WFM UK | HR & Payroll: Configuring Absence Types

Overview

Absence Types are the foundation of absence management in Fourth. They define the categories available when recording an absence against an employee, and control how that absence is treated in terms of pay, ensuring the correct adjustments are reflected when payroll is processed.

Absence Types can be configured to suit your business needs, covering a range of scenarios such as sickness, compassionate leave, or jury service. They are intended to capture any period where an employee is away from the business that falls outside of holiday or parental leave, both of which are managed through their own dedicated functions within the system. When an absence is recorded on an employee's HR record, the Absence Type selected drives the behaviour of that record, including whether negative or statutory payments are applied, whether the absence counts toward Bradford Factor calculations, and whether it is recorded in days or hours.

Absence Types can be created and edited from either the HR or Payroll module, depending on the user's access level. This article covers the process of creating and configuring Absence Types.

Contents

• Configuring Absence Types
• Deleting or Editing Absence Types
• Appendix
  • Negative Payments - Calculation Examples

Configuring Absence Types

Absence Types are created and managed from the Administration section of either the HR or Payroll module, depending on your access level:

• HR Module (or Payroll Module) > Administration > Absence Types
• Select Create Absence Type

The following fields will be available to configure the Absence Type:

• When the absence type configurations have been selected, click Save:

This absence type will then be available for selection, when creating an absence for employees:

Deleting or Editing Absence Types

Absence Types that have already been used to process employee absences can still have some fields edited, however care should be taken as changes may have unintended consequences on existing or outstanding absence records. For example, unticking Used? will hide the Absence Type from selection going forward, but if there are outstanding absences of that type still to be processed, those should be reviewed before making the change. Similarly, changes to payment-related settings such as SSP or CSP may affect how existing absences calculate or pay, and it is recommended to seek guidance from your payroll administrator before making changes to an Absence Type that is in active use.

An Absence Type can only be deleted if it has never been used to process an employee absence. On the Absence Types page, any record showing N/A in the Delete? column has either been used to record an absence, or is a default absence type provided by the system and cannot be removed. To delete an Absence Type, that can be deleted, tick the box in the Delete? column and then select the Delete button:

Appendix

Negative Payments - Calculation Examples

Absence in Days

Where an absence type is configured to use negative payments and the absence is recorded in days, the system will send a negative payment to payroll to offset the employee's salary for the days they were absent.

The offset is calculated as follows:

1. The qualifying days ticked on the absence record are used to determine the number of qualifying days per week
2. This is multiplied by 52 to give the number of qualifying days in a year
3. The employee's annual salary is divided by the yearly qualifying days figure to arrive at the daily rate
4. The daily rate is then multiplied by the number of qualifying days in the absence to give the total offset

For example, an employee with a Monday to Friday working pattern has 5 qualifying days per week. 5 × 52 = 260 qualifying days per year. With an annual salary of £46,532.01, the daily rate is £46,532.01 ÷ 260 = £178.97. For an absence from 1st to 15th August 2026 with 10 qualifying days, the total offset would be 10 × £178.97 = £1,789.70.

Absence in Hours

Where using negative payments in the Absence Type configuration and the Absence is configured to be in hours, the selected payment type is used to offset the employee's earnings, however the calculation follows a different set of rules to the days-based method.

The sick offset calculation applies only to salaried employees. Where an employee has changed from hourly to salaried part way through a period, the effective date in their employment history is used to determine whether an offset applies. If the absence occurred while the employee was salaried, the offset will be applied. If not, it will not. Where an absence spans a salary change, this is validated separately.

The total absence hours within the pay period are summed and used as the basis for the offset calculation. The hourly rate is then calculated using the following hierarchy, where only one source is used and there is no blending between them:

1. Employee Override FTE, if present
2. Contracted Hours, if no Override FTE is available
3. Job Title FTE, if no Override FTE or Contracted Hours is available
4. A default assumption of 40 hours per week, if none of the above exist

The hourly rate is calculated as:

• (Annual Salary / 52) / Weekly Hours Source

No intermediate rounding is applied during this calculation. The sick offset value is then derived as:

• Total Applicable Absence Hours x Calculated Hourly Rate

The final sick offset value is rounded to two decimal places at the point of output only.

It is worth noting that the full salary pay element continues to generate as normal, unless adjusted for a part-worked period such as for a new starter or leaver. SSP and CSP pay elements also continue to generate independently where applicable and are not influenced by the salary offset calculation.

If any of the elements used as part of this calculation are edited while payroll is open, the sick offset will recalculate dynamically to reflect the change. Payroll rollback behaviour applies as normal.

For example, if an employee is absent from 8th June 2026 to 14th June 2026 and their absence totals 18 hours within the pay period, with an annual salary of £40,000 and contracted hours of 37.5 per week, the hourly rate would be calculated as (£40,000 / 52) / 37.5, giving £20.51 per hour. The sick offset applied to payroll would therefore be 18 hours at £20.51, giving a total offset of £369.18.