Guide 5 of 21

Leave Management

Configure leave types, manage balances, process requests, handle holidays, carry-forward, and comp-off — everything integrated with attendance and payroll.

Audience: HR Admin · Managers · Employees Setup time: 15–20 minutes

1. How Leave Works in MAttendance

Leave in MAttendance is fully integrated with attendance. When a leave request is approved, the system automatically marks those days in the attendance calendar — no manual entry needed.

Employee Applies for leave via app or portal System Checks Balance · Overlap Holiday exclusion Manager / HR Receives notification Approves or Rejects Auto-Marked Attendance = Leave Balance deducted Payroll LOP deducted if unpaid leave

Key principles:

  • Leave days are calculated excluding holidays and weekly offs — applying for a week that includes a public holiday doesn't consume an extra leave day.
  • Approving a leave request automatically updates the attendance calendar for those dates.
  • Cancelling an approved leave restores the balance and reverts attendance.

2. Configuring Leave Types

Navigate to Settings → Leave Types → Add Leave Type.

Each leave type has these properties:

FieldDescription
NameE.g., "Casual Leave", "Sick Leave", "Earned Leave"
Is PaidWhether this leave counts toward salary (uncheck for Loss of Pay)
Max Per YearHow many days per employee per year (leave blank for unlimited)
Carry ForwardWhether unused days roll into the next year
Max Carry ForwardCap on how many days can carry over

Typical Leave Types to Create

Common Leave Types Leave Type Paid Days / Year Carry Forward Max CF Casual Leave (CL) Paid 12 days No — Sick Leave (SL) Paid 10 days Yes 5 days Earned Leave / Privilege Leave (EL) Paid 15 days Yes 10 days Loss of Pay (LOP) Unpaid Unlimited No — Maternity Leave Paid 180 days No — Comp-Off (Compensatory Off) Paid Earned by OT No —
Loss of Pay (LOP): No balance is required — employees can always apply for LOP. The system marks the day as unpaid and deducts accordingly from the payroll.

3. Initializing Leave Balances

After creating leave types, you must initialize balances for the current year so employees have an allocation to draw from.

Initialization creates a balance record for every active employee × every active leave type for the chosen year, using the annual days set on each leave type.

How to run it. Initialization is an Admin action that is not yet available as a button in the portal. Ask MAttendance support to run it for your organization once your leave types are set up, and again at the start of each year.

To see the result, open Leaves → Balances and select an employee. Each leave type shows Opening, Credited, Used, Carry Forward and Balance.

When to run: Once at the start of each calendar year, or when you add a new leave type mid-year.
Leave Balance — How It's Calculated Casual Leave (12 days) Used: 5 days Remaining: 7 days of 12 entitled Sick Leave (10 days + 3 carried forward) Used: 2 Remaining: 8 days +3 CF Loss of Pay Unlimited — no balance tracked Used Remaining Carry Forward

Mid-year new employee? Their balance records are created the next time initialization is run for the year — ask support to run it after adding new joiners.

4. Managing Holidays

Navigate to Settings → Holidays → Add Holiday (or Bulk Import).

FieldDescription
Holiday NameE.g., "Republic Day", "Diwali"
DateThe calendar date
Holidays are organization-wide. All employees across all offices share the same holiday list.

Bulk Import

  1. Go to Settings → Holidays → Bulk Import.
  2. Download the template (Name, Date columns).
  3. Fill in your yearly holiday list.
  4. Upload — the system adds all at once.

Why Holidays Matter

How Holidays Affect the System Holiday Added in Settings Leave calculation Holidays not counted as leave Attendance calendar Auto-marked as Holiday Comp-Off detection Work on holiday = comp-off earned Payroll Holiday days not deducted Auto-populated by HangFire daily job

5. Applying for Leave (Employee)

Via Mobile App

  1. Tap Leave in the bottom navigation.
  2. Tap Apply for Leave.
  3. Fill in: Leave Type, From Date, To Date, Reason (optional).
  4. For a half-day: enable Half Day toggle and select First Half or Second Half.
  5. Tap Submit.

Via Web Portal

  1. Go to Leaves → Leave Requests and click Apply Leave.
  2. Fill the same fields and submit.
Leave Day Calculation — What Gets Deducted Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun 10 Leave (-1) 11 Leave (-1) 12 Holiday (0) 13 Leave (-1) 14 Leave (-1) 15 Week Off (0) 16 Week Off (0) Leave Applied: 10–16 (7 days) Deducted: 4 leave days Holiday + 2 Week Offs = skipped Leave day (counted) Holiday (skipped) Week Off (skipped)

What happens after submitting:

  • Your manager and HR receive a push notification and email.
  • The request appears in your My Leave history as Pending.
  • Your leave balance is not yet deducted — it only deducts upon approval.

6. Approving or Rejecting Leave (Manager / HR)

Go to Leaves → Leave Requests and open the pending tab (Managers see their direct reports; HR sees all).

To Approve

  1. Click the leave request to open it.
  2. Review the dates, leave type, reason, and the employee's remaining balance.
  3. Click Approve.

What happens automatically:

  • Leave balance is deducted.
  • Each working day in the leave period is marked as Leave (or Half Day) in the attendance calendar.
  • Employee receives a push notification.

To Reject

  1. Open the request.
  2. Click Reject.
  3. Enter a brief reason (optional but recommended).
  4. Confirm.

What happens: No balance is deducted. Attendance is unchanged. Employee receives a rejection notification with your reason.

Approval Decision — What Changes Pending Balance: intact Attendance: normal Payroll: no change Approve Approved ✓ Balance: deducted Attendance: → Leave Payroll: LOP if unpaid Employee notified ✓ Reject Rejected ✗ No changes. Reason sent. Month-End Payroll LOP days auto-deducted from salary calculation

7. Cancelling a Leave Request

Employees can cancel their own leave from My Leave → [Request] → Cancel.

SituationWhat Happens
Cancel a Pending requestRequest deleted. No balance impact.
Cancel an Approved future requestBalance restored. Attendance reverted to normal.
Cancel a past request (dates already passed)Not allowed — contact HR for corrections.
HR/Admin can cancel any request from Leaves → Leave Requests.

8. Team Leave Calendar

Managers and HR can view who is on leave for any month.

Open Leave Calendar from the sidebar (in the My Team section for managers, Organisation for HR and Admin).

  • Select a month and year.
  • The calendar shows all team members and their leave dates at a glance.
  • Useful for checking coverage before approving a leave request.
Team Leave Calendar — March 2026 Employee 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 ... Arjun Sharma CL — 3 days Priya Nair SL — 2 Rohan Mehta WO WO Sneha Patel EL — 4 days Leave Week Off / Holiday
Tip: Check the team calendar before approving leave to ensure adequate staffing on critical dates.

9. Year-End: Carry-Forward

At the end of each year, some leave types allow unused days to roll into the following year.

Carry-forward calculates the unused days for each carry-forward-enabled leave type and adds them to the next year's balances — capped at the Max Carry Forward setting on the leave type.

How to run it. Like initialization, year-end carry-forward is an Admin action that is not yet available as a button in the portal. Ask MAttendance support to run it at year end. The carried days then appear in the Carry Forward column under Leaves → Balances.
Carry-Forward Calculation Example (Sick Leave) 2025 Sick Leave Entitled: 10 days Used: 3 days Unused: 7 days Max CF: 5 days Capped at 5 2026 Sick Leave Entitled: 10 days Carry Forward: +5 days Total: 15 days When to run this Jan 1st after year-end initialization
Order matters: Run Initialize for 2026 first, then Carry-Forward from 2025. Carry-forward adds to the initialized balances.

10. Comp-Off Leave

Employees who work on a holiday or weekly off are eligible for a compensatory day off.

How It Works

  1. Employee works on a holiday and punches in as normal.
  2. The system detects the holiday work and creates a Comp-Off request automatically.
  3. Employee (or Manager) approves the comp-off claim.
  4. Upon approval, one day is credited to the Comp-Off leave balance.
  5. The employee can then apply for a Comp-Off leave day like any other leave type.
Comp-Off expiry: Comp-off days expire if not used within a configurable period. The system sends a reminder before expiry. Go to Leaves → Comp-Off to view and approve pending comp-off claims.