: An employee's bucket can be updated only if they are still assigned to a TAFW tier.

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For terminated employees, accrued hours remain visible for payout, and rehired employees keep or lose hours depending on the tier they return to. When an employee is terminated, they stop accruing additional hours unless they accrue based on hours worked and are paid out after termination; amounts already accrued still display on their TAFW dashboard and on reports.

When an employee is rehired, the outcome depends on their tier. If they are rehired into a different TAFW tier, they lose the hours previously accrued and begin accruing based on the rules of the new tier. If they are rehired into their original TAFW tier, their previously accrued hours remain in their balance based on their previous expiration dates.

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Yes, a leave of absence always stops TAFW accrual. The LOA status prevents the employee from accruing any TAFW, and there is no way to auto-generate TAFW accruals for employees who are on leave. If you want an employee on LOA to accrue TAFW hours during that time, the hours have to be added manually.

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Use the TAFW Balances Report to review balances and to help with manual adjustments. The best practice is to run the report before and after making any changes so you can confirm the result. You can also check the Historical Plan Details on an employee's Time Away page to see if their TAFW tier recently changed, since a tier change affects their buckets and balances. For the full list of TAFW reports, see Toast Payroll: Get Started With Time Away from Work (TAFW).

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A default manager security role cannot access the TAFW module at Time > Time Off, but can access the TAFW page of any employee who reports to them at employee profile > Time Off. Workflows can be set up so manager security roles are alerted of TAFW requests, which lets them approve a request directly from the To Do feature on their own Toast Payroll dashboard. To set this up, see Toast Payroll: Customize Workflows.

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TAFW hours appear on payroll once the request is approved and the hours flow to the employee's timesheet, and whether TAFW balances display on paystubs depends on your company's setup. If you want TAFW balances added to paystubs for hourly and salaried employees, or you are unsure how your account is configured, contact Toast Customer Care through the blue chat button in the lower-right corner of any Toast Payroll page.

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To unapprove or delete an already-approved TAFW request, open the employee's Requests tab at employee profile > Time Off > Requests and locate the request. An HR+ user can remove an upcoming request by selecting the trash icon, which subtracts the hours from the Upcoming bucket and adds them back to the Available bucket. If the requested date has already passed and the time is marked as Taken, a manual adjustment is needed instead; see Toast Payroll: Make Adjustments to Time Away From Work (TAFW).

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The "NYC sick leave case" message in the Accrual History tab is a known internal coding message that can safely be ignored. Under certain conditions, the Accrual History tab on an employee's Toast Payroll profile may display this message. It does not affect the employee's balances.

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This content is for informational purposes and is not intended as legal, tax, HR, or any other professional advice. Please contact an attorney or other professional for advice.