Accrual and holiday years
Earned over the year, Days arrive, Holiday year starts, Can be taken for and Carryover cap, explained.
Who can do thisHR Administrator
Accrual decides when a tracked leave type's days become available and how long they last. You set it in the leave type dialog, under the allowance.
No accrual
With Earned over the year off, the dialog says: "All 20 days are available from 1 January and must be used by 31 December. Nothing carries over."
Turn on accrual
- Open the leave type with Edit, or create a new one.
- Turn on Earned over the year.
- Fill in the fields below. HCM describes the result in a sentence under the fields as you type.
- Click Save.
| Field | What it means | Starts at |
|---|---|---|
| Days per year | Days earned per holiday year. Leave blank to use the annual allowance. | The allowance |
| Days arrive | "Month by month" (a twelfth each month) or "All at once, on the start date". | Month by month |
| Holiday year starts and Day | First day of the holiday year. Day 1 to 28 only. | 1 January |
| Can be taken for (months) | How long a holiday year's days can be used, counted from the year's start. 12 to 36. | 12 |
| Carryover cap (days) | Unused days that move to the next holiday year. The rest lapses. 0 up to Days per year. | 0 |
Read the sentence
For the Danish template the dialog says: "Earns 2.08 days a month over 1 Sep 2026 - 31 Aug 2027. They can be taken until 31 Dec 2027 - 16 months from 1 Sep 2026." Then "Up to 5 unused days carry into the next holiday year; anything above that lapses." and "2026 is only an example; the same pattern repeats every year."
When Can be taken for (months) is more than 12, two holiday years overlap, and an employee can hold days from both at once. The dialog warns about it. The overlap is normal under Danish rules; see Leave rules explained.
Messages about the accrual fields
These messages name each field by a short technical name instead of its label. The table shows which field each message refers to:
| Message | Field to fix |
|---|---|
| "daysPerYear must be greater than 0 and at most 366." | Days per year |
| "earn must be "monthly" or "upfront"." | Days arrive |
| "yearStart.month must be 1-12." / "yearStart.day must be 1-28." | Holiday year starts / Day |
| "takeMonths must be at least 12 - a taking period cannot end before its days are earned." (also "at most 36", "a whole number of months") | Can be taken for (months) |
| "carryoverMaxDays must not be negative." / "carryoverMaxDays must not exceed daysPerYear." | Carryover cap (days) |
If you click Save with one of these showing, you get "Fix the accrual settings above before saving."
An untracked type has no balance, so it cannot accrue: "An untracked leave type has no balance, so there's nothing to earn. Give it an annual allowance above to configure how it's accrued."