When a year is closed, almost every member of staff has a surplus or a deficit. The question is what happens to it. Some departments start from zero every year, some let the balance follow into the new year, and others keep a running account that management takes a position on. In a spreadsheet this usually means an extra sheet and a column someone has to keep up to date by hand.
In Excelsior it is a setting on the job title, and the rest happens by itself.
The year's balance
The balance for a year is the difference between what the member of staff has registered and the capacity for their job title. In the account it is shown as Surplus or Deficit. This is the balance that is transferred or accumulated.
Three ways to handle the balance
Under Transfer capacity on the job title you choose what happens to the balance once the year is over:
Do not transfer
The balance stays in the year. The new year starts at zero.
Transfer the balance to the following year
The balance becomes a registration in the new year's account.
Transfer the balance to a "bank"
The balance stays in the year and is added to an accumulated balance.
Because the choice belongs to the job title, different groups can follow different rules. Associate professors and professors can carry their balance forward, for example, while PhD students start afresh every year.
Transferred from last year
If you choose to transfer the balance to the following year, Excelsior creates a registration, Transferred from last year, in the member of staff's account for the new year. A surplus counts as hours already delivered, and a deficit is deducted.
| Year | Capacity | Transferred from last year | Other registrations | Balance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 1,680.00 | 0.00 | 1,742.50 | 62.50 |
| 2026 | 1,680.00 | 62.50 | 1,590.00 | −27.50 |
| 2027 | 1,680.00 | −27.50 | … | … |
The registration keeps itself up to date. If something changes in the old year, say a supervision is registered late or the member of staff changes job title, the amount in the new year is recalculated straight away. And because the transferred registration counts towards the new year's balance, the whole history carries over from year to year without being counted twice.
Accumulated
If you choose the bank, each year's balance stays in its own year and the new year starts at zero. Instead, Excelsior adds the balances up year by year, so you can see how far ahead or behind a member of staff is overall. This is useful when a surplus should not be offset automatically, but be something management and the member of staff decide on together.
| Year | Change | Accumulated |
|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 34.00 | 34.00 |
| 2024 | −12.50 | 21.50 |
| 2025 | 48.25 | 69.75 |
| 2026 | −20.00 | 49.75 |
The accumulated balance can be seen in three places:
- In the account, where Accumulated can be shown as one of the key figures at the top, next to capacity and balance.
- On the Accumulated page in the menu, where the member of staff sees a chart of each year's change and the running balance. The menu item is shown to staff whose job title uses the bank.
- In the section report, which gets an Accumulated column next to capacity and balance, so you can see the whole section at once.
Good advice
- Decide the rule per job title before the year starts. Staff then know from the outset whether a surplus carries over, and you avoid explaining a change halfway through the year.
- Copy the norms when you create a new year. That way Transferred from last year also gets a norm in the new year, and the transfer is there from the start.
- Close the year once the account is settled. Changes in an old year feed through to the new one. Once the year is closed, staff cannot change it themselves.
- Use Accumulated in the staff review. The figures show the trend over several years, not just the latest one, and give a better basis for agreeing what to do with a large surplus.