Many organizations have implemented SAP ERP HCM Time Management to oversee the leave entitlements of their employees. These leave entitlements for each employee are maintained as absence quotas in the absence quota infotype 2006 and stored in the HR master data. Leaves that consume these entitlements are maintained as absences stored in absences infotype 2001, also stored in the HR master data. Every leave application of an employee (through absences stored in infotype 2001) reduces the absence quotas (infotype 2006) available for consumption.

At the end of the calendar year, many employees have unused leave entitlements called year-end leave balances that need to the transferred and made available for consumption next year. This article explains a simple step-by-step configuration for transfer of unconsumed permissible leave entitlement balances to the new calendar year using time types which are used to store and transfer these leave balances. These balances are stored in separate absence quotas commonly known as carry forward absence quotas.

In my scenario, you already have implemented SAP ERP HCM with the Time Management module. You have a test employee (personnel number 40001) with annual leave (quota type 05) and carry forward leave (quota type 07) entitlements. This employee has these two quotas in the calendar year 2009 to be carried forward to the next year 2010. If you do not have these absence quotas, you need to create both types in the SAP IMG using transaction SPRO or by following menu path SAP Customizing Implementation Guide > Time Management > Time Recording & Administration > Managing Time Accounts using Attendance/Absence Quotas > Time Quota Types > Define Absence Quota Types.

You then create absence quota records in infotype 2006 for annual leave quota or both the annual leave and carry forward absence quotas. To go to this screen (Figure 1) use transaction PA61 (Maintain Time Data) from the SAP Easy Access Menu or menu path SAP Menu > Human Resources >Time Management > Time Data > Maintain.

Figure 1

Create carry forward absence quota type

To see the overview of the absence quota master data records, the leaves consumed, and the balance remaining, go to the quota overview screen (Figure 2) using transaction PT50 or follow menu path SAP Menu > Human Resources > Time Management > Time Data > Quota Overview.

Figure 2

Quota overview for employee with personnel number 40001

The employee for the previous year has Annual Leave quota type 05 entitlements for 10 days and none of these are requested (consumed). Therefore, this quota has a remaining balance of 10 days. The carry forward leave quota type 07 has entitlements of 20 days of which two days are requested (consumed) with a remaining balance of 18 days. The maximum possible transfer of balance would be 28 days to the next year (year 2010).

Step 1. Correctly Configure Two Time Types

Time types are semantic groupings of time spans. Time types store time balance or time durations, which are formed in time evaluation. They transfer these durations to other time types or to absence or attendance quotas on time evaluation. Configuration in these time types determines whether these time durations or balances formed in time evaluation should accumulate on a daily or monthly basis. The period balances can also be transferred from one time type to another in the next period. The yearly period balances can also be transferred from one time type to another time type at the beginning of the next year. Follow IMG menu path Time Management > Time Evaluation > Time Evaluation Settings > Define Time Types.

Time type 0591 stores the carry forward absence quota balances for the new year (Figure 3). At the beginning of the new year, time type 0591 receives value from time type 0590. Since I have selected the storage option for the time types 1 (0590) and 2 (0591) these values are stored in the time clusters and can be read for employees using time reports.

Figure 3

Time type 0591 to store new year carry forward absence quota time balances

Time type 0590 stores the balances from the annual leave quota and carry forward absence quota from the previous year (Figure 4). The most important part of this configuration is the Transfer period balance portion, under which the field Transfer prev. year is set to 1 to and field Period bal. prev. year stores the previously created time type 0591. These two settings ensure transfer of time balances from time type 0590 to time type 0591. The second time type 0591 stores the time balance accumulated and transferred from time type 0590 at the year end to create the new year carry forward absence quota.

Figure 4

Time type 0590 to store the previous year’s time balances to carry forward to next year

Step 2. Change Base Entitlement for Carry Forward Absence Quota

In step 2, you set rules for determining the total absence quota entitlement — called base entitlement — to an absence quota type (carry forward absence quota 07, in this example). The base entitlement forms the basis for calculating absence entitlement for a specific period called the base entitlement period, which is set to a calendar year. Rules applied can be based on employee's age or seniority which is not being used in my example.

A special time type 0591 (Carry Forw Leave) maintained in the period balance field is filled with the time evaluation results, which is used to create the carry forward absence quota. You do not have to maintain values in any other field of the screen (e.g., your annual leave quota type 05 would have value 20 days maintained in the Constant field) as shown in Figure 5.

The customizing path to maintain the base entitlements for the carry forward absence quota is SAP Customizing Implementation Guide > Time Management > Time Recording & Administration >Managing Time Accounts using Attendance/Absence Quotas > Calculating Absence Entitlements > Rules for Generating Absence Quotas > Set Base Entitlements.

Figure 5

Maintain base entitlements for absence quota generation

Step 3. Define Validity and Deduction Period as Calendar Year

In step 3 you now configure the validity periods and deduction periods for the absence quotas, in which the validity period is the period during which the absence quota is valid and the deduction period is the period during which this quota can be consumed.

For the carry forward leave quota, maintain the validity period as calendar year start and calendar year end. The deduction from should be the start of the validity interval and the deduction to the end of the validity interval. When time evaluation creates the carry forward absence quota in infotype 2006, this configuration ensures that this infotype has the start and end dates of  01.01.XXXX to 31.12.XXXX where XXXX refers to the year of creation and the deduction from and to dates would equal the infotype start and end dates. This implies that the employee has earned and can consume this carry forward absence quota within this period only (both dates inclusive).

The significance of this is that you are not maintaining any relative periods for creating this next year carry forward absence quota. If you used the normal customization method without using time types, keeping the same validity and deduction period customization as described here would result in the carry forward absence quota being created for the same year (and not the next year) using time evaluation, which is incorrect. To create the next year carry forward absence quota under normal customization without using time types, you would have to maintain relative periods for validity periods and change this relative period again for every leap year that has 366 days instead of 365 days (one extra day) once in every four years. This results in continuous maintenance (Figure 6).

To maintain the Absence Quota Validity and Deduction Period, follow path SAP Customizing Implementation Guide > Time Management > Time Recording & Administration > Managing Time Accounts using Attendance/Absence Quotas > Calculating Absence Entitlements > Rules for Generating Absence Quotas > Determine Validity & Deduction Periods.

Figure 6

Validity and deduction intervals for carry forward absence quota

Step 4. Prepare Carry Forward Absence Quota for Time Evaluation

The carry forward absence quota is set to replace by selecting the Replace option (Figure 7). The idea of setting it at replace is that if there is a backdated correction to absences and the quota balances change, then time evaluation should correct the existing quota values already created in the new year. Time constraint class can be any value such as 01 or 02 based on your configuration. I do not consider negative deduction to avoid complicating the discussion.

To permit generation of absence quotas using time evaluation configuration follow the  IMG menu path SAP Customizing Implementation Guide > Time Management > Time Recording & Administration > Managing Time Accounts using Attendance/Absence Quotas > Calculating Absence Entitlements > Automatic Accrual of Absence Quotas > Permit Generation of Quotas in Time Evaluation.

Figure 7

Set carry forward absence quota to replace for generation through time evaluation

Step 5. Define Selection Rules

Figure 8 shows the Accrual Period tab for the Carry/Forw leave quota 07, in which Daily accrual is selected as a part of the configuration of Selection rules. The selection ensures that the moment time type 0590 receives some value it will be immediately accrued and transferred to time type 0591 at the beginning of the new year.

Figure 8

Set Accrual period to Daily

Figure 9 shows what you need to configure in the Transfer time tab. Select the Upon accrual so that during time evaluation, the carry forward balances that are stored in time type 0591 are transferred immediately on accrual to the carry forward absence quota.

Figure 9

Set the transfer time to Upon accrual

Figure 10 shows the total entitlements tab. In my example, I have not fixed any maximum entitlement for the carry forward absence quota. However, if your company has a cut-off rule for maximum entitlement of carry forward absence quota not to exceed a particular value, then you need to enter this value in the maximum entitlement field. I do not use the rounding rule in my example because the quota values considered are integers and so are the balances.

Figure 10

Total entitlements tab

Step 6. Write a Time Schema ZQCF                                                             

Write a time schema ZQCF using a schema editor with transaction PE01. Make sure you create your custom personnel calculation schema ZCQF by copying and modifying a standard schema such as TQTA (for time evaluation status =7) or TM04 (time evaluation without clock times) as shown in Figure 11. Call this personnel calculation rule in your time schema using function P2006 before the function CUMBT and QUOTA. The schema is segregated by columns. Each of the steps of the schema ZQCF is explained in the Comments column in Table 1. The table represents the columns that form the schema editor. You’ll notice blank columns because when writing a schema, it is not mandatory to fill all columns for each line of schema written.

Figure 11

Create the time schema ZQCF

Table 1

Write the time schema ZQCF

A best practice is to run the time evaluation in the simulation mode before the actual run is carried out automatically through a scheduled job. This is to ensure that your time evaluation program in the simulated mode allows you to check the correctness of your results without actually creating the carry forward absence quota. You then can make data corrections to eliminate errors before you carry out the live run.

In addition, you do not need to configure the absence quotas using date specifications and storing mass values for employees in infotype 0041 with the date of transfer as January 1 of the next year. This process is carried out year after year instead of using the calendar year since this would create an absence quota in the same previous year instead of the new year. This is not the case with my method in which I do not use date specification. This method of business re-engineering saves time for mass data uploads and in turn reduces the total cost of operation.

Step 7. Write Personnel Calculation Rules (ZTM4 and ZTM5)

You write personnel calculation rules (PCRs) with a personnel calculation rule editor (transaction PE02). For writing a customer rule, use the naming convention beginning with Z as used in ZTM4 and ZTM5 by copying and modifying a standard rule such as TQTR. This process is similar to the one shown for creating a custom schema by copying a standard schema. Refer to Figure 11 for the process of how to create ZTM4 and ZTM5.

PCR ZTM5 first checks if the day of time evaluation run is the 31st using operations HRS = BCURDY and HRS ?31 (Figure 12). It then checks if the month is the 12^th month using operations HRS =BCURMO and HRS?12. This means you are checking for December 31. On passing this check, the rule sets the condition to true and allows processing of function P2006 with rule ZTM4.

Figure 12

Personnel calculation rule ZTM5

Using personnel calculation rule ZTM4 (Figure 13), the balance of the remaining quotas from the previous year from quota types 05 and 07 (HRS+FR05C and HRS+FR07C ) are transferred to time type 0590. The assumption is that you can carry forward a maximum of 10 days of leave quota type 05 from year 2009, which is checked in the rule by HRS ?10. You can use constants or other means to build this check. However, I have put this in the rule for ease of understanding. The quota type 05 has the remainder of 18 days and only 10 permitted for transfer. These 10 days are added to time type 0590 along with all the remainder in quota type 07 which are 18 days. Time type 0590 has a value of 28 days (Figure 13). 

Table 13

Personnel calculation rule ZTM4

Step 8. Run the Schema ZQCF Using RPTIME00

Time evaluation schema ZQCF can be manually run or scheduled as a batch job using time evaluation driver RPTIME00. Use report transaction SE38 and enter RPTIME00 or you can also use transaction PT60 or menu path SAP Menu > Human Resources >Time Management > Time Evaluation > Time Evaluation.

When the time evaluation runs on December 31, 2009, the personnel calculation rule ZTM4 transfers the value of 28 days to time type 0590. When it runs again on January 1, 2010, the 2010 values stored in time type 0590 are transferred to time type 0591. Due to the function QUOTA, the carry forward absence quota type 07 with 28 days and validity and deduction periods extending from January 1, 2010, to December 31, 2010, are automatically created in infotype 2006. This is because time type quota type 07 is configured with time type 0591 (Figure 14).

Table 14

Running the schema ZCFQ using report RPTIME00

Step 9. Check and Verify the New Year Carry Forward Absence Quota

The created carry forward absence quota is visible when you use the transaction PA51 (Display Time Data) and view infotype 2006 subtype 07 for the period from 01/01/2010 to 12/31/2010 (Figure 15).

Table 15

Display carry forward absence quota for new year

You can verify the creation of the carry forward absence quota by using transaction PA51 or following menu path SAP Menu > Human Resources > Time Management > Time Data > Display.

Step 10. Create Your Other Quotas

Once this is complete you can go ahead and use report RPTQTA00 to create your annual leave quota 05 if you are using negative time management for the year 2010. This takes care of your year-end activities for leave management. If you are using time evaluation, then you can incorporate the personnel calculation rule ZTM4 using function P2006 as a part of your existing schema or schedule the schema ZCFQ to run December 31, XXXX and January 1, XXXX+1 (2 days). However, you need to rerun the schema ZCFQ for those employees with back-dated leave quota changes for corrections to be made to absence quota 07 (Carried Forward Quota).

Prerequisites to Consider

Finally, to implement the method described in this article, you need to understand SAP HR Time Management, including the following prerequisites:

1. The SAP ERP HCM functional expert should have a basic understanding of time recording, time management, and time evaluation. Refer to SAP Help documentation and the SAPexperts article search for guidance; for example, see “Align SAP Time Management with Your Company’s Time Quota Requirements.”

2. The time evaluation status for all employees must be nonzero, preferably 7 (for negative time evaluation) or 1 or 9 (for positive time employees) in infotype 0007 (planned working time). There is no need to maintain infotype 0050 (time recording information) as this infotype is ignored in time evaluation by the time evaluation schema ZQCF. You need to maintain this setting in the Time Mgmt status field for employees in infotype 0007 (Figure 16).

Table 16

Maintain the time management status in infotype 0007

3. Your annual leave quotas are already configured

4. The QUOMO feature is correctly maintained to default your quota values when you run report RPTQTA00