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Guide to Time Off Follow

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Patrick Arrastia
  • Updated

No matter what you call it – be it annual leave, holiday, sick days, or accrued time off – effective leave management is crucial for any business. uAttend simplifies this process, allowing you to easily track all types of employee time off with customisable accruals. This ensures accurate record-keeping, precisely linked to the hours your employees have worked. Plus, staff can conveniently request time off directly through the web portal or smartphone app, making manager approvals and tracking a breeze.

This comprehensive guide will show you how to set up and manage both accruals and time off requests, with clear, step-by-step instructions for a smooth workflow.

Use the table of contents to jump to specific sections, or click on links throughout this article for how-to guides, troubleshooting tips, downloadable resources, videos, and more.

In this article:

 

Accrual Overview

Accruals are used to set up annual leave, sick pay, and other hours that accumulate over time. Accruals can be configured to accumulate over time or be set as a fixed value, depending on your company's policies. Accruals are enabled at the employee level in the Time Off section of their profile and are influenced by the Accrual Rounding setting configured at the account level.

 

Rounding Accruals

Accrual Rounding is set at the account level, not on individual employee profiles. This means the rounding rule you choose will apply consistently to all employees within your account. You can specify how your accruals are rounded: to the nearest tenth (0.1), hundredth (0.01), thousandth (0.001), or ten-thousandth (0.0001).

Why is this rounding important? Consider an accrual rate of 0.0577 hours per hour worked. Rounding to the nearest thousandth would give an employee 2 hours and 18 minutes for every 40 hours worked. However, rounding to the nearest hundredth (0.06) would result in 2 hours and 24 minutes – a six-minute difference over a 40-hour period. This seemingly small difference can add up significantly for each employee over time. Therefore, you'll want to select the Accrual Rounding option that best aligns with your company's established policies.

In the United Kingdom, the standard accrual rate for statutory annual leave is 12.07%. You will want to set the Accrual Rounding to ten-thousandths for this setting.

 

To configure the Accrual Rounding setting:

  1. Navigate to the General section in the Settings tab of the web portal (only account administrators can access this tab).
  2. Edit the Accrual Rounding setting and select your preferred option from the dropdown.
  3. Click Save to save your changes.

 

Setting Up Accruals

When setting up Accruals, an account administrator or a supervisor (with the necessary employee edit permissions enabled) can enter the necessary details in the Time Off section of an employee's profile. You will need to set at minimum the:

  • Start date
  • Starting value
  • Accrual rate

For a more in-depth walkthrough, check out our article on Setting Up Accruals.

 

Accrual Pay Codes

uAttend uses standard pay codes for vacation hours, sick hours, and other hours:

  • AL (Annual Leave)
  • SIC (Sick)
  • OTH (Other)

These cannot be changed in the portal, but you can adjust their appearance in exported reports through the Export Settings.

 

Add Benefit Time to an Employee Timecard

Even without a time off request, you can manually add annual leave, sick, or other hours to an employee's timecard. Simply:

  1. Add a clocking entry. 
  2. Set the clocking type to Benefit. 
  3. Select the appropriate Benefit Type (Annual Leave, Sick, Other). 
  4. Enter the number of hours and note (optional) and Save. 

If the time off request is unpaid, enter "0" and leave a note.

 

Time Off Requests Overview

Employees can request paid or unpaid time off through the system, but this feature must be enabled by an account administrator. Once activated and the necessary settings enabled, employees can submit time off requests through the mobile app or web portal.

 

Setting Up Time Off Requests

  1. Enable Time Off Requests: This setting is available under the Settings > Employee Services tab of the account and must be enabled by an account Administrator.
  2. Determine the Approval Level: Decide whether administrators, supervisors, or both must approve time off requests. If both are required, the supervisor must approve the request before an administrator. 
  3. Configure Notification Settings: Email notifications can be set to alert when a time-off request is submitted through the web portal. Supervisors or administrators can approve or deny requests directly from these notifications. Be sure to add the correct email for the supervisor/administrator in their profile.

For a more in-depth walkthrough, check out our article on Setting Up Time Off Requests.

 

Submitting Time Off Requests

Employees can submit a time off request through the web portal or mobile app if the necessary permissions have been enabled. For them to do so, they must be added to the account with a valid email address and invited to create a username and password if they do not have one already set up. After which, they can log in using your custom company login URL. Notifications are sent when an employee submits a time off request through the web portal. 

When submitting a request, employees will need to:

  • Set the date range.
  • Enter the amount of time requested per day.

Follow these links for instructions on submitting time off:

 

Managing and Approving Time Off Requests

Once time off requests are enabled, administrators and supervisors can manage requests from the employee's profile and the Time Off Request widget.

 

Manual Time Off Entries

If employees do not submit time off requests, an account administrator or supervisor with the necessary permissions can configure time off requests for an employee in the Time Off section of their profile. 

 

Time Off Request Widget

Beyond approving Time Off Requests directly from email notifications, administrators and supervisors can also manage them via their dashboard. The Time Off Request widget displays pending requests and upcoming approved leave, allowing for easy approval or denial. Simply hover over a request on the widget to click the checkmark to confirm or the 'X' to deny. You can also click on the request itself to make edits, mark it as unpaid, and then approve or deny it.

 

Tracking Accruals and Time Off

Easily track employees' time off using the Time off Report. This report shows both used and remaining time off by category (annual leave, sick, other) and can be filtered by department, employee, time off type, and approval status.

Additionally, you can also enable the Display Benefit Hours setting on the employee's profile to show real-time accruals directly on their timecard. 

For a quick overview of employees currently on leave, check out the On Leave dashboard widget.

 

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