Sick Leave Feature

We've made some changes to our sick leave feature to make it more intuitive for you. It's now found within an employee's profile rather than in the payslip section. This makes it easier to spot linked periods of sickness and calculate any waiting days. It also allows you to conveniently track an employee's sick leave over time.

This guide will walk you through adding sick leave to an employee's profile, one step at a time.

Adding Sick Leave

1. First, go to Employees > choose the profile of the employee taking sick leave > Sick Leave > Add Sick Leave.
   
   
2. Enter the first day of their sickness. If you already know when the employee will be back at work, go ahead and enter the last day of their sickness.
   
   

   Please note – If you leave the last day blank, our system will assume the employee is absent for the whole pay period.

   
   Once you're sure you've got the dates right, click on 'Continue’.
   
   
3. Pento will automatically work out the Average Weekly Earnings (AWE) for you if all the necessary information is available. But remember, you can only input SSP for them if they meet the earnings criteria. If Pento can't calculate the AWE due to missing information, you'll have to do it manually and add it to the Average Weekly Earnings box. If they do not meet the earnings criteria, the following message will be displayed:
   
   ✍️ The HMRC website offers guidance on how to work out your employee's SSP manually.
4. The next step is to choose the correct working pattern for your employee. This will help us to accurately calculate the number of sick days and the daily rate of SSP.
   
5. You'll then see a summary screen displaying the absence dates, the number of days the employee was unavailable based on their working pattern, the AWE, and the SSP amount for that period.
   
   If the employee isn't eligible for SSP (because they haven't been absent for four or more consecutive days), you will see the following screen:
   
6. Finally, click 'Save and Close' to return to the sick leave tab in the employee's profile. Here, you can review a list of their past absences.
   

How to Delete Sick Leave Entries

Made a mistake? No worries! If you need to remove any sick leave added in error, just hover over the three dots and select 'Remove leave’.

How Linked Periods Work

Pento efficiently handles the task of linking periods of sickness for you.

If an employee takes sick leave within eight weeks of a previous eligible period, our system will automatically link these periods together.

You'll know if this is a linked period of sickness because no waiting days will be payable. You'll see this on the Summary screen when you enter the SSP.

How to Calculate Backdated Sick Payments

It's entirely normal for situations to crop up where you need to add Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) for a previous pay period. Don't worry; we've got you covered! Here's a simple step-by-step guide you can follow:

1. Create a Pay Item in Settings > Pay Items > Create one-off.
2. Give your Pay Item a name (such as SSP), and select 'Gross Addition'.
3. Always make sure this pay item is subject to tax and NI. If your pension scheme rules say so, choose 'pensionable'.
   💡 You cannot salary sacrifice from SSP. So if you have a salary sacrifice pension scheme, you should not mark SSP as pensionable.
4. Finish up by clicking 'Save & Close'.

You might also need to create a pay item to deduct any overpaid salary:

1. Create another Pay Item as shown above.
2. Choose a name for this item (e.g. Salary Adjustment or Sickness Deduction) > Select 'Gross Addition'.
3. Always make sure this pay item is subject to tax and NI. If your pension scheme rules say so, choose 'pensionable'.
   💡 You cannot salary sacrifice from SSP. So if you have a salary sacrifice pension scheme, you should not mark SSP as pensionable.
4. Save & Close.

Once you've created the pay items, the next step is to update the employee's record. After adding the sick leave details, it's time to adjust the payroll:

1. Head to Payrolls > Current period and select the employee.
2. If you need to deduct pay for days absent, calculate the amount for those days.
3. Select Add Pay item > Gross deduction and choose the pay item you created earlier. Enter the amount to deduct (number of days off work ✖️ daily rate).

You're almost there! Now it's time to add the SSP you need to pay:

1. Go to add Pay items > Gross addition and choose the relevant pay item.
2. Enter the amount to pay for SSP (number of days off work ✖️ SSP daily rate).

If you ever need help calculating any of the above, don't hesitate to reach out to our support team.

Understanding Sick Pay Daily Rates

If you have an employee who works the same days each week (also known as qualifying days) and is off for a full week, you'll pay the weekly rate of SSP for this period.

If they are off for less than a week, you'll pay SSP for that part week using the relevant daily rate. This is calculated by the current rate of SSP divided by the number of qualifying days in that week, multiplied by the number of sick days in that week.

If an employee's work schedule varies week by week, you'll need to agree on the qualifying days with them. If you cannot agree on the qualifying days, you can use one of the following options:

• Days both you and your employee agree they are required to work under their contract.
• If no specific work day is named, default to a Wednesday.
• Every day of the week except those when none of the workforce are required to work.

Once agreed upon, you can select these days in Pento as the working pattern for SSP purposes. You can also visit the HMRC website for more information.