On 1st January 2023, employees working in Ireland were granted the right to three days sick pay a year. This is called Statutory Sick Leave. Sick pay is paid by your employer at 70% of your normal pay up to a maximum of €110 a day.
This article describes how Statutory Sick Pay is dealt with in the Bizimply platform.
This article will cover:
Note: This feature is only available for customers in Ireland
Details Of The Legislation
Full details of the legislation are available here. Below are the important points to keep in mind when setting up Statutory Sick Leave in your account.
To qualify for statutory sick pay an employee must have worked for the employer for at least 13 continuous weeks.
Employee must be certified by a GP as unable to work to qualify for statutory sick pay.
Sick pay is paid by employer at 70% of employees normal pay up to a maximum of €110 a day.
If employees pay changes from week-to-week then employee sick pay is the average of employees pay over the 13 weeks before the sick leave.
Entitlement to paid sick leave is being phased in over 4 years:
2023 - 3 days covered
2024 - 5 days covered
2025 - 7 days covered
2026 - 10 days covered
Enabling Statutory Sick Leave In Your Bizimply Account
Note: Because each company is different and the legislation will change over time, it is up to each company to choose how they implement Statutory Sick Leave. This is why Bizimply allows users to enter their own details for Statutory Sick Leave, what percentage of regular pay should be paid etc.
NB: Only Account Admins can turn this feature on
Click your name on the top right of the Bizimply platform and click 'settings'
Go to the Employees dropdown on the left and click 'Sickness'
The bottom half of the sickness page should display the Statutory Sick Leave settings
To enable Statutory Sick Leave, select 'Yes' beside "Would you like to keep track of statutory sick leave?"
Pick the percentage of hours that will be used to determine statutory sick pay. (70% is stipulated by the Irish government)
Pick the number of weeks with which you can calculate the average pay. (The Irish government stipulates 13 weeks)
Marking sick days as Statutory Paid when logging sick time
Once Statutory Sick Leave is enabled in Bizimply, 'Statutory Paid' will now be available as an option when logging sick records. For a complete guide to logging sick time click here.
Note: legislation states an employee must be certified by a GP as unable to work to qualify for statutory sick pay. Note: user is able to attach documents to sick records in Bizimply in order to indicate if the employee has a sick certificate.
Calculating an employee's Statutory Sick Leave entitlement
Bizimply provides information on employee statutory leave hours that can be used to manually update the sick record. As each company operates differently and this legislation is subject to change over time, it is up to each company to decide how they will handle statutory sick pay.
When you go to log a sick record the right of the screen will display a Sick Leave box with relevant calculations to statutory sick leave.
Standard Service Length at Least 13 Weeks: to qualify for statutory sick pay an employee must have worked for the employer for at least 13 continuous weeks.
Legislation states that sick pay be paid by employer at 70% of employees normal pay up to a maximum of €110 a day. If employee's pay changes from week-to-week then employee sick pay is the average of employee's pay over the 13 weeks before the sick leave.
Bizimply uses the following calculations to inform the user about statutory sick hours:
Actual Average Hour Day is calculated on the Sick leave box to determine what are the average working hours over the last number of weeks set in Sickness settings (legislation stipulates 13 weeks). All Paid hours that are recorded on the timecard are considered as working hours (including paid time off).
Statutory Paid Hours Percentage of the Actual Average Hour Day specified in settings (legislation stipulates 70%). Bizimply's calculations are only suggestions to the user, it is up to the user to update the hours manually depending on how the company handles statutory sick leave.
Estimated Cost gives an indication to the user if the calculation for the Statutory Paid Hours exceeds the set limit of €110. The cost is calculated by using employee hourly rate. If the cost exceeds the limit then user must calculate the Statutory Paid hours.
Bizimply helps the user to keep track of how many Statutory Paid Days has the employee received in the current holiday year by displaying them in the Sick Leave box. It is up to the user to track of what is the maximum amount of Statutory sick Days for the current year.
Note: Paid Sick Leave entitlement by year according to legislation:
2023 - 3 days covered
2024 - 5 days covered
2025 - 7 days covered
2026 - 10 days covered
Keeping track of Statutory Paid Leave
The balance of how many days have been marked as Statutory sick tracked under each employees profile Sick Widget on the Time Off page of the employee profile.
The widget displays how many days have been marked as Statutory Paid for an employee within the current holiday year. This information is shown on the widget in days even if the employee is tracked in hours.
The balance is also displayed on the Sick Leave box when you log sick records or edit an existing sick record.
Statutory Sick Paid Leave on timecards and attendance reports
Currently, sick hours are not divided into paid and statutory paid on the Timecard/Attendance reports and Timecard summary. Instead, both are categorised as Paid hours. However, the timecard will display when a sick record is marked as Statutory Paid, as shown below.
Using reports to track Statutory Sick Leave in hours and days
Only Employee Time Off Report and Employee Sickness Report can be used to check how many hours from Paid Sick hours are marked as Statutory paid for hourly tracked employees and how many days from Paid Sick days are marked as Statutory paid for employees tracked in Days.
Time Off Report
Employee Sickness Report
Is Statutory Sick Pay included as working hours in the Public Holiday Report?
As mentioned above, SSP hours are counted as regular paid time off. The Public holiday report uses paid hours from the timecard. Any paid hours added to timecard will be included, otherwise they will not.
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