The 2.1-Day Vacation Gap After an FTE Change

A 2.1-day gap is small enough to be a proration method difference and large enough to be a real configuration fault. Inspect in this order, cheapest first:

1. What the balance field actually contains. Confirm whether the figure shown includes pending or approved-but-not-deducted bookings. If 12.5 is a gross accrual and 10.4 is net of something HR subtracted, there is no defect.
2. The accrual rule's proration basis. Does it prorate on hire date, on FTE, on work schedule, or on a combination? Verify which Job Information field the rule reads. If it reads a field that was not updated when FTE changed, accrual will not have adjusted.
3. Whether recalculation happened. An FTE change on 1 September does not automatically re-derive accruals already posted for earlier periods unless the account is recalculated. Check account history for a recalculated event around September.
4. Manual adjustments and carryover. A one-off manual credit of ~2 days would explain the gap exactly and is the most common real cause in mature instances.

What each implies: finding 1 or 4 means HR's number is the error, not the system. Finding 2 or 3 means the accrual configuration or the recalculation process is the defect and other employees at 0.6 FTE are likely affected too - which turns a single-employee query into a population audit.

Two independent mechanics are running and HR has conflated them:

• Accrual (how much is earned) is driven by the accrual rule and its proration basis - typically FTE and/or hire date, not the days actually worked.
• Consumption (how much a booking costs) is driven by the employee's work schedule at the time of the booking. A 'day' of leave costs the scheduled hours for that day. After moving to a three-day week, a booked day costs fewer hours than it did at five days.

Consequences to check:

• The 8 December days were booked after the schedule change, so they should consume three-day-week hours. If the balance is expressed in days, conversion between hours and days depends on the schedule in force at each transaction - mixing pre- and post-September transactions without that context produces exactly this kind of small, stubborn discrepancy.
• Confirm the work schedule was actually changed on the employee's employment record, effective 1 September. If FTE moved to 0.6 but the schedule stayed at five days, accrual and consumption disagree permanently and the employee is over-consuming every booking.

Do not answer the balance question until you know whether the reported unit is hours or days and which schedule each transaction used.

No - do not cancel as a first action. Reasoning:

• The booking was approved and negative balances are permitted on this account type, so the booking is valid under current configuration even if the accrual turns out to be overstated. Cancelling removes an approved employee entitlement based on an unverified calculation.
• Cancellation creates its own audit trail and a second workflow, and if the balance is later found to be correct you cannot restore the original booking dates.

Recommended handling:

1. Freeze the question, not the employee: document the discrepancy and the investigation reference on the request.
2. Verify the accrual configuration and whether a broader population is affected, as in the reconciliation steps above.
3. If the accrual is confirmed overstated and the employee would exceed entitlement, agree the adjustment with the manager and HR - either a prospective accrual correction, a repayment arrangement, or a one-off adjustment - and record it as an adjustment on the account, not as a cancellation of booked leave.
4. Only if the account genuinely does not permit the resulting balance (i.e. negative balances were switched off for this type) should the booking be revisited, and then with notice.

The exam-relevant judgement: configuration accuracy and employee entitlement are separate decisions, and the balance engine is not automatically right merely because it is the system.