Balance Cap Hours
The Balance Cap Hours field is used in conjunction with the Balance Cap Type field to determine what, if any, limitations are put on users in terms of how much time they can accrue for a particular accrual plan schedule.
When are caps applied?
When used, the cap amounts are applied during the posting process. The first accrual period posted after the triggering date will also trigger the application of the balance cap limitations. The Balance Cap Type specified will determine when exactly any cap limitation is applied as follows:
Per Period -- For these cap types, the accrued amounts are processed and added to the total amount first, and then the cap logic is applied. For example, suppose your policy is that you can never accrue time that would leave you with more than 120 available hours, the accrual process would run, first adding the handful of hours accrued for that previous period, and then the cap limitation would be applied to make sure you are not left with an amount greater than 120.
Annual -- For these cap types, the cap logic is applied first to the current existing balance, and then the next accrual amount is applied. The reason these cap types are handled differently is that in the annual scenario, you are looking to make sure the user doesn't accumulate and carry more than x hours into the next year (but do not necessarily have any constraint as to the total amount they can accumulate during any specific year).
Which actuals are considered?
In order to determine the number of unused accrued hours for the purposes of the cap logic, the system will use the work date of the time actuals -- to include the time charged to days between the accrual association begin date and the accrual period end date of the accrual period being posted. To be clear, we do not consider actuals charged to future timesheets beyond the end date of the accrual period being posted.