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Beebole’s time-off management lets you define absence types, assign individual allowances, and track balances in real time. Your team records time off directly on their timesheets — each entry counts against the balance as soon as it’s recorded — and the approval workflow lets managers review every absence.
Time off in Beebole is tracked through absence types: categories like vacation, sick leave, or parental leave that you define to match your organization’s policies.

Adding time off types in Beebole

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Understanding absence types

An absence type represents a category of leave your organization recognizes. Common examples include vacation, sick leave, parental leave, and personal days — but you can create as many types as you need. Each absence type has:
  • A name, the label your team sees when logging time off (for example “Vacation” or “Sick Leave”).
  • A unit: absences of the type are tracked in Hour or Day units.
  • A paid setting that decides whether absences of this type count toward people costs. See Time off and people costs.
The amount of time off each person receives per period for a type is an allowance. You set allowances on the organization, a tag, or a person, not on the absence type itself. See Setting up allowances.

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Creating absence types

1

Open the Time Off settings

Go to Settings > Time Off.
2

Add a new absence type

Click Add Time Off Type, enter a Name for the absence type (e.g., “Vacation”, “Sick Leave”), and click Add Time Off Type.
3

Choose the unit

In the Units panel, select whether this absence type is tracked in Hour or Day units. Below it, Is paid (included in people costs) is checked by default — uncheck it for unpaid leave. Changes are saved automatically, and the new absence type is available for allowances and timesheet entry.
Beebole Settings Time Off list with the Add Time Off Type button and the PTO and Sickness absence types, and the PTO panel open on the right showing Units set to Day and Is paid (included in people costs) checked

The Time Off list with the PTO absence type open on its Units panel

Create separate absence types for each leave category your company offers. This gives you granular reporting and lets you set different allowance rules per type.

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Archiving absence types

When a leave category is no longer offered, archive its absence type instead of deleting it — past time-off records stay intact while the type disappears from day-to-day use.
  1. Go to Settings > Time Off and open the absence type.
  2. Click the ⋯ action menu next to its name, then Archive.
Beebole PTO absence type panel with its action menu open: Duplicate, Rename, Archive, Unarchive (greyed out) and Delete

The action menu next to an absence type's name

To restore an archived type, click Show Archived in the list, open the archived type, and click the ⋯ action menu, then Unarchive. The same menu also offers Duplicate, Rename, and Delete.

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Setting up allowances

An allowance — Beebole’s term for a time-off quota or entitlement — defines how much time off a person receives for a given absence type within a specific period. You can set allowances on the organization for everyone, on a tag for a group, or on an individual person.
1

Open the Absence allowances panel

For an organization-wide default, go to Settings > Account Settings. For a group, click Tags in the sidebar and open the tag. For one person, click People in the sidebar and open their profile. Each shows an Absence allowances panel.
2

Add the allowance

Click + Add new allowance and select the absence type.
3

Define the period

Set the start and end dates of the allowance period (e.g., January 1 to December 31 for an annual allowance).
4

Set the amount

Enter the amount the allowance grants. Each field states the unit it is counted in — days or hours, following the absence type’s own unit — so an hour-based allowance can’t be mistaken for a day-based one. Every change is saved automatically — there is no save button.
The panel lists the allowances that start in the current year or later. Older ones are hidden: click Show past allowances (the badge counts them) to see them, and Hide past allowances to collapse them again.
A person uses the allowances of the most specific level that has any: their own profile first, then their tags, then the organization. Beebole takes that level’s whole set and does not combine levels per absence type. As soon as you add one allowance on a person’s profile, that person stops inheriting every allowance from their tags and the organization, and any absence type without an allowance on their profile has no limit for them. To change a single allowance for someone, click Copy in the Absence allowances panel where the allowances are defined (Account Settings or the tag), click Paste in the person’s panel, then adjust the one that differs. See Attribute copy and paste.

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Carrying unused time off forward

Unused allowance carries into the next period only when the allowance has a Valid until date after the end of its period. Without one, nothing carries over, and whatever is left expires when the period ends. Two fields on the allowance control carry-forward:
  • Valid until: the last day the carried balance can be used. Carried time still unused after that date expires.
  • Carry forward limit: the maximum amount that carries over. Anything above the limit expires at the end of the period. Leave it at 0 for no cap, so the whole remaining balance carries.
Once the new period starts, Beebole spends the carried balance first, before the new period’s allowance, so the time that expires soonest is used first. A negative balance at the end of a period carries nothing. For example, take a 20-day allowance for 2026 with a Carry forward limit of 5 days and Valid until set to March 31, 2027. A person who took 12 days in 2026 has 8 days left: 5 carry into 2027 and 3 expire on December 31. Their next time off in 2027 uses those 5 carried days first, and any of them still unused on March 31 expire. The carried balance counts everywhere the allowance does: booking limits respect it, and the Absence quotas report shows it per person, including the Valid until and Carry forward limit columns.

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Tracking balances

Beebole tracks time-off balances from the allowances, their manual Accrued amounts, and the absences recorded on timesheets. Allowance, Consumed, and Accrued sit at the top of each card in the Absence allowances panel, right after the absence type, and every figure carries its unit (days or hours) in the input and in the card’s summary line: The Carry forward limit states its unit the same way. Balances update as team members log time off on their timesheets and when you adjust the Accrued field on the allowance.
Beebole Absence allowances panel of Elena Rossi with the PTO 2026 card open: summary line Allowance 20d, Accrued 0d, Consumed 12d, then Start - end 2026, Time off PTO, Allowance 20 d, Consumed 12d, Accrued, Valid until Mar 31, 2027, Carry forward limit 5 d and Allow negative balance, followed by a collapsed Sickness card and the Add new allowance button

A person's PTO allowance, inherited from the organization, opened to show the days consumed

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Negative balance controls

By default, Beebole prevents people from booking more time off than their available balance. You can change this behavior per allowance. To let a balance go below zero — useful for organizations that handle overdrawn leave manually or at year-end — open the allowance in the Absence allowances panel and check Allow negative balance. The change is saved automatically. When the box is unchecked, Beebole blocks time-off entries that would push the balance below zero.
If you allow negative balances, monitor them regularly, for example in the Absence quotas report.

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Time off and people costs

Each absence type decides whether its time off counts as a people cost, through the Is paid (included in people costs) checkbox. It sits in the type’s Units panel, right below the unit, and it is checked on every new absence type. To change it, go to Settings > Time Off, open the absence type, and check or uncheck the box. The change is saved automatically.
Reports apply the checkbox when they run, so changing it also changes the cost of time off recorded before the change. Time off never affects billing amounts, whichever way the box is set — only costs.

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Absence approval

Time-off entries follow the same approval workflow as regular time entries. When a person records an absence on their timesheet and submits it, the assigned manager reviews and approves or rejects it. Approval does not gate the balance: every recorded time-off entry counts against the allowance immediately, even before it is reviewed. Approving locks the timesheet; if an absence is rejected, the person can edit or remove the entry, which restores the balance.
The approval workflow for absences is part of Beebole’s general timesheet approval process. See Approvals for details on configuring approval stages and managers.

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Recording time off on the timesheet

Team members record absences directly on their timesheets, just like regular time entries, in either the calendar view or the grid view.
1

Open the timesheet

Click Timesheet in the sidebar and go to the relevant period.
2

Add the absence

In the calendar view, drag across an empty time slot and pick the absence type (e.g., “Vacation”) in the activity picker. In the grid view, click the + button (Add a row) of the Time Off section and pick the absence type.
3

Enter the time off

In the grid view, enter the hours on each day of the row for an hour-based type. For a day-based type, each day offers two buttons instead: ½ (Half day) and 1 (Full day). Click the selected button again to clear the day. In the calendar view, the entry covers the slot you selected: drag or resize the block to change it. A day-based block snaps to a half or a full day.
4

Submit the timesheet

Click Submit to send the timesheet for approval. The time off counts against the balance as soon as it is recorded.
Beebole timesheet grid view for the week of October 4 to 10, 2026, with a PTO row in days under the Time Off section: Monday and Tuesday set to 1 day, the half-day and full-day buttons on the other weekdays, and those two days shaded as days off

Two days of PTO on a PTO row, under the Time Off section of the grid

Day-based time off follows the person’s work schedule: a Full day equals the hours scheduled that day, and a Half day half of them. Beebole refuses any other amount. Day-based time off also can’t be booked on a public holiday or on a scheduled day off, since those days have no working hours to take off. Hour-based time off is not affected by these two rules.

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Related content

Accruals

Coming soon: a preview of automatic accrual policies, plus the carry-forward rules that already apply to allowances.

Public Holidays

Define non-working days so they don’t consume time-off allowances.

Work Schedule

Set working hours so day-based absences calculate correctly.

Approvals

Understand how absence entries flow through the approval workflow.

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Frequently asked questions

Yes. Add allowances in the Absence allowances panel of a person’s profile under People, or on a tag for a whole group. Beebole uses the whole set of allowances from the most specific level that has any: the person, then their tags, then the organization. Once a person has one allowance of their own, they no longer inherit any allowance from their tags or the organization, so copy the inherited allowances onto the person first and then adjust the one that differs.
It depends on the allowance. If Allow negative balance is checked, the person can continue booking time off and their balance shows a negative number. If not, Beebole blocks the entry. A person with no allowance at all for that absence type is never blocked: with no balance to check, Beebole accepts the entry, so add an allowance whenever you want a cap or a balance to show.
In Beebole, time-off entries follow the same approval workflow as regular timesheet entries. Absences count against a person’s allowance as soon as they are recorded. Approval reviews and locks the timesheet but does not change the balance. See Approvals.
Delete the time off entry from your timesheet while its period is a draft or was rejected. In the calendar view, hover over the entry and click its delete button. In the grid view, clear the hours in the day’s cell, or click the selected Half day or Full day button again for a type counted in days. Beebole computes balances from the recorded entries, so the balance goes back up straight away. Once the period is submitted or approved, it is locked: ask an approver or an administrator to reject it, then delete the entry and click Resubmit. An administrator can also remove the entry without sending the period back, with the edit button (Edit timesheet). See Editing a submitted or approved timesheet.
In Beebole, each absence type uses a single unit, Hour or Day. If you need both, create separate absence types (e.g., “Vacation (days)” and “Medical appointments (hours)”).
Not yet. Automatic accrual policies are coming soon to Beebole, and the Accruals page previews how they will work. Today, each allowance has a manual Accrued field: enter the time a person has earned there, and Beebole adds it to their balance.
In Beebole, day-based time off is a share of the person’s scheduled working day, and a public holiday has no working hours to take off. In the grid view, a day-based row shows no Half day or Full day buttons on that day, and any other attempt is refused with the message “You cannot record time on a public holiday.” The same goes for a scheduled day off in the person’s work schedule, such as a weekend. Public holidays never count against an allowance, so there is nothing to book for them.
Under the name allowances. What other tools call an absence quota or leave entitlement is an allowance in Beebole: open Account Settings, a tag, or a person’s profile and look for the Absence allowances panel. The consolidated view across everyone is the Absence quotas entry of the Reports menu — see Reports.
In the Absence quotas entry of Beebole’s Reports menu. For each time off type, it shows the time taken against your allowance and what is Remaining. The report only requires view access to Time off balance, which the built-in Employee role grants on your own allowances, so every employee sees their own balance there. The Absence allowances panel on your profile (click People in the sidebar and open your own profile) shows the Allowance, Accrued, and Consumed figures, but not what remains. See Reports.