Leave management system
Leave management system and time off tracker
A leave management system records who asked for time off, who approved it and what it took off which balance. ExecCortex does it inside Human Resources Management, with a leave calendar, public holiday calendars and a balance you can trace day by day.
What a leave management system is for
A leave management system replaces the email thread, the wall chart and the spreadsheet tab where somebody keeps track of who is off. It answers three questions without anybody counting by hand: who is away and when, what is still waiting for a decision, and how much leave each person has left.
In ExecCortex leave is part of the Human Resources Management app, under Times and Leaves. That matters because leave is not a separate list: it reads the same employee record as everything else, so the right person approves, the right holiday calendar applies and the balance belongs to the right job.
People search for this as a leave tracker, a time off tracker or PTO tracking. They are all the same job, and the screens below cover all of it.
A leave tracker that shows its working
Every request carries its own working: how many days it costs, which days those are, what it clashes with and what it takes off which balance. Nothing is a single number somebody has to trust.
The cost before you submit
Raise a request works out the cost and the clashes as you type. The preview writes nothing and returns exactly what the submit would produce.
A balance you can trace
How is this worked out opens the whole ledger for a balance: every movement in order, what each one was worth and the running total after it.
Cancelling is not erasing
Cancel an approved request and the days come back as a reversing entry. The original movement stays, so the ledger still explains itself.
Half days by leave type
Each leave type decides whether half days exist. A type recorded in whole days offers no half day control at all.
Adjustments with a reason
A manual balance adjustment keeps its reason, shows it in How is this worked out and writes it to the audit log.
Policies only if you want them
Most companies can skip leave policies and add leave on each employee page. If you use them, accrual credits leave every night and carry forward can be capped.
Approvals, the leave calendar and who is off today
The Leave screen opens on Waiting, because that is the only tab with anything owed on it. The other tabs are Off today, Off tomorrow, Approved, Declined, Cancelled and All. Off today is a date question rather than a status one: it shows approved leave that covers today, so somebody in the middle of a fortnight away is included rather than missed. A decline needs a comment, and the button stays disabled until one is written.
While a request is waiting, the drawer shows the project cards due while that person is away and anything of theirs already overdue, if the workspace also runs Project Management. It informs and never decides: there is deliberately no safe to approve verdict.
The Leave Calendar answers who is away and when. It shows names and dates only, never the reason or the leave type, and only approved leave, because a wall calendar is read over shoulders and projected in stand ups.
Holiday tracker and annual leave in the UK and Australia
In the UK and Australia this is usually called a holiday tracker or an annual leave planner. The same screens do the job: annual leave is a leave type with its own balance, and the Holidays screen holds the bank holiday or public holiday calendars your staff follow, with who each calendar covers.
Holidays follow the legal entity on each employment record, so staff employed through a UK entity and staff employed through an Australian one each see their own public holidays in one workspace.
How leave works in ExecCortex
1.Set up leave types and holidays
In HR Settings, on the time and leave tab, add the leave types you use. On Holidays, add the public holiday calendars and say who each one covers.
2.Give people their leave
Add an allowance on each employee page, or create a leave policy and let accrual credit it. Balances appear once leave has been given.
3.Requests come in
HR can raise a request for anybody from the Leave screen. Staff can request their own leave from My Profile or the Employee Portal.
4.Approve or decline
Work the Waiting tab. Approve counts the days against the balance; a decline needs a comment the person can read.
5.Check cover
Use Off today, Off tomorrow and the Leave Calendar to see who is away now and whether it gets worse tomorrow.
Every screen is explained in detail in the Human Resources Management guide, Leave section.
What it does not do
- It does not decide whether a request is safe to approve. It shows the affected work and leaves the judgement to the approver.
- It does not arrange cover. The project cards due while somebody is away are shown, and moving them is up to you.
- Public holidays are not loaded for you. You add the calendars your staff follow, once, on the Holidays screen.
What it costs
Every workspace starts on the free plan, with no card required. Each app is then priced per workspace and switched on by itself, and capacity packs raise one limit at a time without moving you to a bigger plan. Prices below are read live from the platform.
See every price and capacity pack or read more about Human Resource Management.
Related: Employee management software, Employee database software, or every use case.
Leave management system: common questions
What is a leave management system?
It is software that records leave requests, approvals and balances in one place, so nobody has to keep a spreadsheet of who is off and how much leave is left.
Is a time off tracker the same thing?
Yes. Leave tracker, time off tracker, PTO tracking, holiday tracker and annual leave planner all describe the same job. In ExecCortex it is the Leave area of Human Resources Management.
Why does an employee have no balance?
Balances appear once leave has been given, either on the employee page or through a policy and an accrual run. An empty balances panel is a setup step that has not happened, not a person with nothing left.
Can staff request leave themselves?
Yes. Staff with a login use My Profile, and staff without one use the Employee Portal. Either way the request lands on the Waiting tab.
Why does Off today include somebody whose leave started last week?
Off today matches approved leave that covers today, whatever day it began, so people in the middle of a long absence are included.
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