Holiday Pay Rules Give You More Flexibility and More Accuracy
You can now customize holiday pay rules to reflect your real-world policies with more precision and control. You can now more precisely determine who is eligible for holiday pay based on their schedules or attendance.
This article explains how to configure holiday pay rules in your holiday policies. Whether you're paying employees automatically or based on hours worked, each setting determines who qualifies, how much they’re paid, and when. This guide is written for small business owners and managers who need a clear, practical explanation of how it all works.
Holiday rule settings: what they mean and how they work
Basics
Start and end times are optional. It defaults to the holiday (12:00 AM – 11:59 PM), but if you add start and end times, it lets you control when holiday pay applies. These settings help define the time window in which holiday pay applies, especially helpful for overnight shifts or limiting holiday pay to business hours.
If no Start/End Time is set, holiday pay applies to the full day: 12:00 AM – 11:59 PM on the holiday. |
Setting | What It Does (Purpose) | Example |
Start Time (optional) | Defines when holiday pay begins.
| You set the Start Time: 9:00 AM (July 4)
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End Time (optional) | Defines when holiday pay ends.
| You set the End Time: 9:00 PM (July 4)
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* Tip: | Applies holiday pay across multiple calendar days. Useful for overnight shifts that begin before or end after the holiday. | Start time: 10:00 PM (July 3) End time: 6:00 AM (July 5)
Result
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*Tip: Limited Holiday Pay (Same-Day Start and End) | Restricts holiday pay to specific hours on the holiday (e.g., standard business hours). | Start time: 9:00 AM (July 4) End time: 5:00 PM (July 4)
Result
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Holiday Type Options
These settings determine who qualifies for holiday pay and what kind of pay they receive.
Setting | What It Does (Purpose) | Example |
Is Working Day | Pays employees a premium rate (like double time) if they work on the holiday. | Your shop is open on July 4. An employee works 8 hours that day and gets paid double time. |
Automatic Pay | Pays employees for the holiday, even if the employee doesn’t work. | Your office is closed on July 4. Employees get paid for the holiday, without having to work. |
Pay Work and Automatic Pay | Pays both: automatic holiday hours and premium pay for hours worked on the holiday. | An employee works 8 hours on July 4. They receive 8 hours at double time for working + 8 hours of automatic holiday pay. If they didn’t work, they’d just get the 8 automatic hours.
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Do Not Generate By System
| Check if you do not want the system to automatically pay employees for the holiday. | Your employees will not receive any pay on the holiday. |
Qualification Criteria
These settings let you define extra conditions to make employees eligible for holiday pay.
Setting | What It Does (Purpose) | Example |
Minimum Hours Worked | Requires employees to work a minimum number of hours during the pay period. | If set to 20 hours, your employees will only be eligible for holiday pay if they work at least 20 hours during the holiday pay period. |
Pay Only if Worked Day - Before | Requires employees to work at least one shift within the set number of days before the holiday.
| If set to “3,” the employee must have worked at least once between December 22–24 (if the holiday is December 25). Select 1 to require employee to work |
Pay Only if Worked Day - After | Requires employees to work at least one shift within the set number of days after the holiday.
| If set to “2,” the employee must have worked at least once between December 26–27. |
Pay Only if Scheduled - Before | Requires employees to be scheduled for at least one shift within the set number of days before the holiday.
| If set to “3,” the employee must have at least one scheduled shift sometime between December 22–24. |
Pay Only if Scheduled - After | Requires employees to be scheduled for at least one shift within the set number of days after the holiday.
| If set to “2,” the employee must have at least one scheduled shift between December 26–27. |
Days Before/After | Enter the required number of days before or after the holiday.
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No Holiday Pay if Absent from Scheduled Holiday Shift | Adds an extra requirement: if the employee was scheduled to work on the holiday, they must have actually worked to qualify for holiday pay. If they were not scheduled, they still qualify (if all other criteria are met). | If an employee was scheduled to work on December 25 but called out or didn’t show up, they will not get holiday pay. If they were not scheduled at all that day, they can still qualify. |
Require Attendance on Closest Scheduled Day | Ensures that they worked their closest scheduled shift to the holiday, within the configured “Worked/Scheduled Before/After” window.
| If the employee was scheduled on December 22 and 24 (closest days to the December 25 holiday), and they worked on the 22 but called out on the 24th, they will not receive holiday pay. |
Earnings & Hours Logic
Setting | What It Does (Purpose) | Example |
Automatic Earning | Applies a specific pay type to holiday hours that are paid automatically (e.g., HO-Holiday).
| The 8 holiday hours paid on July 4 are paid as Holiday Pay in the system instead of regular time. |
Automatic Earning Type | Assigns the pay code used for the holiday.
| You might select Premium if you do not want to count these hours towards the 40 hours needed for overtime. |
Working Earning | Applies a special rate (like double time) for hours worked on a holiday.
| An employee works 4 hours on July 4, and those hours are paid at holiday premium pay instead of regular time. |
Working Earning Type | Assigns the pay code used for the holiday
| You might select Worked if you want to count these hours towards the 40 hours needed for overtime. |
Automatic Hours | Grants employees a fixed number of automatic hours for the holiday | All employees will get 8 automatic hours for the July 4 holiday. |
Automatic from Schedule | Replaces fixed holiday hours with the employee’s scheduled hours on the holiday. | A part-time employee is scheduled for 5 hours on July 4. This employee will get 5 hours of automatic holiday pay. A full-time employee is scheduled for 8 hours on July 4. This employee will get 8 hours of automatic holiday pay. |
Automatic From Work Hours | Matches holiday hours to the number of hours actually worked (if any). | An employee works 7 hours on the holiday and receives 7 hours of automatic holiday pay added on top. Rarely used. |
Other Settings
Setting | What It Does (Purpose) | Example |
Overtime Policy | Specifies the policy to apply if work exceeds regular hours on the holiday.
| On July 4, the employee works 10 hours. Instead of applying the regular weekly OT rule, the holiday OT policy kicks in:
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Rule Qualifier | Determines who is eligible for holiday pay based on how long they’ve worked at the company. | Only employees hired more than 30 days ago qualify for holiday pay. A new hire who started 2 weeks ago wouldn’t get paid. |
System Holiday | Flags a date as a recognized holiday in the system. Required for any holiday rule to work. | You want July 4 to trigger holiday rules. You must check “System Holiday” to make it count. |
Recurring | Makes the holiday rule repeat annually.
| The holiday rule will apply to every Thanksgiving, regardless of date. |
