Methodology

What we do before a page goes live, and what our dates and labels actually mean.

How state pages are researched

We start from the state labor agency's own published guidance on final wages and vacation pay, and link it on the page as the primary source.
We classify each jurisdiction on two axes only: whether accrued PTO must be paid out at separation, and whether forfeiture of earned time is permitted. These are the two questions that decide almost every real dispute.
Where a state's position rests on case law rather than statute — Colorado's Nieto v. Clark's Market is the clearest example — we name the case so readers can verify it.
A page is only published once a person has verified it against agency guidance. At present 17 of 51 jurisdictions have passed that check. The rest are generated from the base dataset, marked as drafts and set to noindex.

Why we don't publish all 51 at once. We could generate every state page today by swapping the state name into a template. We don't, because near-duplicate pages built to capture search traffic are exactly what Google's spam policy on scaled content abuse targets — and because a page that confidently states a rule nobody verified is worse than no page.

What "policy dependent" means

It means the state has no statute that independently forces payout. It does not mean an employer can ignore its own handbook: a written promise to pay out accrued PTO is enforceable as a wage obligation in every state. The label describes the source of the obligation, not whether one exists.

How software is compared

What the comparison rests on today: each vendor's published documentation, pricing pages and programme terms, checked on the date shown on the page. We do not claim hands-on results we have not produced.

What is in progress: configuring every tool with one identical policy so the comparison becomes like for like. When a tool has been through this, its review says so and shows the results. The protocol:

15 employees, 80 hours annual accrual, biweekly
A 40-hour carryover cap applied at calendar year end
A two-step approval chain (manager, then HR)
One employee given a mid-year pay rate change
One employee placed on unpaid leave for a month

We then record:

Time from signup to a working policy
Whether the carryover cap applied on the correct date
Whether accrual correctly paused during unpaid leave
Whether the audit log survived a policy edit
What the balance export actually contains

Commercial relationships

Some links are affiliate links and we disclose them on every page that carries one, above the link rather than below it. Placement and verdicts are set before commercial terms are considered, and we include tools that pay us nothing — plus, on the software page, the case for buying nothing at all. Full detail here.

Corrections

If something here is wrong, tell us and we will fix it and stamp a new review date on the page. Employment law changes and local ordinances can override state defaults; we would rather be corrected than confident.

This is not legal advice

We summarise public guidance in plain English so you know what question to ask. For a real payroll decision, confirm with the state agency linked on the page or an employment attorney.