Managing Allocations
Leave allocations in Simple Leave are how you assign and manage individual leave requests for employees.
All leave allocations are tied to a specific cycle — typically your company’s 12-month reporting period (e.g., January to December). You can manage these from the cycles page.
There are two types of allocations:
| Type | Description |
|---|---|
| Entitlement | Used when you want to track how much leave an employee has available to ensure they don’t exceed it. Often used for annual leave or parental leave. |
| Keep Count | Used when you need a record of leave events but don’t need to deduct from a balance. Often used for things like sick leave, unpaid leave, or recording overtime amounts. |
How is Leave Entitlement Calculated
In Simple Leave, employee leave balances are calculated in layers to give you clarity and flexibility. Here’s how each part fits together:
1. Base Entitlement
This is the employee’s full-time annual entitlement as defined in their employment contract.
- It reflects what they would receive if they worked the full leave year.
- This value stays the same regardless of their actual start or end date.
Example: If an employee’s contract states they receive 25 days of annual leave per year. That’s their base entitlement.
2. Cycle Entitlement
This is the portion of the base entitlement the employee is eligible for in a specific cycle — usually based on their start or end date within that cycle.
- It’s automatically pro-rated if the employee joins partway through the year.
- It ensures the leave granted matches the time the employee actually worked.
Example: If someone with a base entitlement of 25 days joins halfway through the year, their cycle entitlement might be 12.5 days.
3. Extra Entitlement
This covers any leave that’s granted in addition to the calculated cycle entitlement. Examples include carry-over days from the previous year, long service rewards, or manually added bonus days.
- These are added on top of the pro-rated entitlement to give a complete picture.
Example: An employee with a cycle entitlement of 12.5 days is given 2 extra days — giving them a higher total entitlement overall.
Total Entitlement
This is the number of days the employee can actually take off during the cycle. It is the number that will be displayed on dashboards, reports and when employees see their leave requests and entitlement.
🧮 Total Entitlement = Cycle Entitlement + Extra Entitlement
Example: In the example on this page their total entitlement would be 14.5: Cycle Entitlement (12.5) + Extra Entitlement (2)
Configuring leave allowances
- From the Allocations page find the employee and click on the View Allocations button.
- Select the leave cycle that these allocations will be for.
- You will see a row for each policy. If you choose Entitlement as the type you will see additional fields to complete:
- Base Entitlement: Enter into here the amount of leave as written in their contract. This value will be used for pro-rated calculations - it is not the final calculated value.
- Cycle Entitlement: This is what the employee is entitlement to within this cycle.
- Additional Cycle Entitlement. Any additional leave they may be given, e.g. carried leave.
- Click Save to apply the changes.