Year-end process

In view of the forthcoming transition from 2024 to 2025, employees at ETH Zurich must complete their working time records for the whole of 2024 correctly and on time (from 1st December to 24 December 2024 at the latest). All requests for absences must be processed in advance.

People who record their times in ETHIS need to close the month of December in order for data to be carried forward. If you close the month of December 2024, all other months are automatically closed. By doing this, you confirm your holiday, flexitime and loyalty bonus balances. Thereafter, it will no longer be possible to make any changes for the current year. Your 2024 starting values are based on your year-end balances from 2024 and the entitlements for 2025.

Are you planning to work between Christmas and New Year? Please enter this time in ETHIS in advance (latest by 24 December 2024). If you do not work as planned, you can compensate minor changes in the new year. Larger deviations can be corrected by your Admin-HR. By the way: Admin-HR can make necessary corrections at any time.

As an administrative assistant with HR-right you...

...help ensure

so that the carry-forwards 2024/2025 have a good data quality and that ETH Zurich can fulfill its disclosure requirement in accordance. You might have to record time credits (carry-forwards of working hours, loyalty bonus and holidays) of all employees who have not completed their records or do not record their time in ETHIS, and if necessary you can also correct the entries already made by employees.

...you make sure

that absences have been approved and absences in general, i.e. holidays, have been fully recorded for the year 2024.

You provide help for all employees in your unit to ensure that they have recorded their times by 24 December 2024.
You provide support for the budget officers (BV) so that they can approve the times recorded.
You make corrections where necessary.

Employees must have recorded their attendances up to the end of the year by 24 December 2024 at the latest. Any attendances planned for the period between Christmas and New Year is to be recorded in advance. Employees are to offset any minor changes to this in January, while any significant discrepancies can be adjusted by the Admin-HR by making a correction accordingly.

The report Control and approve carry-forwards in ETHIS (under Persönlich > Zeitwirtschaft > Time management for staff/teams) will help you with controlling the carry-forward, attendances, holiday balances and loyalty bonus.

This applies to e.g. to CSCS, etc.

You must transfer every employee’s binding balances for holidays, loyalty bonus and, if necessary, attendances up to the end of the year into ETHIS on their behalf by 24 December 2024 at the latest.
You provide support for the budget officers (BV) so that they can approve the times recorded.

The report Control and approve carry-forwards in ETHIS (under Persönlich > Zeitwirtschaft > Time management for staff/teams) will help you with controlling the carry-forward, attendances, holiday balances and loyalty bonus.

According to how fully the employees in your unit have completed their recording duty by 24 December 2024, there are two scenarios for the completeness check and the carry-forward:

1. If 2024 is already fully recorded and closed:

If all employees in your unit have completed the year 2024 before 24 December 2024, the carry-forward will be done. This process is irreversible and wanted. When employees close the month of December, all previous months are also automatically closed. Employees can then no longer open and/or adjust individual months of the year 2024 retrospectively. For you as administrative assistant with HR rights this means:

In this case, you do not have to do the carry-foward.
You just have to check the carry-forward and correct it if necessary.

You will find an overview of the balances (Columns Arbeitszeit Übertrag, Ferien Übertrag und DAG Übertrag) and the status (column status carry-forward) of all employees in your unit in the report Überträge kontrollieren und genehmigen unter Persönlich > Zeitwirtschaft > Time management for staff/teams. Once employees in your unit close the year, the column status carry-forward displays the entry "Ready for Approval."

Check carry-forwards

Are the reported carry-forwards in the columns Arbeitszeit Übertrag, Ferien Übertrag und DAG Übertrag plausible? If not, you can correct the carry-forwards.

2. If the year 2024 is incomplete and not closed:

A: If your reminders to close the year have been unheard and not all employees in your unit have closed the year 2024 before 24 December 2024, HR will close the year on behalf. You can make corrections as of 3 January 2025.

B: If your unit uses an external time recording system, then in ETHIS the year is also incompletely recorded and not closed and you have to do the closing of the year.

You can find the status of the end-of-year (column status carry-forward) of all employees in your unit in the report Überträge kontrollieren und genehmigen unter Persönlich > Zeitwirtschaft > Time management for staff/teams. If employees in your unit have not closed the year yet, the column status carry-forward displays the entry "Not ready for approval".

To «do the carry-forward» means that you close the year somebody's behalf. Only when all employees of a unit have closed the year (themselves or on behalf by you as administrative assistant with HR rights), the annual carry-forward is made for the whole unit. In ETHIS, do this under Persönlich > Zeitwirtschaft > Time management for staff/teams: Control and approve carry-forwards.

There, you can also make corrections to carry-forwards if something is wrong with carry-forwards already made by employees.

As administrative assistant with HR-rights there are two scenarios for when close the year on employee's behalf:

A: you can, if not all employees in your unit have closed the year on time or

B: you have to, if your unit uses an external time recording system

That's how it works:

Under Persönlich > Zeitwirtschaft > Time management for staff/teams: Control and approve carry-forwards select the corresponding employee with the status "Not Ready for Approval" in the selection by clicking on the corresponding personnel number.

Click on Close Year, a new window will open.
Please enter the final hours in the column "Carry-forward in hours". This number of hours is then the starting time credit for 2024.
Click on Save.
Check the entry in the log.
Close the window "Maintaining / displaying time credit" via the x on the top right.

Note

The column "carry-forward in hrs" displays 0 if employees use an external time recording system. In this case, please enter the values from the externally used system. If ETHIS is used, this column shows the balances according to the annual overview of the time sheet.
Loyalty bonuses are recorded by HR Operations during the year directly in the system prior to the anniversary month. Therefore, if employees receive a loyalty bonus in next year, you do not need to enter this when carry-fowarding.

If you have entered and saved the year carry-forward on behalf of someone, you will then see it in the "Log" table with your name in the "Entered by" column. In addition, the name "Initialisation" is displayed in the "Type" column. You can do the carry-foward on behalf of someone only once. However, you will have the opportunity to make corrections until the end of the approval process.

If you make corrections that affect employees for a year that has already been closed, this is a carry-forward correction. You can make such a correction in the period between "close year" (December) and the approval (January).

That's how you correct a carry-forward:

Under Persönlich > Zeitwirtschaft > Time management for staff/teams: Control and approve carry-forwards in the selection you select the corresponding employee.

Click on the personnel number / contract number of the person whose carry-forward you want to correct.
A new window «Maintain / display time credit» opens.
Enter correction: In the first column, select the balance to be corrected: working time, holidays or loyalty bonus
In the second column, enter the correction hours (for example, 32.8 means that 32.8 hours are added to the already existing balance, a minus sign means a deduction of hours).
If desired, enter a comment in the third column.
Close the correction by clicking on Save.
Check the entry in the log.
Close the window "Maintaining / displaying time credit» via the x on the top right.

Note

Corrections that you make as an administrative assistant with HR-rights before approval by the budget officer (BV), are changes to the carry-forward. These corrections will be effective as of January 2025.
Corrections that you make as an administrative assistant with HR-rights after approval by the budget officer (BV) already refer to the year 2024 and correspond to changes in the time credits for 2025 during the year.

As a budget officer...

...you approve the carry-forward

The budget officers (BV) responsible for a Leitzahl or their deputies approve the carry-forward (balances for working hours, holidays and loyalty bonus) for employees into the new calendar year until the end of January 2024 at the latest. Once this approval has been given, the system automatically confirms the carry-forwards on the employees’ time sheets. Unapproved carry-forwards are approved by the system at the beginning of February. Responsibility for the values of the carry-forwards lies with the responsible budget officer in both cases.

The report Control and approve carry-forwards in ETHIS (under Persönlich > Zeitwirtschaft > Time management for staff/teams) displays the status and the values of the carry-forwards.

In the selection on the left, select the identification number (Leitzahl) at which you want to approve employee carry-forwards. The right-hand column already shows the carry-forwards status of the listed employees. Until 24 December 2024, all listed employees should have the status "ready for approval". Employees with an employment contract as academic guest, guest lecturer or externals as well as hourly wages are not listed. With these employee categories, the carry-forward for working hours, holidays and loyalty bonus is always 0 and does not have to be approved.
If required, you can also select only individual employees on the right-hand side to display the selection. This is only required if you explicitly want to authorize the carry-forward of an individual employee.
Click on "Anzeigen".
Please check the carry-forward of all employees with the status «ready for approval» (columns Arbeitszeit Übertrag, Ferien Übertrag, DAG Übertrag)
If necessary, you can correct individual carry-forwards. Then redo the evaluation so that the corrections made are shown.
Approve: If you click on "Approve", all carry-forwards of the employees for whom you are responsible for the budget are approved in one step with the carry-forward status "ready for approval". This process can only be done once for the individual employees.

If balances are to be approved by only individual employees, they must already be selected individually during selection.

Employees whose carry-forwards have already been approved are shown in grayed out lines and have the status "approved". These carry-forwards can no longer be corrected for these employees. It can be made during the year protected page corrections, but these have no effect on the carry-forwards .

If required, different statuses can be selected in the "Status Bearbeitung" column. These serve as tools for internal communication between the administrative assistant with HR rights and the budget officers and have no influence on the function "approve". If the status in the "Processing Status" column is set to "not ready for approval" and budget officers click on "Approve", the carry-forwards will still be approved.

Support

If you have any problems with logging in, lack of authorisations or user issues, please report these directly in protected page ETHIS using the support function. ETHIS Support is the basic portal for providing technical support for all employees and administrative assistants with HR rights. You can also find further helpful information in protected page ETHIS Help under “Time management”.

For any administrative queries, your first point of contact should be HR Administration.

If you have any questions regarding regulations, please contact HR Consulting.