As an employer, you must keep wage and time, and holidays and leave records that comply with the Employment Relations Act 2000 and the Holidays Act 2003. In particular, you must be able to show that you’ve correctly given your employees all minimum employment entitlements such as the minimum wage and annual holidays.
Good record-keeping makes sure that an employee's pay and leave are correct, prevents misunderstandings and protects the employer and the employee if there is a problem. Your employees have the right to know everything you are recording on their file and have the right to see these records.
While all the record-keeping requirements may not seem necessary, they’re needed to show a clear picture of each day in an employee’s working year, that is, which days were worked, not worked, on leave and what type of leave, and so on. This information is used to calculate different types of pay for such leave as annual holidays or sick leave, and entitlements such as parental leave.
For employers with fully computerised payroll software, maintaining the records can be easier, but they still need to check their payroll system to make sure it accurately records any changes to employees’ hours and pay.
For employers with manual systems, it can be harder to stay on top of recording everything. If you don’t understand or you don’t think you’re keeping accurate records of everything required, you can contact us.
Tools and Resources
Holiday and wage record spreadsheet - XLS 64KB
Use this template to set up records for holidays and wages.