How to manage leave requests and balances in Timekeep

It usually starts with a text. "Boss, pwede ba mag-leave next week?" You reply asking for the dates. They send the dates. You check if those days are covered. You say okay. A week passes and you've forgotten to note it anywhere. Payroll time comes and you're trying to remember which days they were out and whether they were on leave or just absent.

Or there's the version where the group chat becomes the leave request system. Fifteen messages between the request and the approval, buried in between updates about supplies and shift reminders.

Timekeep gives your staff a way to file leave requests from their phone and gives you a dashboard where you approve or decline with one tap. Both sides see exactly what's been requested, approved, and remaining.

What is leave management in Timekeep?

Leave management in Timekeep covers three things: setting leave credits per employee, handling requests from your team, and tracking balances. Your staff file requests through the employee portal. You review and act on them from the admin dashboard. Every approved leave is reflected in payroll automatically.

Setting up leave credits

Open an employee's profile and scroll to the Leaves section. Set their leave credits for the year — this is the total number of days they can take. For example, 10 days per year is a common starting point for small businesses.

When employees file a leave request, they pick a type (vacation, sick, personal, bereavement, or other) as a label. All types draw from the same leave credit pool.

How your team files leave requests

Your staff open the employee portal on their phone and go to the Leaves section. They can see their available balance and submit a new request.

To file a request, they pick the leave type, select the start and end dates, and optionally add a reason. The request is submitted and you're notified.

No group chat thread. No follow-up messages. One form, one submission.

How you approve or decline

In your Timekeep dashboard, go to Leaves. You'll see all pending requests from your team with the employee name, leave type, dates, and reason if provided.

Approve or decline with one tap. The employee sees the updated status immediately in their portal. If you decline, they see the request marked as declined.

Approved leave days are blocked on the schedule so you can see coverage at a glance. If someone is on leave on a day they were scheduled to work, it shows in the schedule view.

Leave balances

Each employee's leave balance is tracked automatically. When a request is approved, the days are deducted from their balance. They can see their remaining balance in the portal at any time.

The balance view shows: total days granted for the year, days used, days pending approval, and days remaining. Your staff know exactly where they stand without asking you.

You can see the same summary from the admin dashboard, per employee, for any year.

Leave days in payroll

When you run payroll for a cutoff period, approved leave days in that period appear as a line item on the payslip. Leave days are paid at the employee's daily rate. The payslip shows the number of leave days and the amount added to their gross pay.

If a staff member took 2 days of vacation leave in a cutoff, those 2 days are paid instead of counted as absent. The deduction for absence doesn't apply to approved leave.

Leaves and payroll

Approved leave days are paid at the employee's daily rate. Days where someone didn't clock in and didn't file leave simply have no attendance record, so no pay is generated for those days. The distinction matters: leave days add to the payslip, missing days don't.

The end of leave request chasing

Managing leaves in a group chat works until it doesn't. A thread gets buried. A request gets missed. You approve something verbally and forget to note it. The balance gets muddled.

When requests go through Timekeep, there's a record. You can see what was requested, what was approved, and what the current balance is. Your staff can see the same thing on their end. No one has to ask or remember. It's all there.

Try it free for 30 days at timekeep.ph.