Leave

Employee leave management software

Every leave type your handbook already lists, balances that accrue on their own, approvals that take one click, and a holiday calendar the whole company shares — connected to attendance so an approved day never shows up as an absence.

  • Monthly accrual
  • Carry-forward caps
  • Team calendar on approval
  • Full history kept

What leave management covers

01

Every leave type

Sick, casual, paid, work-from-home, half-day, short leave and any custom type, each with its own rules, approval chain and document requirement.

02

Balances that maintain themselves

Monthly accrual with pro-rata for joiners and leavers, carry-forward caps, encashment limits and a running balance the employee can see at any time.

03

One-click approval

Approve or reject from the same screen that shows who else on the team is already off that week, with a reason recorded either way.

04

Holiday calendar

One company calendar, optionally with location-specific holidays, so the attendance register and the leave balance agree about which days were working days.

05

History that survives an argument

Every request, decision, reason and balance change stays on the employee record, which is what you need when a year-end balance is disputed.

06

Reports and export

Leave taken, leave pending and balance outstanding per employee, per department or company-wide, as CSV for payroll.

Leave management screen in Employee Desk listing pending requests with employee name, leave type, dates, reason and approve or reject actions.
Pending requests, the team calendar and the remaining balance on one screen.

A worked example of accrual

Accrual rules are where leave systems usually go wrong, so here is exactly how the numbers move.

An employee on 18 paid leave days a year, joining in April
MonthAccrued this monthTakenBalance
April (joined 10th)1.0 (pro-rata)01.0
May1.502.5
June1.522.0
July1.503.5
December1.55carried forward up to the cap

Carry-forward and encashment are policy, not code. The cap, the encashment rate and whether unused casual leave lapses at year end are settings you choose. Employee Desk applies whatever you configure and shows the employee the same numbers the admin sees.

Why leave and attendance belong in one system

When leave lives in a spreadsheet and attendance lives somewhere else, three predictable problems follow.

  • Approved leave still shows as absent. Someone has to remember to cross-reference two files before payroll runs, and at some point nobody does.
  • Balances are argued about at year end. Without a request-by-request history, the disagreement has no evidence on either side.
  • Managers approve blind. Nobody can see that three people from the same four-person team are already off that week.

Employee Desk holds both against the same employee record. An approved leave day is a leave day in the register, the balance moves in the same transaction, and the manager sees the team calendar at the moment they decide. More on this in how to manage attendance and leave in one system.

Frequently asked questions about leave management

What is leave management software?

Leave management software holds the leave policy, tracks each employee balance, routes requests to the right approver and keeps the history. Employee Desk does this alongside attendance, so an approved leave day stops the attendance register from flagging an absence.

Which leave types are supported?

Sick, casual, paid or earned, work-from-home, half-day, short leave and any custom type you add. Each type carries its own accrual rate, carry-forward cap, approval chain and whether it needs supporting documents.

Do balances accrue automatically?

Yes. Balances accrue monthly on a schedule you set, with pro-rata accrual for joiners and leavers, carry-forward caps and optional encashment limits. Nobody has to maintain a leave spreadsheet.

Can a manager see who else is off before approving?

Yes. The approval screen shows the team calendar for the requested dates, so a second person off in the same week is visible at the moment of the decision rather than after it.

What happens to leave on a public holiday?

Days on the shared holiday calendar are not deducted from the leave balance. The calendar is company-wide and can carry location-specific holidays for teams in different states.

Is there an approval chain?

Requests route to the reporting manager, with HR or admin able to approve, override or reject with a reason. Every decision is written to the employee record and to the audit log.

Stop maintaining the leave spreadsheet

Import your team, set the leave types and accrual rates once, and let the balances look after themselves.

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