How to Process Annual Leave Cash-Out and Report Leave Balances in MYOB Acumatica

In MYOB Acumatica Payroll, process an annual leave cash-out on Employee’s Current Pay (MPPP3130): add the Cash Out pay item, click Cash Out in the Leave column, enter the hours and attach the signed agreement. Fair Work requires a written agreement each time, 4 weeks’ balance left and, under most awards, at most 2 weeks per 12 months. Entitlement Balances Data (MPPP4072) reports every employee’s balance at one date.

At a glance

• Who it is for: Payroll officers and finance managers already running MYOB Acumatica Payroll (MYOB Advanced Payroll until the 2024 rebrand) who need to cash out leave, pull one balance report, stop negative balances or stop one person’s long service leave accrual
• Problem it solves: Cash-outs keyed as ordinary hours and misreported to the ATO, balances checked one employee at a time, leave approved into negative, and long service leave accruing for the wrong people
• Platforms: MYOB Acumatica Payroll, plus the Self Service and Workforce Management settings on the same forms
• Typical cost: No extra licensing; it is configuration on existing forms. Licensing is quoted per named user through partners; our MYOB Acumatica cost guide covers implementation ranges
• Typical timeline: A cash-out pay item takes one sitting to set up and is reused after that; entitlement rule changes apply from the next pay run opened
• Last verified: 20 October 2026 against MYOB’s Setting up Leave Cash Out (Australia) and Entitlements form reference, the Fair Work cashing-out rules and the ATO STP Phase 2 quick reference guide

Our overview of MYOB Acumatica leave management covers how requests, rosters and accruals fit together. This post is the layer below it: four leave jobs that land on a payroll officer’s desk with a deadline attached, and the form IDs to do them. As a MYOB Acumatica partner in Brisbane these are the questions we field most from payroll teams.

How do you process an annual leave cash-out in MYOB Acumatica?

MYOB’s Cashing out Leave (Australia) page is explicit that employees cannot request a cash-out through Employee Self Service or Workforce Management, so it starts with a signed document on your desk.

Check the Fair Work conditions first

The Fair Work Ombudsman’s cashing-out rules set the floor. Under an award, the employee must keep at least 4 weeks of annual leave after the cash-out, sign a written agreement stating the amount of leave, the payment and the payment date, and cash out no more than 2 weeks in any 12-month period. The payment must equal what they would have been paid for taking the leave, an employee under 18 needs a parent or guardian to sign too, and nobody can be pressured into it. Enterprise agreements only allow cashing out if the agreement says so; award-free employees can cash out by written agreement with the same 4-week floor. Not every award permits it, so read yours first.

Set up the cash-out pay item (once)

MYOB’s Setting up Leave Cash Out (Australia) page wants one cash-out pay item per entitlement you allow to be cashed out. For annual leave:

1. Open Pay Items (MPPP2210), click New Pay Item, and enter the ID, Description and Payslip label. Set Type to Entitlement Payment.
2. Set Taxation to the “Extra Pay (Lump Sum, Full Year)” option and leave Allow Leave Reduction unticked.
3. In Attributes, tick Cash Out and select the same entitlement your annual leave taken pay item is linked to.
4. On the Additional Info tab, tick Show On Payslip, Show Calculated Dollar Value and Show Calculated Units. Leave Allow Leave Request Selection, Require Attachment Upon Leave Request and Available to Workforce Management unticked.
5. Set General Ledger Purpose to match the leave taken item, save, then open Pay Item Liabilities (MPPP1025) and mark the item liable for superannuation with the ATO category “Cash out of leave in service”.

The same page covers the other leave types; only time off in lieu differs, using standard PAYG taxation and a rated calculation.

Add it to the employee’s pay

From MYOB’s Paying Cashed-out Leave (Australia) page:

1. Open the employee in Employee’s Current Pay (MPPP3130) for the pay run and add a row with the cash-out pay item.
2. In the Leave column, click Cash Out and enter the hours in Quantity.
3. Attach the signed agreement on the Employee’s Current Pay form or in the Cash Out window, save, and run the pay as normal. Fair Work expects you to keep that agreement on file; the pay record is a sensible place.

How is cashed-out leave taxed and reported?

The ATO’s withholding from leave payments for continuing employees page says unused leave paid to a continuing employee is withheld under the tax table for back payments, commissions, bonuses and similar payments, not the regular pay-period table. That is why MYOB’s setup uses the lump sum taxation option, and why a cash-out keyed as ordinary hours withholds the wrong amount.

The ATO’s STP Phase 2 quick reference guide lists annual leave, long service leave and RDO hours cashed out in service under “Cash out of leave in service (paid leave type C)”; leave taken is type O and unused leave on termination is type U, so the wrong pay item means the wrong STP bucket. The ATO’s qualifying earnings list counts cashed-out annual and long service leave in service as qualifying earnings, so the 12% guarantee applies and, under Payday Super since 1 July 2026, the contribution follows the pay. Our MYOB Acumatica payroll guide covers the qualifying earnings flag and our Payday Super checks cover batch timing.

How do you report leave balances of all staff in one report?

Pay Details shows one employee at a time. For everyone, MYOB’s Payroll Reports page lists four entitlement reports; which one depends on who is asking.

• Entitlement Balances Data (MPPP4072) shows every entitlement balance at a date you choose, with the dollar value and general ledger accounts. MYOB recommends it for exporting balances to Workforce Management and says it “makes it easy to look for negative balances in a pay run that’s being processed”. Filter it to Annual Leave and you have the list managers mean.
• Leave Balances and Liabilities Report (MPPP6250) is the printed or emailed version, which the accountant wants at month end for the leave provision.
• Entitlement Movements Report (MPPP6032) shows opening balance, accrual, taken and closing balance over a date range, for when someone disputes a balance.
• Leave Paid Data (MPPP4066) lists leave payments by pay with a Cash Out tab, so you can check the year’s cash-outs against the 2-week cap.

Two cautions. Balances are based on completed pays, so an open pay run is not in the number, and dollar values only appear if the accrual pay items have Include Accrual in GL selected. Entitlement History (MPPP4400) is the transaction view behind them.

How do you stop leave going into negative in MYOB Acumatica?

Negative balances arrive two ways: payroll pays more leave than the balance, or an employee requests more than they have and a manager approves it. Both are controlled on the Rules tab of the Entitlements form (MPPP3300).

1. Open Entitlements (MPPP3300) and select the entitlement, for example Annual Leave.
2. In Properties, untick Entitlement may be paid/taken in advance, which MYOB documents as allowing the entitlement “to be paid out or taken in advance, resulting in a negative balance”.
3. In Self Service, set For negative leave to “Show error and prevent submit”. The other options warn and allow the request, or say nothing.
4. Set Validate on to Available Balance, or Projected Available Balance to check the balance at the first day of the leave.
5. Save between pay runs, because editing an entitlement updates every linked pay item and any open pays containing them.

If your award allows some leave in advance, keep the payroll setting ticked and use the warning option instead, then run Entitlement Balances Data before each pay is completed.

Can you turn off long service leave accrual for an employee?

Yes, though not with a switch labelled that way. MYOB’s Entitlements and Leave page explains that an employee accrues an entitlement because an accrual pay item sits in their Standard Pay on Pay Details (MPPP2310). Stop the pay item for one person and only their accrual stops.

1. Open Pay Details (MPPP2310) for the employee and go to the Standard Pay tab.
2. Find the long service leave accrual pay item (the Ent. column shows Yes).
3. Set an Expiry Date on that row. The form reference says the item “will not be included in pays after this date”, and unlike deleting the row it keeps the history visible.
4. If the balance should also be cleared, enter a one-sided adjustment on Entitlement Adjustments (MPPP3000) for the Accrual Balance and Earned Balance types.

Two settings on the Entitlements form look like the answer but are company-wide: Non Accruing Entitlement removes balances and liabilities for everyone on the entitlement, and Limit Total Accrual caps what anyone can accrue. Neither suits a single exception.

The usual reason is an employee covered by a portable scheme, which Fair Work’s long service leave page describes for coal mining, cleaning and building and construction. Long service leave comes from state and territory law, so the rate and qualifying period differ by state; our long service leave calculator for every state and territory gives the rule for each state first.

“The cash-out that causes trouble is the one keyed as ordinary hours because the pay item was never set up. The tax is wrong, the STP type is wrong, and nobody notices until the employee’s tax return does. Set the pay item up before the first request, not during it.”

Bill Alvarez, Practice Manager, Auboros

Goes well with

• MYOB Acumatica timesheets: from clock-in to pay run
• MYOB Acumatica employee onboarding: from invitation to first pay run
• MYOB Acumatica EOFY checklist: what to prepare before 30 June

Need a hand with a cash-out or a leave balance that will not reconcile?

We support MYOB Acumatica Payroll sites across Queensland, NSW and Victoria. If one of these tasks is not behaving the way the help page says it should, book a free consultation and we will look at the entitlement setup with you.