Holiday balances

A balance appears on the Availability tab of a staff record, and the same figures appear to that cleaner under My time in their own app, in their own language. Both read the same thing, so the two can never quietly disagree about what somebody has left.

Three numbers, never one

The card shows Entitled, Taken and Booked side by side, and only then what is left. That is deliberate, and it is the whole design.

Entitled

What this leave year is worth to them, worked out from their employment record.

Taken

Approved holiday whose last day has already passed. Spent.

Booked

Approved holiday still to come. Committed, but it can still be cancelled, which is why it is not the same fact as taken.

Left

Entitled minus both of the above. Shown last, and never on its own.

How entitlement is worked out

From the Holiday setting on that person’s Employment tab, which is per person because a cleaning firm usually needs both kinds at once.

Accrued

Entitlement builds as a percentage of the hours actually worked, which is what suits irregular hours. The card shows the working (“800h worked so far this leave year, accruing at 12.07%”) because an accrued figure moves every time somebody works, and a number with no working beside it looks like a mistake the first time it changes.

Fixed

A set number of hours for the leave year, which suits somebody on regular weekday hours. It does not move with the hours they work.

Only hours that would actually be paid count towards an accrued entitlement. An entry still flagged for you to look at does not, because a flagged entry is allowed to overlap another one and counting it would accrue holiday against an hour claimed twice. Neither does a travel or non-job proposal you have not accepted, or an unpaid break.

When it refuses to answer

Where there is no employment record, or the basis is Fixed and no entitlement was ever recorded, the card says the entitlement is not recorded rather than showing a figure. Your cleaner sees Your holiday entitlement is not recorded yet. Ask the office.

One more thing is kept visible rather than swallowed. An absence approved for somebody with no weekly availability on file has no hours against it, so it cannot come off a balance. Rather than counting as nothing, it is reported on the card: One approved holiday has no hours against it… It is not in the figures above. A balance is never quietly short by the leave nobody could measure.

The leave year

Everything is counted against the leave year containing the date you are looking at. It starts on 1 April by default, which is the commonest UK arrangement, and you can change the month under Settings → Company → Holiday.

Changing it re-counts what is shown. It never alters an absence anybody has already been granted: what an absence was worth is decided once, when you approve it, and kept.

Who can see whose

Anybody can see their own. An owner or a supervisor can see anybody’s in their own company: a supervisor approves time off and cannot sensibly do it without knowing what is left. A cleaner asking about a colleague is refused by the database, not merely hidden by the screen, and so is anybody asking across companies.