Lifecycle
Leave looks simple for about a month, and then somebody asks a question.
Why is my balance that number. What happened to the days I carried over. Who approved seven days when I only had four. Why did the person who joined in March get a full year's allowance.
Every one of those is answerable or it is not, and that depends on a decision taken long before anybody asked.
The record
The ledger is the truth. The balance is just its latest total.
Every movement is an entry: what changed, why, what caused it, and the balance it produced. Entries are never edited and never deleted — a correction is a reversing entry, so the history of a balance is the balance.
Which means a figure somebody disputes is a list they can read rather than a number they have to accept. And a balance that has drifted can be re-derived from its own ledger rather than guessed at and typed in.
- Opening balance on joiningrebuilt
- Pro-rated first monthrebuilt
- Every monthly accrual sincerebuilt
- Credit on confirmationrebuilt
- Three days granted as goodwilluntouched
- Encashment processed in Marchuntouched
- Half a day is the smallest unit —
Everything rounds there, consistently, rather than producing balances with four decimal places that nobody can reconcile to a policy.
- A correction is an entry, not an edit —
So "somebody adjusted this" is a row with a reason and an author rather than a difference you notice later.
The policy
A leave type is about twenty decisions, not a number of days.
Most products give you a name, an allowance and a colour. Then the interesting questions go into a policy document that nothing enforces: does it carry forward, and for how long; can somebody go negative; does a new joiner get the full year; when does it unlock; what needs a doctor's note.
Here those are fields on the type, and a grade or band can override specific ones rather than needing a parallel policy that drifts out of step with the first. Only the fields meant to be overridable can be — a typo in an override is ignored rather than silently changing something else.
- How it accrues
- Monthly, quarterly, annually — or all at once on a date
- Tiered, so it grows with tenure
- Pro-rated for somebody who joined mid-month
- Withheld during probation, released on confirmation
- What it caps
- A ceiling on the balance
- A limit on what carries forward
- And how long the carried-forward part survives
- Maximum days a year, and in one stretch
- Who may take it, and how
- A minimum tenure before it unlocks
- Half days, and hours where that makes sense
- Notice required before the first day
- A doctor's note past a length you set
- What happens at the end
- Encashable — on separation, annually, or not at all
- Capped at a number of days when it is
- Allowed to go negative, or not
The year, and the four things that run on it
Your leave year, and sweeps that know whose it is.
Accruals run on the year you actually operate, not the calendar's — and every boundary decision follows it: when the year rolls, when carry-forward is credited, when encashment fires.
Four things run on their own. Accrual, monthly, which cannot double-credit a period it has already run and pro-rates the month somebody joined. Rollover at year end, which zeroes the old year and credits only the portion that was actually eligible to carry — stamped with the date it expires. The expiry itself, when that date passes. And comp-off expiry, daily.
Encashment fires on the true last day of your leave year, not December's.
- Carry-forward has a life, not just a limit —
Days that carried over expire on a date, and expiring is its own entry on the ledger — so "I lost days" is answerable rather than mysterious.
- Probation-deferred types wait, then catch up —
Accrual can be withheld while somebody is on probation and back-credited the moment they are confirmed, in the same act as the confirmation.
- Comp-off is its own thing, with its own clock —
Earned against a day actually worked, expiring on its own schedule, and two open claims for the same worked date are refused outright. Folding it into annual leave is how companies carry a liability nobody can explain.
- Holiday calendars belong to places —
Several per location, merged with the company-wide set, each with its own timezone — and half-day holidays exist, because they do.
The request
Most of the work happens before anybody approves anything.
Working days are computed against the calendars that actually apply to that person, so a request spanning a regional holiday costs what it should. Half days and hours are shapes a request can take where the type allows them.
A request overlapping one they already have is refused. A request inside the notice period the type demands is refused at submit, with the reason. A request that could never reach an approver is refused before it is submitted rather than disappearing into a queue.
And where the balance is short, the request splits: part paid, part unpaid, decided and frozen at the moment they submit — not discovered by payroll three weeks later.
- A note to the approver, and it cannot be the same text —
The reason they give the system and the note they write for the person approving are different fields, because they are different things.
- Withdrawing after approval writes a reversal —
The days come back as an entry rather than by editing the one that took them.
What HR opens on a Monday
Including the tile nobody else builds.
Not a report you run. A screen that answers the questions a leave administrator actually has on a Monday morning — what is waiting on somebody, who is off today, who is off next week before you promise a client a date, whose carried-forward days are about to expire, and who has gone below zero because an approval went through on a short balance.
And the last one: who has taken no leave at all this year.
- Waiting on an approver7oldest is 4 days
- On leave today12across 5 teams
- Off in the next week23before you promise a deadline
- Carry-forward expiring6 peoplewithin 90 days — use it or lose it
- At or below zero2somebody approved past the balance
- Taken nothing all year9not an achievement
Everyone else's view
A shared calendar, and a manager who can see the clash before approving.
Holidays, approved leave and company events merge into one month view that any employee can open — and any employee can add an event to, because the company calendar is not an HR asset.
A manager can additionally see their own team's pending requests on it, which is the difference between approving a week off and approving the third person off that week.
What HR asks
Including four answers that are currently no.
›Can a balance and its history ever disagree?
No, and you can prove it — the balance is re-derivable from the ledger that produced it.
›Can different grades have different leave?
Yes, as overrides on the type rather than a separate policy. Only the fields meant to be overridable can be.
›Does our leave year have to be the calendar year?
No. Accruals, rollover, expiry and encashment all follow the year you define.
›What happens when somebody asks for more than they have?
The request splits into paid and unpaid at submit, and the split is frozen then — so the payslip matches what they were told when they asked.
›Can an employee cancel their own approved leave?
A withdrawal writes a reversing entry and the days return. What they cannot do today is cancel it themselves from the portal — that goes through HR, and it is the most-asked gap on this page.
›Does accrual grow with tenure?
Tiered accrual is expressible on the type. Bring the ladder you actually operate and we will show you it running rather than describing it.
›Can somebody opt into an optional holiday?
Not today. Restricted and optional holidays exist as a kind, but there is no employee-facing way to choose one.
›Is leave private?
No, and you should know that before you roll it out: approved leave is visible on the shared company calendar with the person's name. Nothing shows the reason.
Book a demo
Bring the leave policy you argue about.
The second step is the one that decides whether your policy survives contact with a promotion.
- Set carry-forward with an expiry and watch a balance lose days on a date
- Give one band more annual leave without writing a second policy
- Request more days than somebody has and read the split
- Open the dashboard and find who has taken nothing all year