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Software package

Staff leave management package

A staff and leave management system with employee records and documents, leave types with entitlement and accrual rules, requests through an approval chain with a team calendar, absence recording with return-to-work, optional rotas, probation and review reminders, document expiry tracking and manager dashboards, ready to configure around your teams.

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Who it is for

Built for

A good fit

Small and medium employers from around twenty staff to a few hundred, across offices, depots, shops, sites and shift teams, where leave and records have outgrown spreadsheets but a full enterprise HR suite would be far more than anyone would use. It suits HR administrators who keep the records and run the month-end export, line managers who approve leave and need to see who is in, operations managers who build rotas, and staff who want to request a day off from their phone and see their balance.

Also worth knowing

It is less suited to organisations whose main need is hiring, which the applicant tracking package covers, and to agencies managing temporary workers for clients, which the recruitment agency package covers. Employers whose shift cover rules depend on qualifications held, or whose entitlement rules differ by site, should look at the custom service first.

The operational problem it solves

How it runs, step by step

A warehouse operative opens the app on the bus and requests the Friday after next off.

  1. The system shows him his remaining balance, warns that one colleague from his shift is already off that day, and sends the request to his supervisor.

  2. The supervisor sees it that morning on the team calendar alongside the two others already approved, checks the minimum cover for the shift, and approves.

  3. The balance updates, the day appears in the team calendar and in the supervisor's own diary, and the operative gets a confirmation.

At head office the HR administrator starts the day with the dashboard: three people off sick, two probation periods ending this month with reminders already sent to the managers, and a forklift certificate expiring in thirty days for a driver at the second depot, flagged to both the driver and the depot manager.

  1. A customer service agent calls in sick; her team leader records the absence from his phone with the reason category, and when she returns on Thursday the system prompts the return-to-work conversation and stores the note.

  2. The operations manager publishes next month's rota for the customer service team, built from the recurring pattern with approved leave already taken out, and staff see their shifts in the app.

  3. At month end the administrator exports leave and absence for the pay period in the format the payroll bureau expects, and the absence pattern report shows one team whose short-term sickness is climbing, which goes to the operations director with the numbers already in it.

Features

What the package does

The package is organised as modules that follow a request from submission to balance update, and a record from joining to leaving: employee records and documents, leave and entitlements, approvals and the team calendar, absence and return-to-work, rotas, and reminders and dashboards. Each module below lists what it does; the comparison table shows which package variant includes it.

Accounts and permissions

  • Employee records with contract and documentsEach employee has contract details, working pattern and attached documents in one record.

Workflow and tasks

  • Leave types with entitlement and carry-over rulesSet entitlement, accrual, pro-rata and carry-over rules for each leave type, and balances are worked out for you.

Scheduling

  • Leave requests with approval chain and team calendarStaff request leave, managers approve it, and the team calendar shows who is away.
  • Minimum headcount cover warningsWarns when approving leave would leave a team below its minimum headcount on any day.
  • Probation and review date remindersManagers are reminded ahead of probation end dates and reviews.
  • Rota and shift patterns with swapsBuild and publish rotas, and let staff request swaps. Available as an add-on.
  • Calendar feed of approved leaveApproved leave appears in personal diaries through a calendar feed. Available as an add-on.

Compliance and records

  • Absence recording with return-to-work stepRecord absence with a reason category and a return-to-work step for the manager to complete.
  • Document expiry trackingTrack documents that expire, such as right-to-work or training records, with reminders.
  • Policy acknowledgements with e-signatureStaff sign to confirm they have read a policy, with the signature on record. Available as an add-on.

Reporting and insights

  • Manager dashboards and pay period exportManagers see their team at a glance, and a pay period export gives payroll the hours and absence.

Roles and permissions

Who does what

  • HR administrator

    • Create and maintain employee records, contracts and documents
    • Define leave types, entitlement rules and approval chains
    • Adjust balances and record leavers
    • Run the pay period export and absence reports

  • Line manager

    • Approve or decline leave requests with the team calendar in view
    • Record absence and complete return-to-work steps
    • See probation, review and document reminders for their team
    • See who is in, off and why on any day

  • Operations manager

    • Define shift patterns and build rotas per team
    • Publish rotas and handle swaps
    • See cover against minimum headcount per shift
    • Read absence pattern reports across teams

  • Employee

    • Request leave and see their balance and history
    • See their shifts and the team calendar
    • Upload documents and acknowledge policies
    • Update their own contact details

Example screen

Concept demo

Concept demo of the staff leave team calendar showing approved leave, pending requests, absence and a minimum cover warning.

The team calendar as a line manager sees it: a month view with approved leave, pending requests awaiting decision, recorded absence, the minimum cover line per day and a pending request highlighted where cover would fall below it.

Scope and options

What is included and what is extra

In the base package

  • Employee records with contract details, working pattern and attached documents
  • Leave types with entitlement, accrual, pro-rata and carry-over rules
  • Leave requests with an approval chain and team calendar
  • Minimum headcount cover warnings per team and day
  • Absence recording with reason categories and return-to-work step
  • Probation and review date reminders
  • Document expiry tracking with reminders
  • Manager dashboards and a pay period export

Common add-ons

  • Rota and shift patterns with publishing and swaps
  • Policy acknowledgements with e-signature
  • Calendar feed of approved leave to personal diaries

Needs custom work

  • Cover rules based on qualifications held
  • Entitlement rules that differ by site or contract type beyond pro-rata
  • Automated transfer to a specific payroll provider
See the custom development service

Ownership, maintenance and pricing

After the build

Deployment and ownership

The package runs on your own hosting or on hosting we manage for you; the choice is made in the proposal and can change later. In both cases you own the code and your data. Employee records, balances, requests, absence history and documents can be exported at any time in standard formats, and nothing in the package stops you moving it to another provider. Retention periods for leavers' records are set by you and applied by the system.

Maintenance

Maintenance is optional and scoped separately from the build. When taken, it covers security updates to the platform and its dependencies, monitoring of reminders, calendar feeds and the pay period export, backups, and a monthly window for small configuration changes such as a new leave type, a team restructure or a document type. Larger changes are quoted as change requests against the original scope.

Pricing model

Priced per proposal.

The package is sold as a one-off setup and customisation, with optional monthly maintenance and hosting as separate recurring lines. The setup figure depends on the number of employees and teams, the add-ons selected, the payroll and calendar systems to connect, how much record and balance history is migrated and whether you host it yourself. Your proposal states each line separately.

Prefer a fully custom build?

Staff management software development

Custom staff records, leave and rota systems for employers whose entitlement rules, approval chains and shift patterns do not fit an off-the-shelf HR tool.

View the service

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

How is entitlement calculated for part-time staff?

From the working pattern on the employee record and the entitlement rule you set for the leave type. Starters and leavers are pro-rated by date, carry-over is capped by your rule, and the calculation is shown on the record so HR can check it.

Can approval go through more than one person?

Yes. Each team has an approval chain, for example supervisor then department manager, and a request moves along it with every decision recorded. A single-approver chain is the simplest configuration.

What does the system do with right-to-work documents?

It stores them against the employee with the type, the date checked, who checked them and an expiry, and reminds the employee and manager before the expiry. It does not judge whether a document is acceptable or what is required; that remains with your HR team and advisers.

Does it work for shift teams as well as office staff?

Yes. Working patterns are set per employee, so a four-on-four-off shift worker and a Monday-to-Friday administrator both see correct balances. The rota add-on builds and publishes the shifts themselves.

Can staff use it on their phones?

Yes. Requesting leave, checking a balance, seeing shifts and uploading a document are designed for a phone first; managers approve requests and record absence from theirs.

Is this a finished product I can see running?

Not yet. The readiness badge shows the real state: the package is a custom build assembled from our records, forms, documents and capacity modules for each employer, and the example on this page is a labelled concept demo rather than a live system.

Our shifts need a minimum number of qualified staff, not just a headcount. Is that included?

The package checks cover by headcount per team and day. Cover rules that depend on qualifications held by each person are custom work handled through the custom staff management service.

Get a quote for Staff leave management package

Tell us about your locations, the people who will use it and the add-ons you need. We reply with a clear, competitive proposal.

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Get a quote for this package

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