This help guide will detail how to access, configure, and manage Tanda's new long service leave feature.

Before we explain how to configure our new long service leave feature, we must first define some key terms.

We have added a Long Service Leave tab to each employee’s profile (accessible via Workforce > Staff) for easy access. To access it, navigate to an employee’s profile, then select Payroll > Long Service Leave.

If you haven't yet set a staff member’s employment start date, you will be prompted to do so. Without this, the feature will not work, as the employment start date is used to calculate the employee’s period of continuous service.

To enter an employment start date, navigate to Personal > Personal Details on an employee’s profile, then scroll down to ‘Employment start date,’ enter the appropriate date, and click ‘Update Employee Details.’

Once you have set an employment start date, return to the Long Service Leave tab to configure the feature. Start by entering your state.

On this page, you will also be shown the employee’s next eligible accrual date and the option to enter additional hours worked outside Tanda and additional days of non-continuous service outside Tanda. We've included this option because an employee’s entire tenure with your organisation might not necessarily be housed and recorded in Tanda. As such, you can supplement hours recorded in Tanda with those worked outside Tanda for an accurate long service leave calculation.

For example, let’s say your company signed up to Tanda last year, but you have an employee who has worked 11,245 hours of continuous service (just over 5 years) before that. In that case, you would enter '11,245' in the ‘additional hours worked outside Tanda’ field. Ensure you click save to apply your changes.

When an employee is about to be paid a payslip entitled to long service leave for the first time (i.e. the previous payslip was not entitled to long service leave), you will receive an alert that the employee is about to accrue long service leave.

This alert links to the employee's Long Service Leave tab, prompting the employer to ensure all details are accurate before finalising that pay run.

You can also track an employee's long service leave entitlements directly in the Long Service Leave tab. The 'Next Entitlement' section shows the employee's next eligible long service leave accrual date.

Once an employee becomes eligible after an appropriate period of continuous service, long service leave will create an accrual on their payslip, as shown below.

By default, the contingent leave balance is hidden and unusable (i.e. an employee cannot use this balance to apply for leave)—it is only used for termination payments under certain circumstances.

After the stipulated period of continuous service, a usable long service leave balance will appear on the employee's account. From here, employees can treat this like any other leave type to request leave. For details on doing so, please see our leave and unavailability help guide.

Long service leave is calculated based on the time an employee has worked over their employment. For full-time employees, we calculate this based on their pay conditions, which can be found by navigating to an employee's profile and selecting Pay Conditions.

We use timesheets for part-time and casual employees. If an employee has worked a mix of full-time and part-time hours over their tenure, we look for timesheets that reflect these hours.

To learn more about long service leave accrual and calculation rules, please access the appropriate legislation for your location.

As we transition from our old long service leave calculations to this new feature, you might notice that eligible employees have two long service leave balances, with the new version named ‘Long Service Leave (Calculated).’ For example:

In most circumstances, the new balance will already be accurate and ready to use. However, during the transition period, we recommend maintaining your old long service leave balances so you can audit the outputs of our new model.

When an employee has multiple long service leave balances, we recommend comparing the ‘old’ and ‘new’ balances to ensure they align. You should also continue to perform any other checks/calculations you would have previously undertaken to ensure these figures are accurate.

If the balances align, you can safely delete the old 'Long Service Leave' balance and begin using the new feature! If not, you can correct this by manually copying the old balance to the new one.