How to safely migrate existing Time Off balances to a new accrual Policy in TalentHR

When moving employees from an existing Time Off setup to a new accrual Policy, you may need to preserve their current balances while changing how new Time Off is earned going forward.

This can involve exporting existing Time Off Budgets, resetting or replacing a Policy, restoring the employees’ balances, and then allowing the new Policy to generate future accruals.

Before doing so, it’s important to understand that fixed/manual budgets and accrued balances behave differently in TalentHR. Re-importing an existing balance does not recreate its original accrual history, which can affect carry over, carry-over expiration, Starting balances, and future balance reconciliation.

Note: Rebuilding a Policy is not always necessary. If your existing Policy can be safely updated to match your new rules, updating it in place may be preferable. Use the process below when you have intentionally decided to reset or replace an existing accrual setup and restore the current balances afterward.

Fixed budgets and accrued balances

TalentHR can hold different balance components for the same Time Off Type.

An accrued balance is generated automatically through an accrual Policy. It follows the Policy’s accrual schedule and applicable carry-over, carry-over expiration, and balance rules.
A fixed/manual budget is an amount assigned directly to an employee. This includes amounts added manually and balances restored through a Time Off Budget import.

This distinction is particularly important during a migration.

If you export an employee’s current balance, remove the existing Policy, reset the balance, and then import the amount again, the imported balance is restored as a fixed/manual budget. It is not recreated as the accrued balance originally generated by the previous Policy.

The new Policy can then begin generating a separate accrued balance on top of that restored fixed amount.

Before rebuilding an accrual Policy

Before making any changes to a live setup:

1. Export the latest Time Off Budgets and keep an untouched copy of the original export for reconciliation.

2. Record the current Policy configuration, including the Time Off Type, Applied to selection, Starting balance, accrual amount, frequency and timing, Start and End dates, carry-over rules, caps, and milestones.

3. Decide exactly which Time Off Types and employee populations are part of the migration. Avoid resetting unrelated balances or Policies.

4. If possible, avoid approving or cancelling Time Off requests and making manual balance changes during the migration window. Otherwise, the exported balances may no longer match the live balances by the time they are restored.

5. Confirm whether the existing Policy really needs to be replaced. If only part of the setup is changing, consider whether the existing Policy can be updated instead.

To rebuild a Policy and restore the existing balances

1. Export the current Time Off Budgets.

Use a fresh export containing the balances immediately before the migration.

2. Remove the existing accrual Policy.

If TalentHR asks whether you want to retain the balance generated by the Policy by transferring it to the employees’ fixed budgets, consider how you intend to restore the balances.

If you are performing a complete reset and will re-import the same current balances afterward, retaining the Policy-generated balance as a fixed budget can result in the balance being restored twice.

3. Reset only the affected balances.

Reset the balance for the Time Off Type and leave cycle that you are intentionally rebuilding. Do not reset other manually managed Time Off Types unless they are also part of the migration.

4. Re-import the employees’ current balances.

Compare a representative sample with your original export immediately afterward.

Note: The imported values are now fixed/manual budgets. They do not regain the accrual history of the balances that existed before the reset.

5. Create the replacement accrual Policy.

If the imported balance needs to remain available while the new Policy begins generating accruals, make sure Remove fixed budget is disabled.
If Remove fixed budget is enabled, the restored fixed amounts can be removed when the Policy takes over.

6. Validate the balances immediately after applying the Policy.

Applying the Policy should not unexpectedly change the balance you have just restored unless your chosen Starting balance configuration is intended to do so.

Example: If an employee had 20 days before the migration and 20 days were restored through the import, confirm that the employee still has 20 days immediately after the replacement Policy is applied.

7. Validate the first scheduled fire event when it occurs.

The next accrual should then be added to the restored balance according to the new Policy.

Note: A sandbox is useful for validating the reset, import, Policy assignment, and immediate resulting balances. However, scheduled fire events still occur according to their configured dates. A sandbox does not move the calendar forward to simulate a future monthly or yearly accrual.

Using a Custom Starting balance during a migration

A Custom Starting balance requires particular care when creating a replacement Policy.

A Custom Starting balance grants the configured amount to an eligible employee when they first become eligible for that Policy, regardless of their Hire date or seniority.

This means that when you create a new Policy with a Custom Starting balance and assign your existing workforce to it, those existing employees can also receive the Custom amount.

If their previous balance has already been restored through an import, this may create an unintended additional allocation.

If the Custom Starting balance is intended mainly for future hires

A useful migration approach is to introduce the Starting balance in stages.

1. Create the replacement Policy with Starting balance set to No while you migrate the existing population and restore their balances.

2. Allow the first regular accrual event to run and confirm that the existing employees receive the expected Policy-generated accrual.

3. Edit the Policy and enable the required Custom Starting balance for future employees.

Employees who have already received an accrual from that Policy and Time Off Type are not eligible to receive an additional Starting balance simply because the Policy is later updated to include one.

Note: Employees who become eligible between the migration date and the first scheduled fire event may need to be handled individually if the Starting balance is temporarily set to No.

When a Hire date falls on an accrual fire event

There is another edge case to consider when a Policy combines a Custom Starting balance with a recurring accrual.

Example: Assume a Policy grants 2 days monthly, accrual happens on the first day of every month, and the Custom Starting balance is also 2 days. An employee hired partway through the month can receive the 2-day Custom Starting balance immediately and then join the normal monthly accrual schedule. However, an employee who becomes eligible on the first day of the month can be affected by both mechanisms: the Custom Starting balance and the scheduled monthly fire event.

If your policy intends that employee to receive only one monthly allocation, review their balance after they start and manually correct any duplicate accrued amount.

Where appropriate, reducing the accrued balance directly is preferable to adding another fixed adjustment, as it keeps the correction within the accrued portion of the employee’s balance.

Why a default budget on the Time Off Type is different

You can also configure a default number of Days under Settings → Time off → Types.

That amount is automatically assigned to new hires as a fixed budget.

This can be useful when you intentionally manage a Time Off Type through fixed budgets. However, it should not be treated as equivalent to a Policy Starting balance.

If a new employee receives both:

the default fixed budget from the Time Off Type; and
an accrual generated by the Policy,

both amounts can contribute to the employee’s total balance.

The default amount also remains a fixed budget, which is important if your Policy relies on automatic carry-over rules.

For an accrual-based setup, consider whether a Policy Starting balance is more appropriate before using the Time Off Type’s default Days value to solve a new-hire requirement.

How imported balances affect carry over

Automatic carry over is based on the balance generated through the accrual Policy.

An opening amount that you restore through a Time Off Budget import is fixed/manual and does not automatically become part of the Policy-generated accrued balance.

This means that, during the first cycle after a migration, an employee can have both:

a fixed opening balance restored from the old setup; and
new accrued balance generated by the replacement Policy.

At the end of the leave cycle, the Policy can automatically apply its carry-over rules to the accrued component. Any fixed portion that also needs to form part of the employee’s allowed carry over must be reconciled manually.

Example: Assume the maximum carry over is 5 days. At the end of the leave cycle, the employee is entitled to carry 5 days in total. If TalentHR automatically carries 3 accrued days, do not manually give the employee another 5 fixed days. Only the remaining 2 days would need to be accounted for manually to bring the employee’s total carry over to 5.

For this reason, keep a record of:

the employee’s total remaining entitlement at the end of the cycle;
the amount automatically carried by the Policy; and
the amount you had to carry manually as a fixed budget.

You may need this record again when the carry-over period expires.

How imported balances affect carry-over expiration

Fixed/manual budgets do not automatically expire according to the accrual Policy’s carry-over expiration date.

If part of an employee’s carry over had to be recreated manually as a fixed budget, you may therefore need another reconciliation when the carry-over window closes.

There is an additional behavior to keep in mind: when an employee has both an applicable accrued balance and a fixed budget, approved Time Off is deducted from the accrued balance first, and then from the fixed budget.

As a result, the fixed amount displayed at the end of the carry-over window does not necessarily represent unused carry over.

Example: Assume an employee begins the new leave year with 5 manually restored carry-over days. During the first three months, the new Policy generates 5.25 accrued days, and the employee takes 4 days of Time Off. Because TalentHR deducts those 4 days from the accrued balance first, the employee could appear to have 1.25 accrued days remaining and the original 5 fixed days still present. This does not necessarily mean that all 5 carry-over days were unused.

If your organization treats Time Off taken during the carry-over window as using the expiring carry over first, you need to reconcile the employee’s opening carry over, Time Off used during the window, and current total balance before deciding what should expire.

Do not simply remove the entire fixed balance because it is still displayed as fixed.

Likewise, do not assume that every fixed amount remaining after the expiration date can safely remain indefinitely. Continue tracking any fixed component created by the migration until it has been fully consumed or otherwise reconciled.

Once no migrated fixed balance remains and the employee’s balance is being generated entirely through the accrual Policy, future automatic carry over and expiration can operate normally according to that Policy, unless new manual/fixed adjustments are introduced later.

What to validate after the migration

After completing the migration, review the setup at several checkpoints.

A. Immediately after the import and Policy assignment: Confirm that restored balances have not changed unexpectedly.
B. At the first scheduled fire event: Confirm that the expected accrual is added once.
C. For future hires: Validate the Starting balance behavior, especially for employees whose Hire date falls on a scheduled accrual date.
D. At the end of the leave cycle: Compare the employee’s accrued and fixed balances before reconciling carry over.
E. At the carry-over expiration date: Use your original reconciliation record and the employee’s Time Off activity to determine how much manually carried balance, if any, should expire.

Continue this reconciliation until the fixed component created by the migration has been fully removed or consumed.

Important points to remember

Imported Time Off Budget values are restored as fixed/manual budgets; they do not recreate previous accrual history.
Remove fixed budget should remain disabled when imported balances need to coexist with a replacement accrual Policy.
A Custom Starting balance can affect existing employees when a new Policy is first applied, not only future hires.
A Custom Starting balance and a regular fire event are separate mechanisms and can both affect an employee who becomes eligible on a fire-event date.
Default Days configured on a Time Off Type for new hires are fixed budgets and can exist alongside Policy-generated accruals.
Automatic carry over and carry-over expiration should not be assumed to manage imported fixed balances.
When both balance types exist, approved Time Off is deducted from accrued balance before fixed budget.
A displayed fixed balance should therefore not automatically be treated as unused carry over.
Scheduled fire events and expiration events must be validated when their configured dates occur; they cannot be fully tested in advance simply by using a sandbox TalentHR domain.

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