Leave
Manage employee leave requests, track balances, process approvals, and configure accrual and cashout policies.
Leave Overview
The Leave page handles the full lifecycle of employee leave: requests submitted (by staff or by an admin on their behalf), manager review and approval, balance tracking, and eventual cashout or forfeiture at year end. The system tracks leave in days.
Leave Balances
Each employee has a leave balance that accrues over time. The balance is displayed on the employee's leave panel and in the leave list. Accrual rules are configured globally in Settings:
- Days per year — the total annual leave entitlement (South African BCEA minimum is 15 working days).
- Accrual method — either all upfront (full balance available from the start of the leave year) or monthly accrual (1/12 of the annual entitlement added each month).
Submitting a Leave Request
Administrators can submit requests on behalf of any employee:
- Click New Leave Request.
- Select the Employee.
- Select the Leave Type (Annual Leave, Sick Leave, Family Responsibility, etc.).
- Enter the From and To dates.
- Optionally add a note or attach a document (e.g. a medical certificate for sick leave).
- Click Submit.
The system automatically calculates the number of working days in the selected range, excluding weekends and public holidays. The balance is not deducted until the request is approved.
Approving or Declining a Request
Pending requests are shown in the leave list with a Pending status. Open a request and click Approve or Decline.
- Approve — deducts the days from the employee's balance and creates the corresponding absence records for the pay period. Monthly Fixed payslips will no longer flag those days as missing.
- Decline — no balance change. The employee is not recorded as absent for those days and must clock in normally.
When a leave request is approved, the system creates the individual absence records for each working day in the range. You do not need to visit the Absent Days page separately — it's handled here.
Leave Status Reference
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Pending | Submitted but not yet reviewed. |
| Approved | Approved; balance deducted; absence records created. |
| Declined | Declined; no balance change; no absence records. |
| Cancelled | Cancelled after approval; balance restored; absence records removed. |
Cancelling an Approved Leave Request
If an employee returns early or a request was approved in error, open the approved request and click Cancel. The system restores the balance and removes the corresponding absence records. If a payslip covering those dates has already been generated, regenerate it so any unpaid deductions or emergency callout adjustments are recalculated correctly.
Emergency Callout
If an employee clocks in on a day they have approved leave, the system detects this as an emergency callout. The extra pay premium configured in Settings (regular, time-and-a-half, double, or triple time) is added automatically to their next payslip. Only the premium portion above the base rate is added — the base pay for those hours is already included. The item appears in the payslip notes. See Clockings for how the detection works.
Leave Cashout
When an employee's leave is cashed out (at year end or by HR policy), the cashout amount is added to their next payslip as a named line item. The amount is calculated as:
Days to cash out × employee's daily rate (hourly rate × 8)
Once the cashout is included on a payslip, it is marked as paid and will not appear again. If you regenerate that payslip, the cashout will not be re-included — check the Staff Credit and leave cashout records if something looks wrong after a regeneration.
Viewing Leave History
The leave list can be filtered by employee, department, leave type, status, and date range. Each entry shows the period, days taken, current balance, and who approved the request. This list is the complete audit trail for all leave activity.
Run the leave report before processing payroll at month end. Look for any approved leave that falls in the clocking window — this affects both the absence check for Monthly Fixed employees and potential emergency callout calculations.