Carry-over
Carry-over is unused leave moved from one period into the next instead of being lost at the boundary. It is normally capped. A policy might permit five days to move forward and expire the rest. Carried days often come with a deadline by which they must be used.
Three positions exist and each produces different behaviour. Lose it all, and you get a December stampede of half-planned days. Carry everything, and balances grow quietly until somebody leaves holding eleven weeks. Cap it, which is the common middle.
A cap needs a companion deadline. Days carried with no expiry rebuild the unlimited version one year at a time. After four years the cap does nothing at all.
Whatever the rule, it has to be visible well before the boundary. A policy people discover in the last week produces a coverage crisis.
Watch which balance a request draws from once days have moved. Where carried days and the new allocation sit in one pot, the carried ones can expire untouched. Draw down the older days first. It is a small rule that saves people from losing what they were promised.
Where this shows up in PeopleMuster
PeopleMuster organises leave by year, with a year selector on its leave views. Each period's usage is read on its own, not as one running total.
Questions people ask
Is carry-over automatic?
Only where a policy says so. Without an explicit rule, the default at most employers is that unused days lapse at the period boundary.
Should carried days expire?
A deadline is what stops balances compounding. Without one, a cap limits each year's addition but not the total that accumulates.
Does carry-over apply to every leave type?
Usually not. It is most often written for annual leave alone, while short-notice types reset each period. Check your own policy per type.