Company Closedown (NZ)

Your company might have a closedown period that requires employees to take annual leave – for example, many companies close down over Christmas. But if an employee hasn't reached the first anniversary of their employment, they might not be entitled to take leave during the closedown. Instead, you might have to pay them at least 8% of their gross earnings.

You can easily make these closedown payments by using the company closedown features in MYOB Acumatica — Payroll. Paying a company closedown amount is like making any other payment. All you have to do is identify the employees that should be paid, then add the company closedown pay item to the employee’s pay.

To learn more about which employees you need to pay, see Annual closedowns and holidays on the Employment New Zealand website.

Turning on Company Closedown Features

Make sure the Company Closedown feature is enabled on the Enable/Disable Features form (CS.10.00.00).

If the feature is disabled after the closedown period, you can still view the details of any payments you made in completed pay runs.

Finding Who to Pay

To find employees who aren't entitled to take leave during the closedown, you can use the Employee Detail Data report (MP.PP.40.75) report to see when employees started working at your company.

The report doesn't tell you which employees have start dates that are different from their annual leave trigger dates.

Employees can only receive a closedown payment if they have one annual leave entitlement balance. For example, if an employee is transitioning from 4 weeks of annual leave to 5 weeks, you have to do the entitlement adjustment before making the closedown payment.

  1. Go to the Employee Detail Data form (MP.PP.40.73).
  2. In the Employee field at the top of the form, delete NEW.
  3. Use the other fields at the top of the form to list employees working at a particular company, branch etc.
  4. On the All Records tab, click the column configuration icon () on the far left of the column headers.
  5. On the Column Configuration window, edit the Selected Columns section to only include the following columns:
    • Employee ID
    • Title
    • First Name
    • Middle Name
    • Last Name
    • Employee start date
  6. Click OK to save the column changes.
  7. On the All Records tab, click the Employee start date column header.
  8. In the filter options, select Is Greater Than and enter a date in the Value field. For example, if your company is closing down for Christmas, any employees that started on January 1 wouldn't have reached their first anniversary yet.
  9. Note which employees that likely need to be paid.

How Closedown Payments are Calculated

The annual leave accrual entitlement determines what percentage of gross earnings an employee is paid. The default for an annual leave payout is 8%. If your company pays more than 8%, go to the Entitlements form (MP.PP.33.00) and edit the Accrued entitlement % of gross for Termination and Company Closedown field.

When you add both the annual leave accrual pay item and the company closedown pay item to an employee's current pay, the payment amount is calculated automatically. There's a default pay item you can use for all closedown payments – its ID is CCDAL.

Your payroll site might have custom pay items that were created for company closedowns in the past. To avoid confusion, we recommend deactivating those pay items. To make sure employees are paid the correct amount, do not edit the default pay item.

Creating Closedown Pay Runs

We recommend that you create two separate pay runs:

  • One for the closedown payment. This should be part of a pay groups regular pay run. Make sure to add timesheets, pay items and leave taken like you would in any other pay run.
  • One for leave paid after the company closedown date.

This helps ensure that future termination payments are correct. If an employee is terminated after the company closedown but before their first anniversary, the annual leave year-to-date value is considered from the second pay run.

Table 1. Example closedown pay runs
Pay Run 1 Pay Run 2

Start date: 1 December 2024

End date: 19 December 2024

This pay run calculates the correct annual leave current pay gross earnings. It excludes any liabilities for holiday pay paid after the closedown period, e.g. public holidays on December 25 and 26.

Start date: 20 December 2024

End date: 31 December 2024

This pay run includes any public holidays and leave taken in advance.

Adding a Closedown Payment to a Pay Run

  1. Open the closedown pay run you created.
  2. On the Pay Run Details form (MP.PP.31.20) toolbar, click the three dots icon (...) and choose Set Company Closedown Date.
  3. In the Set Company Closedown Date window, enter the start date of the closedown, then click Submit. This adds the Closedown date field to the summary area of the Pay Run Details form. If you need to change the closedown date, this pay run and create a new one.
  4. Click the name of an employee who's receiving a closedown payment. The Employee's Current Pay form (MP.PP.31.30) opens.
  5. For a salaried employee, edit the Quantity of their salary pay items based on the company closedown date. This makes sure their AL current pay gross earnings are correct.
  6. Add the default CCDAL company closedown pay item.
    Note:
    The CCDAL pay item doesn't automatically recalculate. If you make changes to other parts of the employees pay (e.g. you add more timesheets to a waged employee), you need to remove the pay item and add it again.
  7. In the Leave column, click Company Closedown.
  8. In the Company Closedown Details window, check that the payment details are correct.
  9. Optionally, you can change the closedown payment amount by selecting the Override Closedown Payment checkbox. You can also leave a comment to explain the override.
  10. Repeat steps 4–9 for each employee receiving a closedown payment.
  11. Process the pay run as usual.

Effects on Payslip, Entitlement Anniversary and Average Daily Pay

After processing the pay run, the company closedown payment is listed on the employee's payslip as Company Closedown Holiday Pay.

The employee's annual leave entitlement anniversary is automatically moved to one year from the company closedown date. You can see the new anniversary date on the employee's payslip and on the Entitlement Balances tab of the Pay Details form (MP.PP.23.10).

In the next pay run after the closedown pay run, the employee's new annual leave entitlement trigger date is used to start accruing annual leave again. You can see the new trigger date on the Employment tab of the Pay Details form.

Note:
Ensure average daily pay is correct – You might need to update the Employee Work Schedule (MP.PP.22.60), so that the working days tracked for the period are relative to the value of the closedown payment.

For example, if the 8% closedown payment is roughly equivalent to 2.5 weeks pay, the employee schedule should reflect that the 2.5 weeks the employee was off during the closedown are all days paid.

Reporting on Company Closedown Payments

There are two reports you can use to see who has received a closedown payment:

  • Entitlement History Data (MP.PP.60.33).
  • Pay Activty Detail Data (MP.PP.40.60). Set the Pay Item Type field to Company Closedown Holiday Pay.

Closedown payments don't show up in the Employee Leave Summary report (MP.PP.40.45).

To view any leave that has been paid in advance, you can use the Leave Paid Data report (MP.PP.40.54).

Terminating an Employee After a Closedown Payment

If an employee is terminated within 12 months of receiving a closedown payment, the annual leave year-to-date (AL YTD) gross earnings incorrectly include any pay items liable for holiday pay that were added in the closedown pay run. This can cause an overpayment in the employee's termination payment.

To prevent an overpayment:

  1. Open the Termination form (MP.PP.54.00).
  2. Click the link in the AL YTD gross earnings field.
  3. On the AL YTD Gross Earnings Inspection window, you can see which payments are used to calculate the employee's AL YTD gross earnings. For payments from the closedown pay run, check that the amounts are correct in the Total Liable for Holiday Pay and Post Roll-Over Contribution columns.
  4. If the amounts are not correct, manually calculate the correct termination payment.
  5. Back on the Termination form, select the Custom amount checkbox and enter the payment amount you calculated.

Reversing or Adjusting a Closedown Pay Run

When you adjust or reverse a pay run with a closedown payment, the company closedown pay item doesn't automatically recalculate. Instead, the Company Closedown Details window incorrectly shows zeroes for payment details.

To correct this, make your other changes to the pay run, then remove the company closedown pay item (CCDAL) and add it again. The payment will automatically recalculate.

You also need to reset the employee's annual leave trigger date. Normally this is done automatically, but you have to do it manually when resetting or adjusting a closedown pay run. The new trigger date should be just before the next closedown, so that they become entitled to annual leave before the next closedown starts. For example, if the business always closes down the week before Christmas, choose a date like December 19 or 20.

To reset an employee's trigger date, go to the Employment tab of the Pay Details form (MP.PP.23.10). For the annual leave entitlement row, select the Override checkbox and enter a new date in the Trigger Date field.

For more help, see Adjusting Pays and Reversing Pays.