Time off tracking
- Available to book right now, hours
- 27
- Accrues each pay period, hours
- 5
- Accrued so far, including carry-in, hours
- 91
Nothing in these worksheets is a figure we found somewhere. Every number comes from the inputs you enter and the accrual method stated on the page: hours granted divided by pay periods a year, applied to the periods completed, plus carry-in, less taken and less approved. The defaults are a worked example of a common US policy, not a recommendation and not a benchmark.
Time off tracking is the running answer to one question asked over and over: how much paid time off does this person have left. It sounds like arithmetic and it is, but the arithmetic has four moving parts that a spreadsheet almost never holds together at once. There is the accrual, which adds hours every pay period rather than all at once in January. There is carry-in from last year, which is real hours but is capped and expires differently from this year's. There is time already taken, which everyone remembers to subtract. And there is time approved for a date that has not arrived yet, which almost nobody subtracts, and which is how two people end up booked off the same week and how an employee is told they have days they have already spent.
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Set the accrual
Take the hours your policy grants for a full year and divide by the pay periods you actually run, so 120 hours over 24 semimonthly periods accrues 5 hours a period. The policy is written in days; the record has to be kept in hours or part days never add up.
Apply it to today
Multiply the accrual by the pay periods completed so far and add whatever carried in from last year. Fifteen periods in with 16 hours carried in is 91 hours accrued, and that is the number before anything has been spent against it.
Subtract both kinds of spent
Take off the hours already taken and, separately, the hours already approved for a future date. Both are gone. Holding back approved time is the step that stops the same hours being promised twice and is the one a spreadsheet forgets.
Time off tracking: common questions
Should the record be kept in days or in hours?
Hours. Policies are written in days because that is how people think, but half days, part time schedules and anything other than a flat eight hour day stop adding up cleanly in days. Keep hours, show days alongside, and convert with your own working day length.
Does time that is approved but not yet taken come off the balance?
It should. Those hours are committed and cannot be booked again. On the worked example, 91 hours accrued less 48 taken and 16 already approved leaves 27 hours available, not 43. The 16 hour difference is exactly where double bookings come from.
What happens to the balance at year end?
Whatever your carryover rule says. The worksheet shows the year end balance if nothing else is booked, so you can see what is heading for the cap while there is still time to do something about it. State law varies on whether accrued time can be forfeited at all.
Will it do what you need for Time off tracking?
Tell us what your PTO policy looks like and what you are trying to stop happening, and we will tell you plainly whether PTOroom does it.