“How many vacation days do I have left?” is one of the most common questions in any small company — and often one of the hardest to answer. Leave balances live in spreadsheets, approvals in email, and last year’s unused days in someone’s memory. Here’s a simple, reliable way to track vacation days and leave balances.
What you need to track
- Annual allowance — how many days each person gets this year;
- carried-over days — unused days from last year, if your policy allows it;
- days taken and days booked — approved leave, past and future;
- remaining balance — allowance + carry-over − taken − booked.
Count working days, not calendar days
A request from Friday to the following Tuesday is three working days, not five — and if Monday is a public holiday, it’s two. Counting by hand is where most mistakes happen. In Clocknico, the number of days in a leave request is calculated automatically, skipping weekends and the public holidays your admins have entered for the company.
Set a clear approval flow
- The employee submits a request with the leave type and dates, and sees their balance before sending.
- A manager or admin approves or rejects it.
- The employee gets a notification with the decision.
- Approved leave appears on the shared team calendar.
Clocknico shows managers a badge with the number of pending requests, so approvals don’t sit for days.
Handle carry-over explicitly
Policies on unused days differ: some companies allow carrying over a few days, some none. Whatever the rule, make it visible. In Clocknico, admins set each person’s allowance for the year and can enter carried-over days next to it, so the remaining balance is always correct.
Use different leave types
Annual leave, unpaid leave, sick leave and other types behave differently and should be reported separately. Clocknico comes with common leave types out of the box. Sick leave works differently from vacation: it doesn’t need approval, and the employee can attach a sick note, which is visible only to them and the company’s admins.
Make the calendar the single source of truth
A shared calendar showing approved leave, sick leave and holidays answers “who’s out next week?” instantly — and helps managers avoid approving overlapping leave for key people.
Connect leave with time tracking
When leave lives in the same system as time tracking and attendance, reports make sense: a person on vacation isn’t “missing” hours. Read more about attendance, time off and sick leave tracking.
Checklist for a fair leave system
- Allowances set per person per year
- Carry-over rules written down and applied
- Working days calculated automatically
- Holidays entered once, for everyone
- Clear approver and fast decisions
- Shared calendar
The HR module, including leave balances and approvals, is part of every Clocknico plan — free for teams of up to 5 users.