The finest leave management systems include all the capabilities needed to handle employee leave requests as well as additional features to accomplish shared business goals―all at an affordable price. We examined hundreds of top leave management systems to land on the absolute best leave management systems of 2024. In this guide, we present an overview of the suppliers who made the cut, why we picked them and how they are suitable to satisfy your particular corporate goals.
The Leave Management Software of 2024
- Calamari: Best overall for multinational leave management
- Timetastic: Best for charity and qualified B organizations (B-corps)
- Absence.io: Best for midsized and multilingual enterprises
- Kissflow: Best for large organizations
- Vacation Tracker: Best for customisable leave management
- LeaveBoard: Best for free plan for startups
- PlanMyLeave: Best for green-minded employers
- actiPLANS: Best for scattered or field teams
- LeaveDates: Best for integrations
- Pause: Best for nonprofit organizations
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The zousapps Advisor Small Business team is devoted to delivering you fair rankings and information with full editorial independence. We leverage product data, strategic methodology and expert insights to inform all of our material to aid you in making the right decisions for your business journey.
To determine the top leave management systems, we reviewed over 25 of the main suppliers in the industry and limited it down to 15, which we then rated across five key areas and 26 distinct criteria. Our evaluations examine things such as clear pricing, employee self-sufficiency, interoperability with third-party integrations, availability to customer assistance and ratings. All ratings are chosen purely by our editorial staff.
BEST FOR MULTINATIONAL LEAVE MANAGEMENT Calamari
Calamari stands out with the ability to handle vacation and staff time clocks in over 100 countries. To make this feasible, the program is customisable per nation. You can, for example, implement various paid time off (PTO), leave policies and holiday calendars depending on the country in which they will be utilized. Its interface is also available in English, Spanish, French, German and Polish and it is General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)-compliant with European Union-wide privacy and data protection.
Calamari’s Leave Management module starts at $2 per employee, each month (with a minimum of 10 workers and when paid annually). It contains an absence calendar, leave entitlement and accrual rules, alerts, an approval flow, connectors, attachments, remote workforce leave management capabilities and a mobile app.
In addition to Leave Management, it also provides two more chargeable modules. Its clock-in/clock-out module starts at $25 a month (for 10 users) and includes time tracking, time sheets, project tracking and clock-in techniques. Calamari also offers a human resources (HR) module beginning at $20 a month (for 10 users).
- Who should use it:
Calamari is perfect for firms that handle worker schedules and leave in nations around the world.
The Benefits
- Discounts for organizations
- 14-day free trial
- Available in over 100 countries
- Multilingual interface
- GDPR-compliant
- HR and time clock modules available
Cons
- No free version
- Minimum monthly charge
- Only accessible in five languages, despite availability in 100 countries
BEST FOR CHARITIES AND CERTIFIED B-CORPS Timetastic
Timetastic is a leave management program that helps firms keep track of employees’ time-off requests. It not only offers an extended 30-day free trial but it also puts a priority on “corporate citizenship.” This includes a mission to assisting jobless women go back to work by providing them with interview coaching and other interview essentials.
In addition to its own devotion to charity and corporate citizenship concerns, it gives a 50% discount to all charities and certified B-corps devoted to social responsibility, transparency and accountability.
Timetastic features include an immediate time-off request procedure, a business calendar, weekly schedule alerts, daily time-off requests and employee birthday reminders, a time-off dashboard and a mobile app. It displays public holidays automatically for over 3,000 global areas and includes the ability to handle PTO, vacation, sick leave, maternity and paternity leave, unpaid leave, bereavement and compassionate leave and personal day-off requests.
- Who should use it:
Charities and recognized B-corps wishing to make the most of donor resources or those are on a low budget might select Timetastic for their leave management system.
The Benefits
- Free 30-day trial
- 50% discount for charity, accredited B-corps and Fair Tax Mark holders
- Option to extend trial
- No penalty for cancellations
- 50% discount for organizations
Cons
- Employees cannot revoke authorized leave
- Customizing leave kinds is challenging
- Few integrations
BEST FOR MIDSIZED MULTILINGUAL COMPANIES Absence.io
Absence.io differentiates out by delivering leave management capabilities in seven languages, including English, French, Spanish, German, Portuguese, Polish and Turkish. Each employee has their own login. Companies with more than 200 workers receive a discount offer. As such, Absence.io is built to accommodate midsized and big enterprises with various workforces while methodically giving a leave management experience that suits employees’ particular demands.
Absence.io’s vacation planner and absence management package delivers absence requests and approvals, reports and dashboards and an overview of leave time by kind. Its time monitoring package enables work-time recording, time tracking, automatic reporting and notifications and the opportunity to install a digital clock. Its digital people administration suite gives an overview of staff data, surveys and drag-and-drop file entry features.
- Who should use it:
Absence.io best serves midsized to big organizations with multilingual workforces, such as warehouses, supermarket stores, restaurant chains or local hospitals.
The Benefits
- 14-day free trial
- Software accessible in seven languages
- Discount for firms with more than 200 workers
- Combinable packages for catered solutions
- Free setup help
Cons
- No public price transparency
- No free version
- Short free trial compared to some rivals
BEST FOR LARGE BUSINESSES Kissflow
Kissflow’s capabilities make it easier to track and manage massive workforces. Its interactive reporting delivers in-depth insights on leave trends. Automatic validations, enterprise-grade computations of accruals and leave balances, balance updates and reporting make recording, monitoring and managing large-volume leave requests immediately. Integrations with other corporate systems, such as your payroll system, facilitates leave requests across functions.
Kissflow’s Basic plan, which is confined to simple use cases and internal users only, starts at $1,500 per month. Its Enterprise package, which it refers to as its Full Features plan, also allows for external users and private clusters but its price is not visible and you must contact Kissflow to arrange for special pricing.
- Who should use it:
Kissflow is suitable for enterprise-level businesses and budgets that need to streamline their leave-approval and -tracking procedures.
The Benefits
- Automated approval process
- Free trial upon request
- Payroll integration
- In-depth reporting
Cons
- Little price transparency
- Very costly compared to some competitors
- Upgrades may be difficult and problematic
BEST FOR GREEN-MINDED COMPANIES Vacation Tracker
Vacation Tracker differentiates apart by helping its customers reach their environmental-friendly goals. For every 100 leave requests, for example, Vacation Tracker plants one tree. If you receive a survey from Vacation Tracker, every answered survey is another tree planted. Finally, when you join up for an annual membership, another tree gets planted. The outcome has been hundreds of trees planted in Spain, Canada, Brazil and other nations across the globe.
Using Vacation Tracker, you may build up to 25 specific leave kinds. You may also set up time zones or places in which personnel operate (the United States, France, Japan and Australia, for example). Customizable reporting allows you to filter and track leave activity by corporate function or establish labels and tags for user groups for which you need regular information, such as Marketing, Main Team or Canada.
Its Core plan is $1 per month, per user (minimum of 25 users) and gives the ability to manage leave requests, send leave alerts, establish custom locations and departments and produce custom reports. Its Complete $2 per user, per month option (minimum of 50 users) includes configurable leave accruals, group labels, scheduled reports and hourly leave requests. Its Enterprise quote-only option includes specialized assistance, setup and onboarding.
- Who should use it:
Vacation Tracker is perfect for firms searching for a full-featured and customisable leave management solution that helps them accomplish their green-initiative goals.
The Benefits
- Two-month free trial when paid yearly
- Seven-day free trial with month-to-month billing
- Affordable plans
- Customizable leave management and reporting
Cons
- No free plan
- Minimum 25 users in first-tier plan
- No accrual tracking in first-tier plan
- Custom quotation required for enterprise-level plan
- No specialized support in small to midsized company (SMB) plans
BEST FREE PLAN FOR STARTUPS LeaveBoard
LeaveBoard stands out with its full-featured free plan. Unlike many free plans that only allow two to five users, LeaveBoard’s Core free plan enables up to nine users and includes a dashboard, time-off tracking, an employee directory, Slack integration, HR reports, an absence calendar, leave rules and time-off management tools. Startups that begin with this plan can scale up by adding one user at a time for $1.35 per person, per month.
LeaveBoard’s premium subscriptions start at $1.35 per user, each month. In addition to Core-plan features, this Pro plan adds the opportunity to add an unlimited number of members, premium customer assistance and more complex leave rules. Finally, its Enterprise plan needs a unique quotation and is ideal for firms with over 81 people that need priority service. All options provide Microsoft Office 365, Google Calendar and Apple iCal integrations.
- Who should use it:
LeaveBoard is perfect for companies requiring to completely manage employee leave on a nonexistent budget but that require a solution that will allow them to grow as slowly or swiftly as their budget permits.
The Benefits
- Free plan for up to nine users
- 17% discount when paid yearly
- Affordable paid plans
- Employee directory
- Time-off overlap warnings
- Employee self-serve portal
Cons
- No dedicated assistance in free or small-business plans
- Only basic leave policies in free plan
- Limited integration capabilities compared to certain rivals
BEST FOR HIGHLY CUSTOMIZABLE LEAVE MANAGEMENT PlanMyLeave
PlanMyLeave stands apart with bespoke leave management requirements and policies. For example, employees can seek half-day, full-day or time-based leaves, request overtime, update requests after leave approval and submit documentation to support different sorts of leave requests, such as sick leave.
In addition to employee request modifications, organizations may put specific constraints inside the program. For example, they can define prior notice limits, minimum and maximum leave lengths; if leave is carried over to the following year and approval processes based on leave type. The program also enables the opportunity to add custom fields for leave requests, only allow specific types of leave after probationary periods and construct gender-based leave types.
PlanMyLeave costs $1 per user, every month. However, the minimum payment per month is $30 and firms with less than 100 users must pay semi-annually or yearly. Its features include free project management and HR tools, custom leave management capabilities, employee and manager calendars, overtime management, multilingual support; scheduled reports, an application programming interface (API) for custom integrations and the option to integrate 750 applications via Zapier.
- Who should use it:
Midsized to big firms that employ individuals on a mix of standard and unusual work hours might consider PlanMyLeave.
The Benefits
- Custom leave management capabilities
- Free bundled project management software
- Free HR tools
- Discounts for organizations, educational institutions and major corporations
- Free setup and support
- 30-day free trial
Cons
- $30 minimum fee each month
- Companies with less than 100 users must pay yearly or semi-annually
- An excessive quantity of features for some firms
BEST FOR DISPERSED OR FIELD TEAMS actiPLANS
actiPLANS uniquely gives the opportunity to manage remote employees’ time. You may distribute work locations around the globe, then a visual dashboard reveals where staff are working at any given time. It also allows you to arrange and track virtual employees’ leave. Its mobile app, timeline and email notifications deliver daily and real-time statistics on employees’ time in and out of the “office” to guarantee colleagues always know who is accessible.
actiPLANS offers easy per-user pricing. For enterprises with up to three users, the program is free. For firms with four to 40 employees, the per-user pricing is $1.50 when invoiced annually. For 41 to 200 users, the price goes down to $1.20 per user, per month when invoiced annually. For above 200 users, you must request a special quotation. Plan features include the ability to arrange leaves, resources, locations, shifts and events and a mobile app.
- Who should use it:
Companies wanting scheduling and leave management software for scattered, field or remote personnel might use actiPLANS’ product.
The Benefits
- 30-day free trial
- Free for up to three users
- Affordable per-user pricing
- Unique characteristics for managing virtual or scattered teams
- Discounts for large-volume consumers
Cons
- Pricier than some competitors
- Limited users in free plan compared to some rival free plans
- Limited integrations
BEST FOR INTEGRATIONS LeaveDates
While LeaveDates is a leave management system, its connectors add capabilities to the product. It gives the opportunity to utilize Zapier to combine the program with over 1500 services, including Asana, Slack, Dropbox, Schedule It, simPRO, Google Calendar, Gmail and Google Sheets. If you are motivated, you may also utilize LeaveDates’ APIs to develop your own connection, including with your payroll and accounting systems.
For firms with five or less employees, LeaveDates software is free. Additional users pay $1 per month. Expect a hefty 25% discount if paid yearly. Its features include leave monitoring, leave approval, a central wallchart of employee leave, personal logins with leave calendars, iOS and Android mobile applications, the ability to discriminate between leave kinds, overtime and leave allowance tracking, reporting, calendar syncing and daily Slack reports.
- Who should use it:
Companies wanting to add a leave management system to an already-developed or planned technological stack might consider LeaveDates.
The Benefits
- 25% discount when paid yearly
- Free plan for up to five people
- Ample integration options
- Overtime tracking
Free tools, including a holiday entitlement calendar, leave tracker for Google Sheets and a Maternity Leave Budget Template
Cons
- No free trial
- Learning curve necessary for various integration options
- No discounts depending on user volume
BEST FOR NONPROFIT ORGANIZATIONS Pause
Pause distinguishes apart by giving a longer free trial of 90 days, a span that greatly exceeds rival free trials. Its plans start at an economical $1 per user, per month. Notably, charity organizations can use the program for free indefinitely. Given its sweeping “nonprofit” criterion for obtaining the free plan, many groups, including charities, research foundations, schools, churches and public service organizations, can use Pause for free.
All Pause’s features are provided in every plan level. They include leave and overtime booking and tracking, custom workdays, pay-loss tracking, carry forward leave, leave auto-approval, holiday leave import and tracking, leave policy disbursement, leave overlap reporting and dashboard, daily and weekly leave summary notifications, birthday and anniversary notifications, calendar feeds and syncing, an employee directory and data exports.
- Who should use it:
Nonprofit organizations who require basic leave management software for free might consider Pause. With no bulk savings, it is also suitable for tiny enterprises that don’t plan on considerable expansion.
The Benefits
- Free for NGOs
- 90-day free trial
- Ample features on all plan levels
- Leave overlap reporting
- Custom workdays by team
- Carry-forward leave management
Cons
- No free version for for-profit companies
- No discount for paying yearly
- Few custom reporting options
- Few integration options compared to certain rivals
zousapps Advisor Ratings
| COMPANY | ADVISOR RATING | STARTING PRICE | ROCESSING FEES | STANDOUT FEATURES | LEARN MORE |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Calamari | 5-stars | $2 per employee per month (billed annually) | 14 days | Yes | View More |
| Timetastic | 5-stars | $1.50 per user, per month | Yes | Yes | View More |
| Absence.io | 5-stars | Not publicly available | Yes | Yes | View More |
| Kissflow | 5-stars | $1,500 per month | Yes | Yes | View More |
| Vacation Tracker | 5-stars | $1 per user, per month, minimum 25 users | Yes | Yes | View More |
| LeaveBoard | 5-stars | Free | Yes | Yes | View More |
| PlanMyLeave | 5-stars | $1 per user ($30 minimum per month) | Yes | Yes | View More |
| actiPLANS | 5-stars | Free | Yes | Yes | View More |
| LeaveDates | 5-stars | Free | Yes | Yes | View More |
| Pause | 5-stars | $1 per employee per month | Yes | Yes | View More |
- Methodology
When analyzing providers for our list of top leave management systems of 2023, we considered at each provider’s pricing and fees, features and functionality, noteworthy features, simplicity of use and customer service. Here is a deeper look at how we implemented each of these factors in our decision-making process.
- Pricing – 10%
While we included at least one provider for startup, small, midsized and big organizations, we chose those providers with well-featured plans around $1.50 per user, per month.
- General Features – 30%
We sought for providers offering at least the fundamental elements needed for most firms to manage employee leave, such as a mobile app, a leave request approval procedure, a calendar, work scheduling, leave policy administration capabilities and employee self-serve portals for requesting time off.
We sought for suppliers who offer free customer assistance in their plans. We looked primarily for systems that provide with free setup and customer assistance during normal business hours. We also checked for client feedback to create a respected prompt and competent customer service personnel.
- Unique Features – 20%
We included providers who offer unique functionality to satisfy demands that many but not all organizations have, such as the capacity to manage leave requests for bilingual or international enterprises or to link the leave management system with an already-existing corporate technology stack.
- Third-party Ratings and Reviews – 10%
To acquire a fuller picture of what people on the whole think of these solutions, we analyzed third-party ratings and reviews from credible sources. We looked at not just what people had to say, but how many reviews made up the average rating for each source.
- Expert Analysis – 30%
We added our own qualitative evaluation based on first-hand experience. This covers aspects such as simplicity of use, quality of features, value for price and popularity.
How To Choose a Leave Management Software
When picking a leave management program that best matches your organization, there are three broad factors. First, is budget and total value for money. Second is whether or not it provides the tools and features that your organization will employ. And third, reputation. A lot may be gathered from third-party evaluations, thus it is crucial to know what other users think of the solutions:
Budget: Remember that leave management solutions are frequently charged by the user. So, you must work backward to discover what budget you can afford. Begin by estimating the monthly budget you have to spend on a software choice, then divide that amount by the number of people you will add to your selected system. This will be the monthly per-person fee you can afford.
Required tools: List the fundamental tools you need to manage leave. For example, you may mention policy management features, leave requests, leave approvals, accrual calculations, an employee self-serve site and connectivity with your company’s calendars. Next, examine unusual but essential features, such as multilingual leave management capabilities or specialized integrations.
Reputation: To do so, review sites, such as Capterra or TrustRadius to obtain reviews submitted by current or previous users. When assessing these evaluations, pay particular attention to whether consumers disclose hidden fees. Also, analyze to establish the sort of customer assistance the product gives and any problems regularly reported by consumers.
Once you have identified a leave management system that satisfies your budget, tools and functionality and user-experience demands, call out to the vendor. When you do, make sure to ask for a free trial. You can use this trial time to guarantee your option will fulfill essential corporate demands. If a free trial is not available, request a live demo instead.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What is a leave management system?
A leave management system is software loaded with capabilities to enable firms manage employee leave requests, monitoring and rules at scale. It frequently contains features, such as employee leave request capabilities, an employee self-serve portal, a leave approval-process workflow, automated computations of leave accruals, payroll and other integration capabilities and reporting. Most leave management solutions are cloud-based software with a mobile app.
How do you handle leave management?
To manage employee leave, first design and spread rules and guidelines for employee leave in your firm while considering local, state and federal labor regulations. Leave rules should outline what holidays your organization observes as well as the sorts of leave employees are entitled to and how the accrual process works. In addition, create a leave management system that digitalizes and automates the leave request, approval and leave accrual process.
What are the 3 sorts of leaves?
Three frequent forms of leave include sick leave, maternity leave and paternity leave. Other leave kinds include national personal time off and bereavement, vacation, emergency, jury duty and religious holiday leave.
Is leave management system software secure?
As with other forms of software, the finest leave management system software applications offer several degrees of protection. When choosing this type of software, you want to look for security features that include two-factor authentication (2FA) or multifactor authentication (MFA), intrusion detection, the monitoring of user activities, data encryption, privacy protection and documentation that shows frequent security updates and patches.
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