The holiday year ends on 31 August, so it's important that you have an overview of the holiday your employees have taken. With Zenegy, the move to a new holiday year is both efficient and easy to follow. Here are four key points you should focus on as an employer.
1 Review your employees' holiday balances
Employees always earn 2.08 days of holiday per month (unless they're employed as casual workers). This means that in the period 1 September 2024 to 31 August 2025, employees who have been employed for the whole period have earned 25 days of holiday. This period is called the accrual year. In Zenegy, you have access to detailed reports that give a full overview of both holiday and the related holiday pay liabilities. That makes it easy to spot any irregularities and make sure everything adds up.
2 Holiday must be taken or transferred
The days of holiday earned must be taken within 16 months of the start of the holiday year; that is, employees must make sure to take at least 20 days of holiday in the period 1 September 2024 – 31 December 2025. This 16-month period is called the “holiday-taking year” or the “holiday-taking period”. So there's no need to panic about closing the holiday year on 31 August, as employees have another 4 months in which to take their holiday. If employees don't manage to take all their holiday before 31 December 2025, the company and the employee can choose to agree that the 5 remaining days of holiday are transferred to the next holiday year. The agreement doesn't have to be in place until 31 December, so there's plenty of time to make sure no days of holiday are lost. If you still miss the deadline for transferring the days, the 5 days of holiday will instead automatically be paid out to the employee.
3 Holiday can't be taken in advance across holiday years
Even though it's tempting to take a long summer holiday, it's important to make employees aware that they can't take holiday in advance across holiday years. You may not take more holiday than you can earn within the accrual year. In practice, this means that if an employee takes more holiday than they have earned in August, Zenegy Payroll will automatically create a pay deduction for self-paid holiday for the days the employee has taken too many. So handling holiday in Zenegy is quite straightforward, but do make sure to tell your employees in advance.
4 Holiday allowance and Great Prayer Day supplement are paid out automatically
For the vast majority of companies, holiday allowance and Great Prayer Day supplement are paid out in May and August. The large pool earned from September 2024 to May 2025 was paid out back in May, but employees have earned both holiday allowance and Great Prayer Day supplement for June, July and August. For the remaining three months, the balances will automatically be paid out in August. So you don't need to worry about emptying the balances for holiday allowance and Great Prayer Day supplement when the holiday year ends – Zenegy settles the balances for you, fully automatically.
A professional transition – with support close at hand
Even though settling holiday can seem complex, in practice it's easy to handle with Zenegy. And if you have questions, our skilled Customer Care Team is always ready to help – whether by chat, email or phone.
