Choose the dates and half-days. HollyHR recalculates the saved duration from the person's working pattern, leave policy and configured public holidays, reserves the balance while pending, and puts the request in the current direct manager's in-app approval queue where one is assigned.
Holiday tracking software records requested and approved leave, calculates category balances and keeps working days and configured public holidays in context. HollyHR supports dated whole-day and half-day requests, working-pattern-aware saved durations, direct-manager approval discovery, live category balances and built-in time-off reports for small UK teams.
It gives the person wearing the HR hat one record of what was requested, what is pending, what has been approved and what remains, while keeping allowance adjustments separate and traceable.
HollyHR saves the dates, policy context and calculation evidence together, so the recorded duration is more than a number typed into a spreadsheet cell.
People choose a leave category, a date range, whole or half-days and an optional note. Where an active direct manager is assigned, the server recalculates the duration, then saves the pending request and its manager approval notification together.
The saved duration uses the person's assigned working pattern and leave policy. Configured public holidays are included or excluded according to the category rule you set.
Allowance, approved, pending and remaining are calculated by category. A pending request reserves the balance immediately, so the same allowance is not quietly promised twice.
A dedicated append-only ledger records allowance grants, carry-over entries, manual adjustments, corrections, pro-rata entries and expiry or lapse entries without rewriting earlier rows.
Allowance, approved leave, pending reservations and remaining days stay distinct. Policy basis and allowance adjustments sit alongside the number instead of hiding in a spreadsheet formula.
Aggregate time-off analysis is ready for a quick read or a CSV and PDF export. Views that identify people remain behind the reporting permission intended for sensitive HR data.
HollyHR applies the current recorded FTE and the policy rules you configure. It does not replace legal advice, payroll calculations or an employer's responsibility to set and review statutory entitlement correctly.
Use one leave record that stores the requested dates, category, status and calculation context, then calculates approved, pending and remaining balances from it. HollyHR provides that core today, with self-service dated requests, working-pattern-aware saved duration, category balances and built-in time-off reports.
When an employee saves a request and has an active direct manager in the same organisation, HollyHR creates the pending request and that manager's in-app approval notification in one database transaction. A courtesy email is attempted after the save; approval discovery does not depend on that email being delivered.
The booking flow can show an advisory teammate overlap using approved absence presence plus the colleague's public name and identifier only. It does not return the leave category, workflow status, conflicting dates, note, email address, profile image or the existence of pending, rejected or cancelled requests.
Yes, when national holidays are enabled and a supported UK holiday set is configured. Each leave category decides whether public holidays are included or excluded from its duration, so HollyHR follows the organisation's configured rule rather than assuming every bank holiday is outside allowance.
Where contracted hours and FTE are recorded, HollyHR applies the person's current FTE to the policy allowance. When the policy is labelled starter/leaver prorated, it also applies inclusive calendar-day boundaries from the organisation-scoped employment dates and records the calculation evidence. This remains configurable product logic, not a complete statutory-entitlement service: historical or blended FTE, irregular-hours rules, mandatory carry-over and holiday or final-pay calculations still need separate review.
Immediately. HollyHR calculates allowance, approved, pending and remaining by category, and a pending request reserves its balance before a decision is recorded. Approval normally moves the amount from pending to approved rather than reducing the remaining balance a second time.
The Reports area includes aggregate time-off totals and breakdowns by category, month and department, with CSV and PDF export. Aggregate and named absence views—including top absentees and Bradford Factor—require HR or System Admin access because totals and person-level patterns may expose sensitive absence information.
Yes. Active members can create a personal iCalendar-compatible feed for their own approved time away. Organisation-wide feeds require the time-off manage-any capability, expose approved presence only, use a neutral Away summary and recheck access when the feed is read.
A system administrator can create a self-serve organisation export that includes time-off records, subject to workspace access and rate limits. HollyHR also has a beta, permission-scoped REST API for records, settings, holidays, categories, balances and ledger entries; API approval and decline are not shipped.
The whole core product, no card, no trial clock — with a broad self-service organisation export if you ever want to leave.
Related: Who's away · Working patterns · Sickness & absence