Accrual and Entitlement

Why the distinction matters

They behave differently at termination, at plan changes, and when a balance is carried over, which is where most balance disputes originate.

Not to be confused with

• Absence plan

  The plan is the container. Accrual and entitlement are the two mechanisms inside it that decide how the balance moves.

Also called

• Accrual
• Entitlement

Synonyms are searchable, so searching either spelling finds this entry.

Evidence

This entry is academy synthesis. It describes how the term is used rather than restating an Oracle definition, so no claim backs it. Where Oracle documents a specific behaviour, that behaviour is recorded as a claim elsewhere in the curriculum.

Taught in

• Absence Management: six components and a setup orderThe six objects an absence policy is built from, which of them actually decide entitlement, and the documented order to build them in — with the unit-of-measure rule that silently decides whether a plan and a type agree.
• The six absence plan types, and when each one is the right oneAccrual, qualification, no entitlement, agreement, compensatory and donation are alternatives rather than a progression — and the mistakes that come from reading them as one.
• Configuring an accrual plan: term, frequency, limits and carryoverThe eleven rule areas of an accrual plan, the two term types, the two balance frequency sources, the five carryover limit rules, and the difference between the annual accrual limit and the ceiling — using Oracle’s own vacation-plan example as the worked case.
• Who may enroll: eligibility profiles and derived factorsHow an eligibility profile decides who can enroll in an absence plan and who can schedule its absences: create derived factors first, build the profile with include/exclude criteria, and remember that absence plans accept several profiles while an absence type accepts exactly one.
• Certifications: the action items that gate continued payHow an absence certification requirement works: created with the Absence Certifications task and associated with an absence type on its Action Items tab, it triggers on demand or on the absence start date, runs through three phases that set a target status field and can reevaluate entitlements (override, recalculate, retract) — and it exists only for illness/injury and maternity absence types.
• Rate definitions: what one unit of absence costsHow a rate definition prices a single unit of absence — categories (Derived Rate, Element, Value by Criteria, Grade Rate, Formula), contributors with periodicity and factors, conversion to the return periodicity, and min/max rules — which of the four absence payment rate rules reference it, and why the rate is only resolved in payroll, never in Absence Management itself.
• Qualification plans: paying an absence with no balanceThe plan type that pays workers who qualify for it during an absence without accruing a balance — the four rule areas (term, eligibility, enrollment/termination, payments), the four term types and when each applies, the overlap rules that decide how straddling absences count on rolling-backward terms, the entitlement band matrix that maps worker criteria to duration and payment percentage, and open-ended absences calculated for 365 days.

• Related concepts: Absence plan