Human Resources · Daily operations · 9 min read

Request, approve and cancel leave

Price and send a leave request, approve or reject it, cancel approved leave, and read balances and the leave ledger.

Before you begin

• Time off must be on in Applications > Employees > Features.
• The employee needs an assignment covering the first leave day, and leave types and a working calendar must exist (see Set up leave types, accrual plans and holidays).
• The Request leave button on Employees > Time off is offered to people with hr.employee.view. Employees ask for their own leave in My HR.
• A different person decides the request. Nobody approves their own leave.

Steps

Request leave

1. Open Employees > Time off and select Request leave, or open an employee and choose Actions > Request leave.
2. Choose the Employee and Leave type.
3. Choose When: whole days, morning, afternoon, or hours. Morning and afternoon need a leave type that allows half days; hours need a type that allows hours.
4. Enter From and To. For a multi-day request you can tick Half day at the start and Half day at the end.
5. For hours, enter the from and to times, for example 09:00 and 11:00.
6. Read the live summary: Charges (the chargeable days), the days asked for, Balance, days held by other requests, what is available, and the Day by day table.
7. Enter a Reason if you wish, and select Send request.

Decide the request

1. The reporting manager or an HR user opens Employees > Approvals and selects Approve or Reject. Rejecting needs a reason. You can approve several at once with Approve selected.

Cancel leave

1. The employee selects Request cancellation in My HR, or HR cancels the request with a note. A decision is made in Approvals.

Check balances

1. Open Employees > Reporting > Leave balances to see each person's balance and this year's equation. Open Leave ledger for the movements behind it (needs hr.report.view): set Cutoff date, From, Leave type, Employee status or Employee, and select Show the movements on a row.

What happens next

• The request is Pending. Nothing is deducted yet, but the days are held so a second request sees less available.
• Approval writes one ledger row of used leave on the first leave day and notifies the employee. Leave types that do not deduct from a balance write no row.
• Cancelling approved leave writes a cancellation row that returns the days. If the payroll period was already frozen, the days come back as a payroll adjustment in the next run.

Worked example. An employee has 10 days of annual leave on a Monday to Friday calendar of 8 hours. A request from Thu 15 Oct to Tue 20 Oct 2026 asks for 6 calendar days. Thursday 1, Friday 1, Saturday 0, Sunday 0, Monday 1, Tuesday 1: Charges 4. Balance 10, after approval 6. If Monday 19 Oct is a public holiday it costs 0, and the charge is 3. A half-day holiday on Friday costs 0.5. Two hours (09:00 to 11:00) on an 8-hour day cost 0.25 day.

This year's balance equation: Opening 10 + Accrual 25 - Used 12 - Expired 3 + Adjustments 2 = Closing 22.

Good to know

• Not enough balance: 'Only 4 days are left (2 more are held by requests awaiting a decision).' The balance is checked again when the request is approved ('Only 4 days are left now.').
• Overlap: 'This time overlaps ... leave already requested'. A morning and an afternoon of the same day do not clash.
• 'Leave cannot end before it starts.', 'A single request may cover at most 400 days.', 'This employee has no assignment covering that date.'
• 'Those days are not worked, so there is no leave to take.'
• A leave type may require service: '<type name> needs 6 months of service.' An accrual plan may require a waiting period: '<employee> is not eligible for Annual leave: still in the waiting period.'
• A leaver's leave is capped by the last day: 'This employee's last day is 2026-10-31. Leave cannot run past it.'
• Types that count calendar days charge weekends and holidays too (the same request costs 6).
• Rejecting without a reason: 'Say why it was refused.'
• If someone else changed the request: 'This request changed. Reload before deciding.'
• Only leave that stands can be cancelled: 'Only leave that stands can be cancelled.'
• The certificate setting on a leave type is shown in self-service but is not checked when HR requests leave.
• Leave is priced on the working calendar, while attendance uses the roster first. If a roster has a rest day the calendar does not, leave is charged for that day.
• The Leave ledger is not narrowed to a manager's team; anyone with hr.report.view sees every employee.