The Long Service Leave Act of 2018 was passed by the Victorian Parliament and came into effect on 1 November 2018. As this does not apply to all industries and awards, review the Victorian Government links below for more details before making any changes.
The Key Changes include:
Employees are entitled to take LSL after 7 years of continuous service.
An employee is entitled to request LSL for a period of not less than 1 day.
Any period of paid parental leave and up to 12 months of unpaid parental leave will count as service.
The Act includes Transitional Provisions for the inclusion of certain absences from work. As such if you are auditing or updating employee's leave balances you should review the above links for how and when to apply the Transitional Provisions.
Make all changes in MicrOpay before you start payroll processing. If you are part way through the change and update leave as part of payroll process, the leave balances could be under or overstated.
Before updating MicrOpay:
We recommend that you print or create a file for the current leave balances. You can do this using either:
IQB-LV008 - Payroll Leave Liability (new)
Leave Summary and Liability Report
IQB-LV008 - Payroll Leave Liability (new)
Go to Common, IQ.
Select IQB-LV008 - Payroll Leave Liability.
To include terminated employees enter 1 in Value for Include Terminated. To exclude them enter 0.
Click OK.
The data will display in a grid. Filter the data using Leave Type and Leave Class Code, to extract Long Service Leave balances for your Victorian staff.
Click Save Grid to export the data to Excel.
Run Leave Summary and Liability Report
Go to Payroll, Reports, End of Pay, Leave Summary and Liability.
Select Long Service Leave as Leave Type.
Enter the last period end date (or earlier) as the Projected Date. This will produce a report with current balances and not forecast.
Click Preview or Print.
You can then either print a copy of the report or save the report as a file.
To Update the Leave Classes:
Take a backup.
Go to Payroll, Maintenance, Leave, Long Service Leave.
For Leave Classes based on Contract Hours:
Edit the first Victorian Long Service Leave class.
If applicable change the Description. For example, if the description was VIC FIRST 10 YEARS, change it to VIC FIRST 7 YEARS.
Under Entitlement / Entitlement Period change:
Entitlement from 8.6667 to 6.0667 weeks
Number from 10 to 7 years
Ensure Pro-Rata Entitlement is 7 Years.
Click OK.
Edit the second Victorian Long Service Leave class.
If applicable change the Description. For example, if the description was VIC 10+ YEARS, change it to VIC 7+ YEARS.
Under Entitlement / Entitlement Period change:
Entitlement from 4.3333 to 0.8667 weeks
Number from 5 to 1 years
Ensure Pro-Rata Entitlement is 1 Weeks.
Click OK.
If you have a third Victoria Long Service Leave class, edit the class
Update the Description. The Entitlement / Entitlement Period and Pro-Rata Entitlement should be the same as the updated second LSL class.
Click OK.
To Update the Leave Classes based on Hours Worked:
The hours you enter into the Entitlement / Entitlement Period should be the maximum hours an employee can accrue. This is usually calculated by multiplying the hours a full-time employee would work by the number of weeks to be accrued. E.g. 38 * 6.0667 = 230.5346 or 40 * 6.0667 = 242.668.
Edit the first Victorian Long Service Leave class.
If applicable change the Description. For example, if the description was VIC FIRST 10 YEARS, change it to VIC FIRST 7 YEARS.
Ensure the Hour Types, Other Leave Reasons, User Defined Leave and Additions include the correct components for the LSL Act. For example, certain types of Unpaid Leave are now included.
Under Entitlement / Entitlement Period change:
Entitlement from 329.3346 to 230.5346 hours if full-time employees work 38 hours per week.
Number from 10 to 7 years
Ensure Pro-Rata Entitlement is 7 Years.
Click OK.
Edit the second Victorian Long Service Leave class.
If applicable change the Description. For example, if the description was VIC 10+ YEARS, change it to VIC 7+ YEARS.
Ensure the Hour Types, Other Leave Reasons, User Defined Leave and Additions include the correct components for the LSL Act. For example, certain types of Unpaid Leave are now included.
Under Entitlement / Entitlement Period change:
Entitlement from 164.6654 to 32.9346 hours if full-time employees work 38 hours per week.
Number from 5 to 1 years
Ensure Pro-Rata Entitlement is 1 Weeks.
Click OK.
If you have a third Victoria Long Service Leave class, edit the class
Update the Description. The Entitlement / Entitlement Period and Pro-Rata Entitlement should be the same as the updated second LSL class.
Ensure the Hour Types, Other Leave Reasons, User Defined Leave and Additions include the correct components for the LSL Act. For example, certain types of Unpaid Leave are now included.
Click OK.
Update Employee Records:
Before you run the Update Leave Process or End of Pay you must complete the below for any Victorian employees who has more than 7 years but less than 15 years service and are entitled to Long Service Leave.
Take a backup
Go to Payroll, Maintenance, Employees, Employees.
Edit the employee.
Select Leave.
Edit Long Service Leave.
Change the Long Service Leave Class to the third Victorian LSL class if you have one, otherwise the second Victorian LSL class.
Untick First Entitlement Period.
Change the Entitlement Date to the employee's last anniversary date.
Update the Entitlement Hours so that they are the total balance:
Updated Entitlement Hours = Current Entitlement Hours + Prorata Hours - Taken Hours
Zero out the Prorata and Taken Hours.
Click OK.
Then click OK again.