Annualisation
Annualisation spreads out the earnings of term-time-only support staff into equal fortnightly pays throughout the year, including school holidays. Around 11,000 employees are annualised each year.
The fortnightly calculation is based on the employee's hours, work pattern, allowances and leave entitlements. Annualised employees are paid for public holidays if they fall on a day of the week they normally work.
Eligibility
Employees need to agree to having their payments annualised and must:
- be intending to work for at least a full school year and
- not be planning to take more than two consecutive weeks of unpaid leave.
Note: Employees on a school caretakers, cleaners and canteen staff agreement cannot be annualised.
How to annualise an employee
You will need to apply each year for each employee who wants their pay annualised. This is because the annualisation percentage calculations change depending on when public holidays and term dates fall.
There are two ways to annualise employees: the EdPay annualisations screen or the Annualisation agreement (EP23nt) form.
EdPay screen or EP23nt form?
This flowchart shows which employees can be annualised via the EdPay screen, and which employees need to be annualised using the form.
Use the EdPay screen to annualise continuing employees whose jobs are currently annualised in 2025.
You will need to use the EP23nt form to annualise:
- new employees
- current employees with new jobs, and
- current timesheet and term-time-only employees whose jobs are not currently annualised.
New hires
Enter the new hire's details in EdPay (+New Employee / Onboarding). If this creates a ticket number, reply to the ticket with the EP23nt form so the new hire and the annualisation can be processed together.
Employees starting work before 31 January
If you have a term-time only employee starting before 31 January, you'll need to timesheet those hours.
Key dates
| Deadline |
Date |
Description |
Annualisation year start and end dates
|
31 January – 30 January
|
Annualisation year start and end dates are 31 January to 30 January of the following year.
(Support Staff in Schools' Collection Agreement - Clause 3:15)
|
Authorised users
|
The last day of your school’s term four
|
Authorised users who have annualised their pay must update their agreement each year before mid-January. This is to make sure they do not lose access to EdPay when their current annualised year ends on 30 January.
|
All other employees
|
End of January each year
|
All other employees must submit their agreement before the end of January.
|
Annual deadline
|
28 January 2026
|
All applications must be submitted by the annualisations cut-off for pay period 23.
|
Annualisation screen
The EdPay annualisation screen will be available for Beta schools from 20 October and for all schools from 4 November.
Before you begin
For each employee you want to annualise, you will need to know their:
- work pattern
- term one start date and term four end date
- term break hours, if any
- pay grade, step and rate, and
- allowances/entitlements, including long service leave.
Note:
- You will not be able to complete your own annualisation, another authorised user will have to do this for you.
- A small number of currently annualised employees cannot be re-annualised in the EdPay screen. If any of the read-only fields are not what you expect or need for that employee, please use the EP23nt form for that employee instead of the screen.
- If you need to update non-annualisation information for that employee (eg, contact details) please use the usual method (ie, change details in EdPay or complete an EP22 for agreement changes).
Instructions for using the annualisation screen
| Step |
Action |
| 1 |
In EdPay, click on the Annualisation button to open the screen.
The screen will only show employees whose jobs are currently annualised.
If you want to annualise a new employee, or a new job that is not currently annualised, you will need to use the EP23nt – 2026 form.
|
| 2 |
Click on an employee’s blue Annualise button.
Note: Your school’s regional holiday is pre-populated on the top right of the screen.
|
| 3 |
On the Annualisation agreement page, the system will pre-populate much of the information on the screen and show read-only details in shaded fields, eg, school, name, MoE number.
In the Annualisation calculation section, check the Employment work pattern and make changes if the employee’s hours will be different next year.
|
| 4 |
In the next section:
- Enter the employee’s start and end dates for next year. Their start date and end date must be within two weeks of the school’s start and end date for them to pass the full year test.
Note: If the term four end date is greyed out and you can't change it, this is because the term four end date for the annualisation is more than 14 days before the gazetted term four end date. To resolve this, you will need to change your school's next year's term four end date in End of Year, and then return to the annualisation screen.
- Enter any hours the employee will work during the term breaks. Do not include any public holidays that fall during term breaks. These are already in the annualisation calculation.
Note: If you enter hours into the term break fields, do not send timesheets as these hours are included in the annualisation calculation.
- Click on the drop-down lists to select the employee’s pay grade and step. This will calculate the payrate. This field is editable if you need to enter a different rate for employees with salary loading or non-pay equity.
- Select Yes or No for the First aid and/or Tiaki allowances, then select the relevant qualification from the drop-down list.
- Note: Once you have entered the pay grade and step, you can save a draft (bottom left). To open the draft again, select EDIT DRAFT on the Annualisations page.
Check your entries, then click NEXT to go to the Summary page.
|
| 5 |
On the Summary page, check the fields and calculations.
Total hours to be paid for the year is a sum of:
- Total Hours in term time: Total hours worked during term time between the employee’s term 1 start date and term 4 end date, excluding term breaks
- Total Hours working during the school holidays: Additional hours worked during term breaks
- Hours for long service leave to be taken during the school holidays: Long service leave taken during term breaks
- Annual leave entitlement hours: Annual leave in hours
- Easter Tuesday (hours): if the employee works on the Easter Tuesday, Easter Tuesday fall in the term break and they are eligible for Easter Tuesday
- Public holidays (hours): any public holidays that fall in the term breaks, Waitangi day if the employee starts after Waitangi Day and the Christmas/New Years holidays
- Regional holidays (hours): if the regional holiday falls in the term breaks or before the employee’s start date e.g. Wellington Anniversary 20 January or after the employee’s end date e.g. Chatham Islands 1 December
Rostered hours for the annualisation period. This uses the employee’s term-time-only rostered hours and entitlements and applies them to them to every week of the annualisation period, eg, as if the employee worked every week of the year.
Annualisation percentage. This is the total hours to be paid divided by the rostered hours for the annualisation period. (Eg, in the screenshot, 1771 hours divided by 1993:20 = 88.85%.)
Note: Annualisation percentages change from year to year due to variations in the number of pay periods in a year, where public holidays fall, start and end dates, and yearly entitlement changes. If the employee’s percentage is different from their previous percentage, this doesn’t mean you have completed the form incorrectly.
In the wage calculation section, check the:
- fornightly gross (before and after annualisation), and
- annual gross (before and after annualisation).
If you need to change anything:
- click on the Edit icon (top right) to take you back to the previous page
- make the changes, then click NEXT to return to the updated Summary page.
|
| 6 |
Print the agreement and arrange for the employee to sign it.
- Click the Print icon (top right) to print the page.
- Ask the employee to review and sign the agreement, then file it in your records. Please do not send us a copy.
|
| 7 |
When the employee has signed the agreement, return to the EdPay screen and tick the confirmation box (bottom left).
Click the Submit button.
|
Next steps
After you have submitted the application, you can view the pages (and re-print if you need to), but you will not be able to change the content. If you need to edit an application, you can ask your Payroll Advisor to return it to you.
Tracking the application
You can monitor the application’s progress either on the Activity History screen or the Annualisation screen in EdPay.
Changes during the year
If your employee's pay rate, hours or allowances change during the annualised year, or they sign a new employment agreement, complete an EP24nt for the appropriate year, or a NOVO24nt form for years between 2018-2021. Go to EdPay and forms for links to forms and instructions.
Ending annualisation
| If the employee... |
then... |
chooses to stop having their pay annualised before the end of the year
|
change their employment type on their EdPay Job screen. They can then be paid term-time only or by timesheet.
|
takes unplanned leave without pay for more than two weeks
|
their annualisation will need to stop.
Book their leave (as Leave Without Pay) in EdPay, and change their employment type in the Job screen.
|
has completed all the agreed weeks on the annualisation agreement (EP23nt)
|
complete a NOVO6 form (do not terminate their role in EdPay).
|
| If they want... |
then... |
|
| the remainder of their annualisation paid as a lump sum |
write their actual last day of duty on the form and write in the comments that the remainder should be paid as a lump sum. |
|
| to continue receiving their pay at the annualised amount through to the end of the year |
write 30 January as their last day of duty. |
|
|
Record keeping
Keep a copy of forms in the employee's file. See Payroll record keeping for more details.
Learn more
Click here for more information about annualisation including a sample calculation.
Annualisations video 2mins (Opens in Vimeo.com)