Leave Management

Shinepoint's leave management system handles the full lifecycle of employee leave - from initial configuration and entitlements through to requests, approvals, and tracking. It comes pre-configured with UK statutory leave types that align with current employment legislation, so you can get started quickly without building everything from scratch.

#Setting Up Leave

The first time you visit the leave section, you'll be guided through a setup wizard that takes about two minutes to complete. This walks you through three steps: configuring your leave year, choosing which leave types to enable, and generating initial entitlements for your employees.

Step one is setting your leave year. You choose the month and day your leave year begins - common choices include 1st January for a calendar year, 6th April to align with the UK tax year, or a date that matches your business's financial year.

Step two lets you choose which leave types to enable for your business. All 15 pre-built types are available, and each one can be toggled on or off. For types that carry an annual entitlement (like annual leave), you can adjust the default number of days. Types set to zero days are tracked without an entitlement limit - useful for sick leave or compassionate leave where you want a record without capping allowances.

Step three generates entitlement records for all your active employees based on the leave types you've configured. If you add employees later, their entitlements are created automatically.

#Leave Types

Shinepoint includes 15 pre-built leave types that cover the full range of statutory and discretionary leave in the UK. These are organised into four categories.

#Statutory Paid Leave

• Annual Leave - the default entitlement is 28 days for full-time employees, including bank holidays. This is the statutory minimum of 5.6 weeks under the Working Time Regulations 1998. Part-time employees receive a pro-rated entitlement.
• Sick Leave - covers absence due to illness or injury. Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) is payable from the fourth qualifying day. A fit note from a GP is typically required for absences exceeding seven consecutive days.
• Maternity Leave - up to 52 weeks, split into 26 weeks of Ordinary Maternity Leave and 26 weeks of Additional Maternity Leave. Statutory Maternity Pay is available for up to 39 weeks.
• Paternity Leave - two weeks for the partner of someone having a baby, adopting a child, or having a child through surrogacy. Must be taken within 56 days of the birth or placement.
• Shared Parental Leave - eligible parents can share up to 50 weeks of leave and up to 37 weeks of statutory pay. It can be taken in discontinuous blocks with employer agreement.
• Adoption Leave - up to 52 weeks for the primary adopter, mirroring maternity leave provisions. Statutory Adoption Pay is available for up to 39 weeks.
• Parental Bereavement Leave - known as Jack's Law, this provides two weeks for parents who lose a child under 18, or suffer a stillbirth after 24 weeks of pregnancy. It can be taken as two consecutive weeks or two separate weeks within 56 weeks of the death.

#Non-Statutory Paid Leave

• Compassionate Leave - for bereavement or serious family emergencies. Whilst not a statutory entitlement, the default is five days of paid leave.
• TOIL (Time Off In Lieu) - compensatory time off granted in exchange for overtime or additional hours previously worked, typically on an hour-for-hour basis.

#Statutory Unpaid Leave

• Jury Service - employers must by law allow time off for jury service. Evidence is required. Employees can claim a court allowance for loss of earnings.
• Public/Civic Duties - reasonable unpaid time off for employees who hold public positions such as magistrate, local councillor, or school governor. Evidence is required.
• Time Off for Dependants - a statutory right under the Employment Rights Act 1996 to take reasonable unpaid time off to deal with unexpected emergencies involving a dependant, such as illness, injury, or a breakdown in childcare arrangements.

#Discretionary Leave

• Study/Training Leave - time off for education or professional development. Terms are typically agreed between employer and employee.
• Unpaid Leave - authorised absence without pay, granted at the employer's discretion.
• Other - a catch-all for any bespoke leave arrangement not covered by the categories above.

These types align with UK employment law, principally the Working Time Regulations 1998 and the Employment Rights Act 1996. You can enable or disable any of them to match your business's leave policy.

#Managing Entitlements

Entitlements are the allowances that define how much leave each employee can take per leave year. Shinepoint tracks these automatically, but you have full control to adjust them as needed.

When you open an employee's entitlements page, you'll see a card for each enabled leave type showing their total entitlement, days used, days pending approval, and remaining balance. A colour-coded progress bar gives you a quick visual sense of where things stand - green when plenty of leave remains, amber when it's getting low, and red when it's nearly exhausted.

For leave types without a fixed annual allowance (like sick leave), Shinepoint displays a "tracking only" view - recorded for your records without enforcing a limit.

You can adjust any entitlement by selecting the Adjust button on its card. This lets you change the total entitlement, add or subtract adjustment days, and record a reason. Adjustments are useful for awarding additional contractual holiday beyond the statutory minimum, reducing entitlement for mid-year joiners, or correcting a mistake.

Entitlements can also carry over unused days from the previous year if you've enabled carry-over in your leave settings, with an optional maximum.

#Leave Requests

The leave request workflow is straightforward. You or your team members can create requests, and they move through a clear set of statuses as they're processed.

#Creating a Request

To create a leave request, select New Request from the leave page. You'll choose the employee, the leave type, and the dates. Shinepoint automatically calculates the duration in working days, excluding weekends. For single-day requests, you can choose full day, morning only, or afternoon only. For multi-day requests, you can optionally take a half-day at the start or end.

As you fill in the form, a sidebar shows the employee's current entitlement for the selected leave type. If the request would exceed their remaining allowance, you'll see a clear warning before submitting.

You can add notes to provide context, and for leave types that require evidence, there's an upload area for supporting documents like fit notes or court summons.

#Request Statuses

Every leave request moves through one of four statuses:

• Pending - the request has been submitted and is awaiting a response
• Approved - the request has been approved and the days deducted from the employee's entitlement
• Rejected - the request has been declined, with an optional reason
• Cancelled - the request has been withdrawn, either by the employee or by a manager

When you approve or reject a request, you can include notes explaining the decision. The employee is notified of the outcome.

#Managing Evidence

Some leave types require supporting evidence. When evidence is required, the request shows a clear indicator. Evidence can be uploaded when creating the request, added later by the employee or a manager, waived if you decide it isn't needed, or marked as received offline if a physical document has been provided.

#In the Employee Portal

Employees can manage their own leave directly from the Employee Portal. From their portal, they can submit new leave requests, view their current balance and entitlement breakdown, check the status of pending requests, upload supporting evidence, and see their complete leave history. They'll receive a notification when their request is approved or rejected, giving them self-service capability whilst keeping you in control of approvals.

#Leave Settings

You can fine-tune your leave configuration at any time from the leave settings page.

#Leave Year

You can change when your leave year starts. Common configurations include 1st January (calendar year), 6th April (UK tax year), or a custom date to match your business cycle. Changing the start date affects how future leave requests are assigned to leave years - existing entitlements and requests for the current year won't be modified.

#Public Holidays

Shinepoint includes UK public holidays by default, and you can select your region to ensure the correct holidays are applied - England and Wales, Scotland, or Northern Ireland each have slightly different calendars. You can also choose whether employees are allowed to book leave on public holiday dates or whether those dates are automatically excluded from leave calculations.

#Leave Type Configuration

For each leave type, you can control several options:

• Enable or disable the type for your business
• Set the default annual entitlement in days (types set to zero are tracked without a limit)
• Enable pro-rata for mid-year joiners, so employees who start partway through the leave year receive a proportionate entitlement
• Allow carry-over of unused days into the next leave year, with an optional maximum

You can also generate entitlements in bulk for all active employees from the settings page, which is useful after changing your leave type configuration or at the start of a new leave year.

#Leave on the Dashboard

Your main Dashboard keeps you informed of leave activity without needing to visit the leave section directly. At a glance, you can see how many requests are pending your review, which employees are on leave today, and how many requests have been approved this month.

The leave requests page also shows these stats as summary cards across the top, along with filters that let you narrow requests by status, employee, or leave type. For a full overview of how leave fits into your broader business view, see the Dashboard documentation. To learn more about managing Employees and their profiles, visit the employees section.