A time off request form exists to do one thing: capture enough about a request that the balance can be updated without a conversation. Most forms in circulation capture rather less than that, which is why the record and the reality drift apart. This page sets out the five fields a PTO request form needs, why working days rather than calendar days is the field that matters most, and what happens to the form once a company outgrows paper. The free time off tracking template on this site is the record the form feeds.
The five fields
Employee name and identifier. First and last day of the absence. Working days requested, calculated by the requester and checked by the approver. Type of time off, because it decides which balance moves. And the approver with the date they approved. Anything else on the form, reason for absence, contact while away, handover notes, is optional and company specific. These five are what the balance needs, and a form missing any of them creates work later for whoever is reconciling.
Working days is the field that goes wrong
A request from Thursday to the following Tuesday is four working days in most companies and six calendar days, and if the form captures dates only, somebody has to work that out later, every time, including the company holiday in the middle. Ask for working days on the form and have the approver confirm it. This single field prevents most of the small discrepancies that make employees stop trusting the balance.
The employee time off request form is also a record
Whatever the form is, it has to be kept, because the approval it carries is the answer to a disputed balance a year later. If the form is paper or a PDF, decide where the signed copies live before you start using it rather than afterwards. If it is email, the thread is the record and needs to be filed in one place. This is the least interesting part of the process and the one that decides whether the record can be defended.
When the form should stop being a form
The form is a way of getting five fields and a decision into a record. Once the request itself lives in the record, the form is redundant: the employee submits against their own balance, the approver approves, and the balance moves as a consequence rather than as a separate act of data entry. That is the point of the paid room on this site. Until then, a good form and a monthly reconciliation is a perfectly honest way to run it.
Questions people ask about time off request form
What should a PTO request form include?
Employee, first and last day, working days requested, type of time off, and the approver with the approval date. Working days rather than calendar days is the field that prevents most balance errors.
Do time off requests have to be in writing?
Recordkeeping obligations vary and are a question for your own adviser. As a matter of running the record, a written request is the only thing that settles a disputed balance later, whatever the law requires.
Should the form ask why the employee wants the time?
For general paid time off, usually not, and asking can raise questions you would rather not create. Type of leave is enough for the balance. Sick or medical leave may be governed differently, which is worth checking with your adviser.
How does the form connect to the balance?
By hand in a spreadsheet: the approved working days go into booked, and move to taken once the dates pass. In the paid product the approval moves the balance itself, which is the difference the form is a workaround for.