If you work out a departing employee's unused-day pay on the back of the last payslip, this is for you. This post is not for a firm where no one owns the balances once the person has gone. For that firm, the first job is to name an owner.
What is the exit sum, and why does it go wrong?
A crew member hands in notice with 18 days of annual leave unused. Someone has to turn those 18 days into dirhams before the contract ends. Search for "leave salary calculation UAE" and you find calculators that ask for one salary figure and return one answer.
The trouble is that a leaver's file holds more than one salary figure. Basic pay, housing, transport and a phone allowance sit on the same slip. The sum depends on which of them the law counts.
Which salary does the payout use?
For leave left over when the person goes, the sources we read name basic salary:
The point of the table is the gap it leaves. A calculator that runs on total pay overstates the payout by the share the allowances make up. A calculator that runs on basic pay gets the exit sum right and may be wrong for the contract you actually signed.
Here is the arithmetic, as a sample and not a client. Basic salary AED 3,000 and allowances AED 1,500. Eighteen days unused. This sample divides basic by 30 for the daily rate (your contract or policy sets the divisor): AED 100. Eighteen days at AED 100 is AED 1,800. The same days on total pay of AED 4,500 would be AED 2,700. The AED 900 gap is the allowances.
Free zones such as DIFC and ADGM have their own employment regulations, and the base can differ. Ask the licence authority before you copy a mainland sum.
When does the money have to be ready?
Not on the last working day. Gulf News reports that an employer pays entitlements within 14 days of the employment contract's termination date, citing Article 53 of the Decree-Law, and that garden leave does not start the clock.
That gives the leave number a deadline that sits before the cancellation date. The person who holds the balances has to know them while the leaver is still on the books.
Where do the sources disagree?
Carry-forward. u.ae says unused leave can be carried over with the employer's consent and that the employer may not stop an employee using accrued leave for more than two consecutive years. Gulf News describes Article 19(1) of the Resolution as letting employees carry forward up to half of the entitlement. Open the Resolution text and read what applies to your staff before you fix the opening balance on a leaver's sheet.
Who should work the number out?
Our rule has two sides: the leave sum has two bases and one deadline, and whoever holds the balances should work it out.
Whichever row you are in, name the owner in one line: the payroll officer owns the number, and HR or finance signs it off before the contract end date. The one-page sheet needs six fields: basic salary, daily rate, days taken, days carried over, contract end date and pay-by date (end date plus 14 days).
The receipt for the first row is the sheet itself. Pick the last leaver's file. If you cannot say from it which days were taken, which were carried over and which salary figure you used, the sheet side of the rule does not hold for your firm.
What does a system change?
Three things, as our People page describes them.
- 01The leave balance and the leave request sit on the employee's phone, and approved leave reaches the salary slip.
- 02The final settlement lists gratuity, last salary, leave and advances for the leaver, so finance pays the leaver once.
- 03Leave types, carry-forward and the gratuity rule are set during setup with your adviser. The software follows your rules. It does not decide them.
Limits, so you can plan around them. The base for exit leave is something we configure with you and your adviser, not something we assert for you. The WPS file and overtime formulas are also set up during setup. The Arabic screens are about half translated today. Visa and permit filing stays with you.
For a wider view of the three jobs around leave, see what an HR outsourcer does and does not do. For who owns the salary file itself, see payroll company or Excel.
What would it cost?
You pay per employee on payroll a month: anyone with a salary slip that month. It is AED or SAR 29 for the first 50, 18 for 51 to 200, 12 for 201 to 500 and 8 above that. HR, finance and manager logins add nothing, and leavers stop counting the month after their final settlement.
The per-employee price comes with a monthly minimum, so no one buys one seat at the per-employee rate. On the shared plan the minimum is AED or SAR 990, which covers up to 34 employees. A firm of 60 on the page's list pays 50 times 29 plus 10 times 18, AED 1,630 a month. Above 50 employees setup is managed: AED or SAR 9,900 one time up to 200 employees. Up to 50 employees the quick start is a fixed package we set up for AED or SAR 2,500. Your bank or exchange house charges its own WPS fees. Prices exclude 5 percent UAE VAT and 15 percent Saudi VAT.
What happens in the first working session?
We call the method One run, one file. For a firm with leavers on the books, we start with one call about your leave types, carry-forward, gratuity rule and bank. Then you get a written plan, the go-live date and the monthly price, before you pay anything. If a sheet and one careful officer already cover your crew, we will say so.
If they do not, tell us how many people you pay and how leave is tracked today, and we reply with the plan and the monthly price per employee. Contractors can start from the facilities contractors page.
