Tell it how much time off you bank each pay period and how many periods you've worked, and it tallies your PTO in both hours and full days, minus anything you've already taken.
Instead of dropping a chunk of vacation on you every January, most employers hand it out in small amounts each pay period. Work the period, earn the hours. It's a steady drip rather than a lump sum.
That makes your available balance a moving target. The number you can actually take today is what you've earned so far minus what you've already spent, which is exactly what this works out.
Payroll systems love to talk in hours, which makes it hard to picture what you've really got. Forty hours sounds like a lot until you realize it's one week off.
Converting to days puts it in human terms. Once you can see the balance as "about three days," planning a long weekend or a proper trip gets a lot simpler.
Check your offer letter or employee handbook, or ask HR. It's usually stated as hours earned per pay period, something like four hours every two weeks. If yours is given as days per year instead, multiply by your workday length and divide by your number of pay periods.
It depends on your schedule. Biweekly pay lands you 26 periods a year, semi-monthly gives you 24, and weekly makes 52. Match the period count here to how often you're actually paid so the accrual lines up.
PTO accrues in hours, but you take it in days, so the tool needs to know how many hours make up one day off for you. Eight is standard full-time, but part-timers and compressed schedules should enter their own number to get accurate days.
No, it assumes straight accrual with nothing lost. Many employers cap how much you can bank or reset balances each year, so if yours does, treat this as the raw earned amount before any cap kicks in.
That's a good use for it. Enter the periods you'll have worked by your planned time off, subtract what you've already used, and the balance shows roughly how many days you'll have available when the trip comes around.