How Allowances Work
Understanding your time off balance, pro-rating, and what counts against your allowance.
How Allowances Work
Your time off allowance is a budget. Each time off type has a maximum number of days per year. When you book time off, the system subtracts from that budget.
Types That Count
Not all time off affects your allowance. Your admin configures which types count:
Typically counts:
- Holiday / Vacation
- Personal days
- Sabbatical
Typically doesn't count:
- Sick leave
- Parental leave
- Bereavement
- Jury duty
The distinction matters. Taking 10 sick days doesn't reduce your vacation allowance. They're separate pools.
Viewing Your Allowance
Click on yourself in the Team Time Off view, or check the inspector panel when viewing your profile. You'll see:
- Approved days — Time off already taken or confirmed
- Pending days — Requests awaiting approval
- Remaining — What's left for the year
The breakdown shows each type separately, so you know exactly where you stand.
Pro-Rating for New Joiners
If you join mid-year, you don't get the full annual allowance. That wouldn't be fair to people who've been there all year.
The formula:
Example: You join July 1st with a 20-day holiday allowance.
- Days remaining: 184 (July 1 to Dec 31)
- Calculation: (184 ÷ 366) × 20 = 10.05
- Result: 11 days (rounded up)
The system always rounds up. We'd rather give you slightly more than leave you a fraction short.
Part-Time Adjustment
If you work part-time, your allowance scales proportionally.
- Full-time (40 hours): 100% of allowance
- 32 hours/week: 80% of allowance
- 24 hours/week: 60% of allowance
This stacks with pro-rating. A part-time employee joining mid-year gets both adjustments applied.
Example: Join July 1st, work 32 hours/week, 20-day base allowance.
- Pro-rate factor: 184 ÷ 366 = 0.503
- Part-time factor: 32 ÷ 40 = 0.8
- Calculation: 20 × 0.503 × 0.8 = 8.05
- Result: 9 days (rounded up)
When Pro-Rating Resets
Pro-rating only applies to your first year. On January 1st of the following year, you get the full allowance (still adjusted for part-time if applicable).
Exceeding Your Allowance
You can book more days than you have remaining. The system warns you but doesn't block it—sometimes people need to go negative for legitimate reasons.
When you exceed your allowance:
- Your status shows as Exceeded in red
- Managers see this in the Overview dashboard
- The overage carries forward as something to discuss
This is intentional. Blocking requests entirely creates worse problems than allowing overages that get resolved through conversation.
Unlimited Allowances
Some time off types have no cap—sick leave is a common example. These show "Unlimited" rather than a number. The system still tracks how many days you've taken, but there's no allowance to deplete.
Year Boundaries
Allowances reset on January 1st. Unused days don't carry over by default (though your organization might handle carryover differently—check with your admin).
When viewing past years, you see the allowance as it was calculated then. A mid-2023 joiner viewing their 2023 history sees their pro-rated amount, while their 2024 view shows the full allowance.