How leave works
Leave in Cadre is built from a few parts: the kinds of leave people can take, the policies that say how many days they earn, a ledger that records every day earned and taken, and the requests people make. This page explains how they fit together. The pages that follow show you how to set each part up.
Who can set up leave for the organisation: Owner, HR admin.
Employees see their own leave (see Your leave) and ask for it (see Ask for leave). Managers decide their team’s requests (see Approving leave).
Where to find it
Section titled “Where to find it”- Leave in the Work menu. Everyone sees My leave. Owners, HR admins and anyone with direct reports also see the Requests, Balances and Calendar tabs.
- Settings → Leave types & policies and Settings → Public holidays, under Policies and pay. Only owners and HR admins see these.
The parts
Section titled “The parts”Leave types are the kinds of leave people can take: annual, sick, maternity and so on. Each type says whether it is paid, whether it needs approval, whether it counts working days or every calendar day, and whether a balance may go negative. See Leave types and policies.
Policies say how many days a year someone earns of a leave type, how they earn them, and what happens to unused days at the end of the leave year. A policy can be the default for everyone, or apply to one grade. A grade’s policy overrides the default for people on that grade.
Public holidays are not counted as leave days when a leave type counts working days only. See Public holidays.
The ledger is the record behind every balance. Each day granted, accrued, taken, carried over, expired, adjusted or returned is an entry with a date and a note. A balance is the sum of the entries for the leave year. Entries are never edited: a change is a new entry. See Balances and adjustments.
Earning leave
Section titled “Earning leave”Cadre posts leave to the ledger for you. Early each morning it posts whatever falls due in the current month for every current employee:
- Granted at the start of the leave year: the year’s entitlement arrives in one entry at the start of the leave year.
- Earned month by month: a twelfth of the entitlement arrives each month.
- Carry-over: at the start of a new leave year, unused days move across up to the policy’s limit. Days above the limit expire.
- Expiry of carried days: carried days not used by the policy’s deadline expire.
Each entry is posted once only, however many times the job runs. If you need to post a past month, use Run now in the accrual banner on the Balances tab (see Balances and adjustments).
Requests and approvals
Section titled “Requests and approvals”An employee chooses a leave type and dates, and Cadre counts the days. A request is refused if:
- it overlaps another request that is pending or approved;
- it asks for more days than the employee has available, unless the leave type allows a negative balance (unpaid leave has no balance, so it is never refused for this);
- it starts before the employee’s start date;
- it started more than 30 days ago. Employees can’t book leave that far back themselves.
If the leave type needs approval, the request waits for a decision. It goes to the employee’s line manager. If that manager is away (they have left, are on approved leave today, or have no active login), it goes to the next manager up. If there is no one, it goes to HR. Owners and HR admins can decide anyone’s request, except their own.
If the leave type doesn’t need approval, the request is booked as soon as it is made.
When a request is approved, the days are taken from the balance. When approved leave is cancelled, the days are returned. See Managing leave requests.
The calendar
Section titled “The calendar”The Calendar tab shows who is away a week, a month or a quarter at a time, grouped by department, including leave awaiting approval, with how many people are off each day and the public holidays that apply to each person. Owners and HR admins see everyone. A manager sees their own team. See Managing leave requests.
Leave and payroll
Section titled “Leave and payroll”When a payroll run is calculated, Cadre reads the approved leave that falls inside the pay period:
- Unpaid leave (any leave type not marked Paid) reduces the days paid in that run. A request that runs across two pay periods counts only its days inside each period.
- Paid leave doesn’t change pay.
Cadre reads leave at the moment the run is calculated. If leave in the period is approved or cancelled after that, click Calculate again while the run is still a draft, so the run picks up the change. See Running payroll.
When someone leaves, their unused paid annual leave can be paid out. See Exit payments. The Leave liability report values everyone’s unused annual leave on a date. See Reports.