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Leave rules and balances

Add leave types, change balances and bring in opening balances.

  • For:HR
  • Takes:5 minutes
  • On:computer or phone

Before you start

  • You have the HR administrator role, or you are the owner.
  • You know the leave types your company gives and how many days a year each one has.

Add a leave type

  1. Open Leave and press Settings. The page is called Leave rules.
  2. Under Leave types, press Add leave type. The form Add leave type or change rule opens, and the button now says Close.
  3. Enter the Name, Applies from and Days a year.
  4. Choose the Accrual: At the start of the year, Monthly, Quarterly or Not credited automatically.
  5. Press Save leave rule. You see, for example, Leave rule saved for SL. It applies from 11/11/2026.
The numbers match the steps.
The numbers match the steps.

Tip

More options (code, carry-over, notice and counting) holds the rest of the rule, such as Notice needed (working days), Most days in a row, Ask for a document after (days), Count weekly offs inside the dates, Count holidays inside the dates, Allow a negative balance and This is a Loss of Pay type.

Watch out

To change a leave type, press Change on it. A change makes a new rule from the date you choose. The old rule ends the day before. Requests already made keep the rule they were made under.

Change a balance or credit leave

  1. On Leave rules, press Balances.
  2. Under Change a balance, choose the Employee and the Leave type.
  3. Fill in Days. Enter the days to add, or take away with a minus sign, in half days. The change is added to the history; earlier entries stay as they are.
  4. Choose Applies on, write the Reason and press Save change. You see, for example, Balance changed. New balance: 7 days.
  5. To give everyone the days due for the period, press Show who gets days under Credit leave for this period. Check the list, then press the button that names the days and people, for example Credit 24 days to 2 people.

Tip

Gives leave to everyone who is due it for this period. Crediting twice does not credit anyone twice. Nothing is credited until you press the credit button.

Bring in opening balances

  1. On Leave rules, press Import opening balances. The page is called Opening leave balances.
  2. Choose your Balance file (CSV or Excel) and set Balances as of.
  3. Check the three column boxes match your file's headings: Column with the employee code (employee_code), Column with the leave type code (leave_type_code) and Column with the balance in days (balance_days).
  4. Press Check the file. Fix any problems it lists.
  5. Press Import these balances.

Tip

Set every person's leave balance to the figures in your old system. Check the file first; nothing changes until you import it.

If something goes wrong

What you seeWhat to do
No leave types yet. Add the first one, for example Casual leave with 12 days a year.Press Add leave type and add your first leave type.
Add a code of 2 to 16 letters or digits (A to Z, 0 to 9, no spaces) under More options. A name without those letters cannot make one.Open More options (code, carry-over, notice and counting) and type a short code, such as CL.
A leave type with that code already exists. Choose another code, or use Change on that leave type to make a new version of it.Use Change on the leave type that has that code.
A leave rule cannot start in the past.Choose today or a later date in Applies from.
Adjust in steps of half a day.Enter whole or half days, such as 1.5.
No one is due leave right now. Everyone already has what this period gives.Nothing to do: everyone already has this period's days.
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