FFCR Act (FFCRA) Documentation and Tracking

Businesses across the country are scrambling to understand the new Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA). With this act being so new, even HR and employment law experts have more questions than answers at this point. So, if you’re unsure what it all means for your business, you’re not alone!

While we all await further clarity as to what each specific provision of the act means, one thing we do know for certain is that you’re going to have to keep some documentation. In the official Department of Labor FAQ, the answer to question #15 includes the following text (emphasis added):

Private sector employers that provide paid sick leave and expanded family and medical leave required by the FFCRA are eligible for reimbursement of the costs of that leave through refundable tax credits. If you intend to claim a tax credit under the FFCRA for your payment of the sick leave or expanded family and medical leave wages, you should retain appropriate documentation in your records. You should consult Internal Revenue Service (IRS) applicable forms, instructions, and information for the procedures that must be followed to claim a tax credit, including any needed substantiation to be retained to support the credit. You are not required to provide leave if materials sufficient to support the applicable tax credit have not been provided.

In order to claim the tax credit available to you as an employer, you will be required to have documentation. The act doesn’t yet specify exactly what type or amount of documentation will be required, so at this stage our recommendation is to document everything you might need. Here’s what we recommend tracking for each employee who takes time off related to this act (keeping in mind that this is a suggestion, not legal advice…please consult your HR/legal counsel):

• Employee name
• Dates and times of the time off (including time zones)
• Number of hours of time off taken each day
• Date and time that the request was submitted by the employee
• Date and time that the request was approved by the manager/administrator
• Name and role of the person who approved the time off
• Notes relating to the purpose of the time off (e.g. employee is sick, employee is caring for a sick family member, employee is caring for a child, etc.)

If you don’t have a good tool in place to easily track this, we’d love to give you a quick tour of our PTO Tracking product so you can see how easy our product makes it to document and keep records that you’ll need. Given all that you have to worry about right now, let us automate your FFCRA documentation process so that you can easily claim your tax credits!

P.S. We can also help you with tracking work from home too!