Maternity leave in payroll without a leave type
How a law practice records an employee's maternity leave in Achekam payroll when no maternity leave type exists, and adjusts pay on the regular run.
By Achekam · · 5 min read · For Legal businesses in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya
A candidate attorney tells the practice manager she is expecting, and the practice wants to do right by her. The partners agree what the practice will pay during her leave, the matters she runs are reallocated, and a date is pencilled in for her return. Then the practice manager opens the payroll leave screen to record it and finds there is no maternity leave to choose.
That gap is real, and it is better to plan around it than to discover it on the first pay run of her leave. This article explains what Achekam's payroll leave register holds today, how to record maternity leave honestly with what exists, and how to make sure her pay is right every month she is away, for practices in South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya.
What the leave register holds today
Payroll keeps annual, sick, family responsibility and unpaid leave, with monthly accrual. A line manager approves their own team's leave, and nobody approves their own.
There is no maternity, parental or study leave type, and new leave types cannot be added. So the register cannot label the absence as maternity leave, and it will not apply any maternity rules for you. Whatever the law and your policy say she is entitled to, the practice has to apply it by hand.
What the law requires is a separate matter from what the software records. In South Africa, the Department of Employment and Labour's Basic Guide to Maternity Leave explains how long maternity leave lasts under the Basic Conditions of Employment Act, when it may start, and that employees may claim maternity benefits from the UIF. Nigerian and Kenyan practices should take their entitlements from their own employment law and the employee's contract.
Recording the absence as unpaid leave
The closest type the register offers for an extended absence that the practice does not pay in full is unpaid leave. Record the maternity leave as unpaid leave for the agreed dates, and keep a note on the employee's file that it is maternity leave, with the partners' decision on pay attached.
One feature here is important. Unpaid leave does not cut pay automatically: payroll is warned and decides. That is useful, because maternity leave arrangements vary. Some practices pay nothing and the employee claims what she can from the relevant fund; some pay a portion; some pay in full for part of the leave. The warning tells payroll the leave exists; the decision about pay stays with a person who knows what was agreed.
Use the same habit for any other absence the register has no type for, such as study leave before board exams, so the record is consistent.
Adjusting pay through variable inputs on the regular run
Pay runs can be monthly, fortnightly or weekly, and each period's overtime, commission, allowances, reimbursements and unpaid leave are entered as variable inputs. There is no separate correction pay run; adjustments go in as variable inputs on the regular run.
Work out with the partners what she will receive in each month of her leave, then apply it month by month:
| Month of leave | What payroll does |
|---|---|
| The month leave starts | Enter the unpaid leave days from her start date as a variable input, so salary covers only the days worked and any agreed pay |
| Each full month away | Enter the unpaid days, plus any agreed top-up, as variable inputs |
| The month she returns | Enter unpaid days up to her return date only |
Check each run before it is approved. Because the register cannot hold a maternity type, nothing will remind payroll that a top-up agreed for the first months should stop later; put the dates in the practice manager's diary. Once a run is approved it is never recalculated, so mistakes become next month's adjustments rather than quiet fixes.
While she is away, she can still use self-service if her login is linked to her payroll record: she can download her own payslips, which she may need for a benefit claim, and submit detail changes or a new bank account for payroll to decide. An approved bank change still needs a second person to verify it. South African practices dealing with the UIF declarations that sit alongside this will find them covered in UIF, UI-19 and COIDA returns.
Keeping two people on payroll approval while someone is away
A pay run is approved by someone other than the person who prepared it, and nobody can approve a run that pays themselves. In a small practice, the employee on leave might be one of the two people who usually run payroll, often the bookkeeper or office administrator.
Plan for that before she goes:
- name a temporary preparer or approver, and give them the payroll role;
- walk them through one run while she is still in the office;
- make sure the remaining two people are not the same person in practice, for example a partner preparing and approving through a shared login.
How each approved run then reaches the books is explained in what a pay run posts to the books.
Nigerian and Kenyan employers
There is a further limit for practices outside South Africa. Leave days are counted against South African public holidays, and the built-in entitlements follow South African law, even for a Nigerian or Kenyan employer. For a long absence such as maternity leave, that can change the count of working days in the period. Work out the days under your own law and calendar, and use your figure in the variable inputs rather than the register's count.
A return-to-work checklist for the practice manager
- Confirm her return date in writing and end the unpaid leave on the day before.
- Remove any top-up variable inputs from the next run.
- Check her first full month's payslip before the run is approved.
- Restore her payroll role, if she prepares or approves runs.
- Review her annual leave balance against your own policy.
- File the leave correspondence and pay decision with her employment records.
Agree the pay arrangement with the partners first, then record it in payroll using these steps. Staff leave applied for through self-service is covered more broadly in staff leave by self-service.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
