The hour balance policy sets the rules for the balance: it decides which differences in the working day count, how HR can compensate them, and when they expire. A person without an assigned policy doesn’t accrue hours, so creating one is the first step to using Hour balance.
In this article you’ll see, step by step, how to create the policy, assign it to your team and keep it up to date.
☝️ To create, edit and assign policies, you need the Team Pro plan and a role with the Balance permission.
1. Create the policy
Policies are managed from Settings, alongside the rest of the HR settings.
Go to Settings > HR > Hour balance.
Click + New balance policy.
Fill in the sections of the form, covered in the following points.
Click Save.
💡 If your account doesn’t have any policies yet, you can also start from HR > Hour balance with the Set up hour balance button.
2. Basic information
This section identifies the policy and, if it’s your first one, lets you apply it to the whole team at once.
Name: the name you’ll see in the Hour balance table and in the employee profile.
Apply to all employees: assigns the policy, starting today, to active people who have an absence policy.
☝️ Apply to all employees only appears when you create the account’s first policy. Employees added later stay on No policy until you assign them one.
3. When it counts as extra time
The difference for each working day only goes into the balance if it exceeds the threshold. If it does, the full difference counts, not just the part above the threshold.
Daily threshold to add: how far the person has to go over the planned working day for hours to be added.
Daily threshold to subtract: how far the person has to fall short of the planned working day for hours to be subtracted.
☝️ The threshold to subtract can’t be lower than the threshold to add. For example, with More than 15 min to add, you won’t be able to save More than 10 min to subtract.
Both thresholds start at Any difference, and you can raise them up to More than 2 h.
💡 The balance compares each day with its planned working day. If someone works different hours depending on the day and their schedule doesn’t reflect that, a threshold other than Any difference may cause them to lose hours.
4. Allowed compensation types
Choose how HR can give back hours from the balance. You must enable at least one.
Hours off: compensated in multiples of half an hour. Leftover minutes can’t be redeemed.
Days off: compensated as full or half days, which are deducted from the balance.
Hour equivalence: appears when you enable Days off and sets how many hours a day is worth. A half day is worth half.
☝️ You can’t disable Hours off or Days off if anyone with this policy has unused compensated hours or days.
5. Limits per request
The limits set how much can be compensated at once.
Minimum per request: the minimum time for each compensation. The default is 30 minutes, which is also the lowest value allowed.
Maximum per request: the cap for each compensation. Leave it empty if there’s no limit.
6. Balance expiry
Enable expiry if you want hours that aren’t compensated to stop counting after a certain time.
Enable Balance expiry.
In Expiration, choose between 1 and 24 months. The default is 12 months.
☝️ Each hour expires counting from the day it was worked. Unlike vacation days, it doesn’t expire on a fixed date in the year.
7. Assign the policy to a person
If you didn’t apply the first policy to all employees, or for new hires, you assign it person by person. The person accrues hours from the day you assign it; earlier days don’t count. The person must already have an absence policy.
Go to HR > Employees and open the person’s profile.
Open the three-dot menu and select Edit.
Go to the Organization tab.
In the Absences section, choose the policy under Overtime policy.
Click Save.
💡 In HR > Hour balance, click + Assign policy in the row of anyone who doesn’t have one to go straight to that tab.
8. Change or remove a person’s policy
From the same Overtime policy selector, you can move someone to another policy or leave them without one.
Change: choose another policy and click Save. The balance is kept, and the new policy applies from that day.
Remove: clear the selection so it shows No policy, and click Save. You can only do this if their balance is 0: if they have hours in their favor or owed, compensate them or adjust the balance first.
📄 Find out how in How to compensate and adjust the hour balance.
9. Edit or delete a policy
You can change a policy at any time. Changes apply to days counted from now on; days already counted don’t change.
Go to Settings > HR > Hour balance.
Click the policy you want to change.
Make the changes you need and click Save.
If you want to delete it, click Delete and confirm.
⚠️ Deleting a policy can’t be undone, and Holded doesn’t keep earlier versions when you edit one. You can only delete it if no one has it assigned, including former employees.