Want to make your team more efficient and better organized? You need an employee leave tracking software.
We know that managing time off requests is tedious and time-consuming. This is one of many tasks in your business that you should automate with software.
If you’re looking for an alternative to your current leave tracker software, or you’re simply wondering how a vacation tracking app adds value to your business, read on as we share our favorite tools in the market today.
People Also Read: The Best HR Software for Startups and Small Businesses
Flamingo is the simplest way for Slack-based teams to track and manage paid time off.
It’s a Slack app used to send time off requests. The app sends a notification to the right manager whenever there’s a leave request and they can approve or deny the request without having to leave Slack.
Flamingo adds all leaves to an easy-to-view vacation calendar in the Flamingo web app, where admins can also customize their team settings, leave policy (such as how many vacation days employees are given) and view or download employee leave reports.
You can set up automatic notifications to a Slack channel to let the rest of the team know when someone will be away, and export leaves from Flamingo to external calendar apps like Google Calendar.
Flamingo is exclusively for Slack teams at this time, and for those who use Slack, it’s easily the best option. Nothing beats the simplicity and flexibility of Flamingo’s leave tracker.
The Best Leave Tracker Software for: Slack Teams, Remote Teams, Teams with Flexible Leave Policies.
Further Reading: The Best Slack Apps for Slack Teams in 2024.
Gusto is a full-stack HR tool that does much more than just leave tracking.
Leave management is a big part of Gusto, but the real value it offers is in doing all your HR and administrative tasks in one place, including payroll, accounting, benefits management, compliance and more.
If you’re looking for a payroll tool and a leave management tool, you can get both in one platform with Gusto. But if you only want a time off request app, Gusto will be a little pricey at $12 per month per user.
Best for: Teams Needing a Full-Stack HR Solution with Leave Tracking, Payroll and Compliance Features
Workyard is a construction time tracking software that is specifically tailored to the unique needs of the construction industry. With its robust features and capabilities, Workyard offers construction companies a comprehensive solution for effectively managing time and attendance, labor costs, and project tracking, ultimately enhancing productivity and profitability.
One of the key features of Workyard is its ability to track and record employee hours accurately worked, breaks taken, and time spent on different tasks or projects. This allows construction managers to have real-time visibility into their workforce’s productivity, ensuring that labor costs are accurately captured and allocated to specific projects. Workyard also offers geolocation tracking, which allows construction companies to monitor and verify the location of their employees while they are on the job site, ensuring that they are working on the right project at the right time.
Best for: Contractors and Service Businesses with Project Tracking.
Cezanne HR is an HR platform catered towards the UK market. So if you’re a British company, and want a tool that’s designed specifically for the challenges and culture of the British workforce, Cezanne HR is a solid choice.
The time tracking features in Cezanne HR set it apart from other full-stack HR platforms, making it one of the best options if your business has a lot of hourly employees,
Best for: UK Businesses Seeking a Tool Made for the UK Market
Zenefits is an HR platform with more flexibility than others. It might take time to set it up properly for your business, but once done it offers a lot of benefits, including features such as leave tracking, payroll management, onboarding, performance management and more.
A nice benefit is that time off tracking is included on the lowest subscription tier ($8 per user per month), compared to other full-stack HR software which require an upgrade for access to this feature.
It’s still somewhat pricey and complex, particularly for smaller businesses, but for larger organizations Zenefits is something you can depend on.
Best for: A Reliable, Industry-Recognized Full-Stack HR Tool
LeaveBoard falls somewhere in the middle of a full-stack HR tool (e.g. Zenefits or Gusto), and a dedicated vacation tracking app (like Flamingo).
Its main function is to track time off and leave requests, but LeaveBoard also comes with a few general-purpose HR features, such as an employee database, employee profiles and payroll reports.
Though these features are quite basic, it makes a cost-effective and lightweight alternative to full-stack HR platforms for teams who don’t need all that power.
WhosOff primarily tackles leave management, instead of focusing on doing it all in terms of HR. That can be an advantage or disadvantage, depending on your point of view, but for most people looking for a leave tracking app, it’s best to find something that focuses on that and that alone.
WhosOff is quite affordable (pricing is displayed in GBP, as it’s a UK-based tool, but it’s suitable for businesses anywhere in the world). While integration with other tools – like Slack or MS Teams – would be nice, it’s a good alternative if your business is not on either of these platforms.
Calamari is a simple and affordable leave tracking software for modern startups. It comes with integrations for Slack, MS Teams, Asana, and a number of other platforms, allowing you to integrate your leave management system with wherever your team collaborates the most.
Along with leave management, Calamari also has an attendance management module, making it easy for employees to clock in and out and track their working hours. It’s an extra cost, but it’s a handy thing to have in the same app, should your business need it.
Further Reading: 5 Reasons to Use an Absence Management Software
Jira (part of Atlassian) is a staple of many product management teams. If you want to keep everything, including your time off and leave tracking, within this platform, the Leave Tracker app is a solid choice.
It costs $1.50 per team member, and has a pretty simple workflow for tracking and recording vacation and sick days. You can’t do a lot of complex things with the app, but it will suffice for a lot of teams.
If you don’t see the need to sign up for a leave tracker software – let’s say you’re running a small team, or only have a small number of leaves you need to record – Google Sheets makes a fine alternative.
With Google Sheets you can build a leave tracking spreadsheet, totally free, with the flexibility to set it up however is most intuitive for you.
You’ll start to feel the limitations when your team starts to grow, but as a small, early-stage startup, you could do worse than Google Sheets.
As someone with nearly 10 years’ experience managing teams, I know how leave management can suck up far too much of your time and focus.
In 2024, there’s no reason to manage time off requests manually. Leave tracking software automates all the tedious data entry and lets managers (or the HR department) get on with more important jobs.
From the list of leave tracking software above, there are a number of great apps to make leave management easier for small and medium businesses.
For teams on Slack, we recommend Flamingo – a simple and easy to use vacation tracker, with surprisingly powerful features (such as support for custom time off policies and deep reporting tools).
If you’re looking for a leave tracker app as part of a full-stack HR system, check out Gusto, Zenefits or Cezanne HR.
For small organizations just starting out, you can set up your leave tracking system on Google Sheets before deciding whether you need to go out and purchase a leave management software.
Flamingo makes managing your team’s paid time off a breeze.
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