Heading off on holiday? Don't forget these final checks

Jul 17 2026

To help things run smoothly while you're away, please take a few minutes to complete the following before your leave begins.

Set up a substitute

If you're responsible for approving HR or finance tasks, make sure a substitute is in place to provide cover during your absence. This helps prevent delays to leave requests, expenses, purchase orders, invoices and supplier payments.

Full guidance can be found on the help pages on the Shared Services (IBC) Portal: Manage Substitutions.  

Payroll Deadlines

Be mindful of payroll deadlines If you have any outstanding HR actions, ensure these are completed before payroll cut-off dates to help avoid delays or incorrect payments. 

Our payroll deadlines page provides payroll closure dates and the approximate dates when payroll will re-open again for the following month. Please check this page regularly as dates can be subject to change.

Do you purchase goods and services?

Shared Services Purchasing pageprovides everything you need to buy effectively.

Check your own worklist and action any finance items you receive such as:

  • Approving invoices for Service Shop purchase orders (POs). All Service PO invoices (CIS and non-CIS) must be reviewed before approval to ensure that the data entered on the VIM screen matches the data displayed on the invoice e.g. Invoice Reference, Supplier, Amounts.

  • Completing Goods Receipts to allow invoices for Simple Shop/eStore POs to be paid (you may also need to refer the work list item back to Shared Services once you have completed this);

  • Confirming that a price blocked invoice can be paid.

Taking a few minutes to complete these checks helps keep services running smoothly for everyone while you're away.

 

Need Help?

If you need further information, check out the relevant guidance pages by using the ‘Search for help’ field on the Shared Services homepage.

If you review the guidance page and are still unsure you can launch a webchat within the page to reach a specialist advisor.

Raising a webchat means you’ll get an instant response from one of the team in the Customer Support Centre who will help you resolve your issue, just look out for the orange ‘Need help, chat now’ icon.