Start here · People

How to track employee time off in a small business

To track employee time off, you need one place where people request leave, a manager approves it, and each person's balance updates on its own. Many small teams start with a spreadsheet, then move to the time-off feature inside their payroll and HR software so approved leave flows straight into pay. Before you set anything up, write down your leave policy, because the tool can only apply the rules you give it.

By Bill Belcamino · Page updated September 19, 2026 · Our methodologyResearched and fact-checked by the HelpCompare team

Price this for my team See the software it takes

How to track time off and leave, step by step

Write down your time-off policy: leave types, how balances build up, carryover and who approves.
Check what leave rules apply where your people work, or ask your accountant or an employment adviser.
Pick where requests will live: a shared spreadsheet or the time-off feature in your payroll and HR software.
Load each person's current balance and start date before anyone submits a request.
Send every request through one approval path and share a team calendar of who is out.
Reconcile balances against payroll each pay period so paid leave is paid correctly.

The software this job takes

Which categories a job needs is Editorial assessment; the tools, prices and dates are Verified data.

Prices are each vendor’s published entry plan, recorded from its own pricing page and dated. The example column prices a team of 10: only per-user prices are multiplied; flat and per-account prices are shown as published. Change the team size in the finder.

You need this

Payroll & HR Software

Payroll software pays people, files payroll taxes and keeps employee records.

Tool	Entry price (as published)	Billing unit	Example: team of 10	Free plan	Verified
Gusto	From $49/mo + $6/person	Per person	$109/mo$49 + $6 × 10 people	NoNo — free account setup, no contracts	Sep 17, 2026Vendor pricing
Rippling	Custom quote only	Quote only	Price not publishedQuote only	NoNo	Sep 17, 2026Vendor pricing

Compare all Payroll & HR pricing →Head to head:Gusto vs Rippling2 switching guides Build a decision brief for these →

What to look for

Editorial assessment

Custom leave types You should be able to set up each kind of leave you offer with its own rules. If the tool forces one generic bucket, balances will not match your policy.
Accrual you can configure Check that balances can build up the way your policy says, per pay period or per year, with caps and carryover. Getting this wrong means paying out the wrong amount.
Link to payroll Approved paid leave should reach payroll without retyping. When time off lives in a separate app, someone has to copy it over every pay run.
Employee self-service Staff should see their own balance and request leave from a phone. That cuts the questions about remaining days you answer by hand.
Shared absence calendar Managers need to see overlapping requests before approving them, so a busy week is not left short-staffed.
History and export Keep a record of every request, approval and balance change you can export. You may need it if a balance is ever disputed.

Common mistakes to avoid

Tracking in emails and chats Requests scattered across inboxes get lost, and nobody can see the true balance. Pick one channel for requests from day one.
Skipping the starting balances If you switch tools without loading everyone's current balance, every figure after that is wrong.
Assuming default rules match the law A tool's default accrual settings are not advice. Check what applies where each employee works before you rely on them.
Keeping time off apart from payroll A standalone PTO tracker that does not talk to payroll means paid leave gets entered twice and mistakes slip through.

What to settle before you buy

Which leave types do we offer, and how does each one build up?
Who approves requests, and who covers when that person is out?
Do we already run payroll software that includes time-off tracking?
Do employees work in more than one state or country with different leave rules?
What happens to unused leave at year end or when someone leaves?

Ready to take it to whoever signs off?Turn your shortlist into a one-page decision brief with verified prices, or price the whole job for your team size.

Build a decision brief Open the finder

Frequently asked questions

How do I track employee time off in Excel?

Give each employee a row with their starting balance, then log every approved request with dates and leave type, and subtract it from the balance. It works for a very small team, but it relies on one person keeping it current and does not connect to payroll. Once more than one manager approves leave, the time-off feature in payroll and HR software is usually easier to keep right.

What is the best way to track employee time off?

A setup that works for many small teams is a single request and approval flow with balances that update automatically and feed payroll. Whether that is a spreadsheet or software depends on team size and how many leave rules you apply. To see the software this job takes, open the finder for this job.

Is a PTO tracker a separate app or part of payroll?

It can be either. Many payroll and HR tools include time-off tracking, which avoids copying approved leave into pay runs. The 2 payroll tools we track (Gusto and Rippling) are listed above with their verified entry prices.

Do I need a time off request app for my team?

If requests arrive by text, email and in person, an app gives staff one place to ask and managers one place to approve. Check that it shows each person's balance before they request, so fewer requests need to be turned down.

How we built this page

We start from the job, not the product. The phrasings people search for this job (for example “how to track employee time off”) come from our research into how small and mid-size teams describe it. Which software categories the job takes is our editorial judgment. Every tool, entry price, billing unit and date comes from HelpCompare’s open dataset, recorded from each vendor’s own pricing page; nothing is estimated, and where a vendor publishes no price we say so. We take no affiliate commissions and publish no scores of our own. See our methodology or download the data from Open Data.

More jobs in People

Run payroll Hire and onboard employees Schedule staff shifts All jobs →

Bill Belcamino

Founder and author, HelpCompare

Bill has worked in software and digital marketing for more than 20 years. He spent nine years as an engineer at HP, served as COO scaling a platform past 200,000 users, and ran Google’s $70M/year search syndication partnership at Alot.com. He has bought, trialled, integrated and cancelled more SaaS tools than he can count, and started HelpCompare because the real cost of switching tools is the part nobody covers.

“I’ve sat on both sides of the table: the agency recommending the tool and the client paying for it.”

Researched and fact-checked by the HelpCompare team. No paid sponsorships, no affiliate commissions.

Browse by category

Recently verified

Recently updated switching guides

What every guide covers

Pricing data

Original research

Open data

Security & compliance

Where your team works

Side by side

How to track employee time off in a small business

How to track time off and leave, step by step

The software this job takes

Payroll & HR Software

What to look for

Common mistakes to avoid

What to settle before you buy

Frequently asked questions

How do I track employee time off in Excel?

What is the best way to track employee time off?

Is a PTO tracker a separate app or part of payroll?

Do I need a time off request app for my team?

How we built this page

More jobs in People

From shortlist to switched

Bill Belcamino