Ahead of public holidays in your region, use this checklist to ensure your account is correctly configured for public holiday pay rates and leave to apply as required.
1. Set Public Holiday Regions for Your Locations
Public holidays may differ between states and territories, so Tanda assigns public holidays to your staff based on the default location set in their profile and the public holiday dates configured in your locations.
Public holiday dates are configured in locations through a combination of groups of state-wide public holidays called public holiday "Regions", and individual custom holiday dates for local-specific public holidays, such as showdays.
To ensure each location in your account has its required public holiday dates configured, first ensure that each location has its respective public holiday "Region" selected. To do this;
Navigate to Workforce > Teams.
Select Edit next to each location's name.
Scroll down and expand Advanced Options.
Click the box next to Holiday Regions and search for the relevant "Region".
Save your changes using the Update location details button.
Once each location's "Region" has been set, you can then apply certain local or regional public holidays (e.g., showdays) to your locations manually. To do this:
Go to Workforce → Teams.
Select Edit next to the location requiring the custom holiday.
Click the "+" button under "Public Holiday Setup", and select your desired date
Save the change by clicking "Update Location Details"
To learn more, see our Configure Public Holiday Dates help guide.
2. Ensure All Employees Have a Default Payroll Team
An employee's Default Payroll Team is what determines which location's public holiday dates will be assigned to that employee.
Employees without Default Payroll Teams will default to General Settings’ public holiday configurations, which could lead to discrepancies if location-specific settings are required.
To check if any employees are missing a Default Payroll Team, you can check the teams tab in each of their profiles under "Personal > Teams" or use the Employee Report.
When using the Employee Report, ensure you select the Default Location, Default Department, and Preferred Name columns to generate a list and review these allocations.
In cases where public holiday rates have been applied incorrectly, use the Employee Report to verify if any discrepancies exist in Default Payroll Team assignments. Adjustments must be made to reflect correct payroll processing.
If an employee is missing a Default Payroll Team, simply navigate to "Personal > Teams" within their employee profile and assign a Default Payroll Team accordingly.
To learn more, see our Adding Locations and Teams help guide.
3. Ensure the "Public Holiday (Paid/Not Worked)" Leave Type Applies to Relevant Staff
Generally, the 'Public Holiday (Paid/Not Worked)' leave type is only applicable to permanent employees (e.g., full-time or part-time). In Tanda, this default leave type is configured to apply to all staff, but this can be adjusted.
To edit which staff can receive the 'Public Holiday (Paid/Not Worked)' leave type:
Navigate to Time & Attendance > Compliance > Manage Leave types.
Click on the Public Holiday (Paid/Not Worked) leave type.
Change the Leave applies to setting from All Staff to Categorised staff (based on award tags).
Select the relevant tags for staff who should receive this leave type.
Click Save at the bottom of the page to confirm your changes.
4. Have "Public Holiday (Paid/Not Worked)" Leave Automatically Created and Approved.
To save time ensuring employees receive the correct pay on public holidays, Public Holiday (Paid/Not Worked) leave can be automatically created and approved for the relevant staff.
To configure the leave type to automatically apply:
Navigate to Time & Attendance > Compliance > Manage Leave types.
Click on the Public Holiday (Paid/Not Worked) leave type.
Scroll down to the Leave applies on section and tick the option to Automatically apply this leave type on public holidays
Optional: Tick the Applies on specific holidays to only apply to a specific public holiday
Under section 3. Advanced Settings, tick the box 'Automatically approve this type of leave request.'
Recommended: Enable the setting to Prevent leave requests for this leave type to ensure leave applies correctly.
Click Save at the bottom of the page to confirm your changes.
You can learn more about this feature here: Automatically pay staff for not working on a public holiday.
How Does Automatic Public Holiday (Paid/Not Worked) Leave Work?
When configured as above, an approved leave request will be created for employees whom the public holiday leave applies to.
The leave request is created at 11 pm on the night of the public holiday.
Important to note:
The automatic leave request will not be created if:
The employee clocks in or out on the public holiday
A populated timesheet already exists for the employee on the public holiday
The leave type doesn't apply to the employee
How Are the Times/Lengths of Automatic Leave Requests Generated?
The times/length of the leave request will be populated based on the leave autofill settings in your account under Settings > All Settings > Leave.
Learn more about leave autofill in the Autofill leave requests with correct hours for each employee help guide.
Troubleshooting Public Holiday Pay Issues
If public holiday rates are not applied correctly:
Review the affected location's settings under Workforce → Teams → Edit Location.
Verify the inclusion of the public holiday under the location's configuration.
Unlock the impacted timesheets via Timesheets → More Actions.
Recalculate rates by selecting 'Recalculate Timesheets.' For part-day leave during public holidays, double-check that the times entered are valid to prevent incorrect hour calculations.