ACC First Week - NZ
Contents
About
This article concerns how to make ACC payments for the first week that an employee is entitled to ACC in New Zealand.
How to use
Set up a Global Pay Code for ACC First Week
The simplest method is to add a Pay Code Item and call it ACC First Week. Then add a Global Pay Code and call it ACC First Week.
From here edit the Global Pay Code and add the Pay Code Item - ACC first week to it - setting the pay and charge rates to $0.00
Calculating the ACC Pay Amount
In New Zealand the first week's ACC compensation is paid directly by the Employer and it is calculated at 80% of what the employee earned during the 7 days immediately before the day on which the incapacity commenced (note that this is not necessarily be the day of the accident).
Earnings include:
- Ordinary time;
- Overtime;
- Taxable allowances;
- Taxable bonuses; and
- Income from other employment - note - you will need to get this information directly from the employee
The employer must then pay the employee 80% of the earnings they lost during the 7 days immediately before the incapacity commenced.
Note that 80% of the lost earnings will not necessarily be the same as 80% of the total earnings in the 7 days before incapacity. For example, if the injury only caused the employee to be unable to work for 2 or 3 days, and they were able to work for the rest of the week, they would have earned at least a portion of their income from the previous week.
To do this for a specific employee you will need to go to their employee record and either look at the data in their Pay Report or Payslips. With the information from their record you will be able to determine what they were paid in the 7 days before their incapacity and what 80% of this value is.
In order to record which days they are being paid for ACC First week - then you should determine how many hours and what the rate is per hour - based on the 80% earnings figure. Eg for example they worked 48 hours, over 5 days, in that week for a total gross pay of $1,152 then to pay them 80% over for the ACC First Week it would be;
- 9.6 hours a day (48/5)
- $19.20 ph ($1,152 / 48 hours X 80%)
To make this payment - from the main menu click in Pay Employee - enter the employee's first or last name or employee number and click the relevant search button.
Select the relevant employee and then click the Select Employee > button. Then check you have the correct week ending and click on the Select Pay Code From List button.
From here, click on the Global Pay Codes Tab and select the ACC First Week pay code.
Then select the relevant client code. Here you have the choice - you could use an in house client code (ie "charging your business") or the client code of the client where the worker was injured (ie "charging the client"). In either case the charge rate is zero so no invoice is generated but the benefit of charging the client is that you are then able to report on the true costs of dealing with a particular client - ie ACC First Week cost will be allocated to that client rather than your business.
Then enter the new Rate (eg $19.20) and the hours for each day (eg 9.6) and process by clicking the Save Period button.
