Leave policies
Policies that match reality
One policy per leave type and location: how much, how it's earned, what carries over, and who approves. Realistic enough for a multi-country company, simple enough to set up in an afternoon.
Granted up front, or earned as you go
Set the annual quota in days or hours and leave accrual off — the whole allowance lands at the start of the leave year. Or pick a schedule: Monthly posts on the 1st, Weekly on Mondays, Every two weeks on alternate Mondays, Yearly on the fiscal-year start.
A full period grants exactly the per-period amount — 16.6667 hours a month stays 16.6667, with no rounding drift over the year. Only a joiner's or leaver's partial period is prorated. A balance cap stops accrual at the cap; anything above it is lost, not deferred.
- 00:30
- Entitlements — open each employee's period
- 01:00
- Accruals — post for periods starting today
- 02:00
- Carryover — roll over, then expire
- Every job
- Idempotent, catch-up safe after downtime
Pro-rated on join
Tick “Pro-rate on join” and someone starting mid-year gets quota × active days ÷ period days, rounded to two decimals. The credit is dated at their hire date, so their history starts the day they did; everyone else's credit is dated at the start of the period.
Leavers are handled the same way from the other end: the last accrual covers only the days they were still employed.
Carryover with an expiry
Choose how much survives into the next leave year — a cap, or no cap — and when it expires. The expiry is a month and day, resolved to the first occurrence strictly after the new period starts, so an April 1 expiry on an April fiscal year never expires the moment it arrives. February caps at the 28th.
Carryover never goes negative. If a leave type allows negative balances, the policy sets how far below zero a balance may go.
- Previous balance
- 6.5 days
- Carryover cap
- 5 days
- Carried into the new year
- 5.0 days
- Expires on
- Mar 31 — an expiry entry posts that night
Guardrails around the policy
Rules that belong to the leave type stay on the leave type: Auto-approve, Hidden from employees, Allow negative balance, Allow during probation. Blackout periods sit alongside: a Hard block refuses requests for those dates, Needs approval lets them through but always to a person, scoped to the departments and location that are actually affected.
Public holidays are per location — import a country's calendar for a year in one click, or add days by hand. They're excluded from every request automatically and never draw from a balance.
- Auto-approve — requests are approved immediately without manager sign-off.
- Allow during probation — employees can request this type before their probation ends.
- Hard block vs Needs approval — the two blackout modes.
- Country import — one click per location and year.
FAQ
Leave policies, answered
Can the same leave type have different rules per country?
Yes. A policy is one leave type in one location, so Annual Leave can be 25 days with April carryover in London and 20 days with no carryover in Athens.
What happens when accrual reaches the balance cap?
Accrual stops at the cap. The excess is lost, not deferred — a balance already at or above the cap accrues nothing that period.
Can I change a policy mid-year?
Yes. Ledger entries already posted stay exactly as they are; future accruals, carryover and expiry follow the new rule from the next run.
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