Homebase supports a variety of time off tracking needs. Please click any of the links below to understand how to set up the Time Off tracking that is best for your business.
Time Off Dashboard
On the Homebase web app, Click Team > Time Off to access your time off dashboard. This is where you can:
- Update your time off settings
- Add time off
- Manage time off requests
- View upcoming time off
- View approved and taken time off
- Create and manage time off policies
The sections below provide details on how each area of the Homebase Time Off system work.
Creating a Time Off Policy
- Customers on the Plus or All-in-One Plan may create as many PTO or Paid Sick Leave (PSL) policies as they need.
Employees may only be added to one PTO or one PSL policy. - On the Homebase web app, Click Team > Time Off to access your time off dashboard.
In the policies section, click Create Policy.
You’ll see a 4-step process to create your PTO policy.
Step 1: Policy Details
- Name your policy. Make it clear so that you understand the policy you’re tracking. For instance, “Full Time Employees” or “Manager PTO” are clear names.
- Select the accrual method. This is how your team members will earn their PTO or Paid Sick Leave hours. We offer several accrual types.
- Hourly: This is a good choice for your hourly team members. Your team members will earn a certain number of hours per hour worked.
- Fixed: This is a good choice for salaried employees.
- For Fixed policies, we offer 3 additional configurations
- All at once: This grants your team members PTO or PSL hours at the beginning of every calendar year (January 1st).
- By pay period: This grants your team members PTO or PSL hours by pay period. For example, if you've set up your pay periods to be biweekly, your team members will receive their PTO or PSL hours every 2 weeks.
- By anniversary date: This grants your team members PTO or PSL hours at each of their anniversary dates. For example, if an employee started their job on 4/1/2020, under this policy, they will receive their accrued hours on 4/1/2021.
Step 2: Optional Settings
These are some details you may consider for your policy.
- Maximum Balance limits the maximum number of hours any employee can have in their balance. This helps limit your PTO liability.
- Negative Balances - When you check this option, employees will not be able to request PTO or PSL if the request exceeds their current balance.
- Carryover Limit - If you allow employees to carry PTO or PSL balances from one calendar year to the next, you can set a limit to how much. As with maximum balance, this limits your liability.
- Waiting Period - This allows you to prevent new hires from accruing PTO hours for a set number of days after their Start Date. This does not prevent team members from requesting time off.
- Tenure Accrual - This allows you to award additional time to employee’s accruals based on the selected anniversary.
- The amount you enter in this area represents the Total hours the employee will earn, not additional hours.
- Hourly Accrual - Tenure accrual updates occur in the pay period following the employee’s anniversary date.
- Fixed Annual with accruals by pay period- Tenure accrual updates occur in the pay period following the employee’s anniversary date.
- Fixed Annual with accrual awarded all at once at the start of the year. This is the ONLY method in which the award doesn’t happen automatically on anniversary date. Note: If you award the full amount of PTO at the start of each year, you incur the liability to pay out the full amount should the employee leave. We don't recommend this option for most businesses.
Step 3: Enrolling Employees
- Once you’ve created your policy, you may enroll one, some, or many employees to the policy.
- Click the name of the employee and you’ll see them move to the assigned column.
- Need to remove an employee from a policy? Click the X in the assigned column.
- Note: Employees can only be assigned to one PTO and one PSL policy at a time. This makes balances and requests easier to track.
- Need to move an employee from one policy to another? You can do that too. Be sure to bring their balance with them.
Step 4: Starting Balances
- You can adjust balances here. If it’s a new policy, you can leave the balance at zero and the employee will begin accruing hours based on your settings.
- If you have tenure accrual, you will be asked to confirm the employee’s start date so that the tenure bonus can adjust correctly on their anniversary date.
Click Create Policy
- Employees will not be notified that you’ve added them to a policy.
- Employees will see their time off balances when they request time off.
Adding Employees & Adjusting Hours on a PTO Policy
It’s simple to modify a policy, add or remove employees, or adjust hours on any policy.
- On the Policies section of the Dashboard, click the Pencil icon.
- Click the "Continue" button to get to the area you would like to update. Be sure to click "Continue" and "Create" to save your changes.
- To archive a policy, click on the trash can icon in the Policies tab.
- The policy will be removed.
- Enrolled employees will be removed from the policy.
- Employees can no longer request time off against this policy.
- Employee balances are preserved in the balances tab.
Adding a PTO or PSL Request Without a Policy
Note: We are rolling out this feature to a limited set of customers so it might not be available to all users at this time.
We've added the ability for employees to request a PTO or Paid Sick Leave time off without having to create a policy. No set up is needed to enable this feature; it is available immediately to all customers on the Plus and All-in-one plans.
Like regular PTO or Paid Sick Leave time offs, these time off requests are displayed on the schedule page, on time sheets, and on the time off dashboard. Employee balances are not tracked for these requests. If you would like to track your employee's PTO or Paid Sick Leave balance in Homebase, create a PTO or Paid Sick Leave policies for your employees first.
Adding a Time Off Request
On the Time Off Dashboard, click Add Time Off
- Select the Employee
- Select the category
- If you select Unpaid Time Off you will be asked to select a reason
- Add a note if you wish
- Add a Start Date and End Date
- You can update the number of hours included in whole days off. Click the edit link next to the total hours.
- If the employee needs only a portion of a day off, toggle the whole day widget to off and add the start and end times for the request
When you add time off:
- The employee is notified per their Homebase preferences
- The time off is added to the schedule
Managing Time Off Requests
Employees can request time offs via the mobile app or the web
Time off requests are not approved until a manager specifically approves them
- Requests appear in the requests section of the Time Off Dashboard.
- Click the check to approve a request
- Click the X to reject a request
- Click the > to see details of a request.
- Need to edit a request? Click the pencil icon on the details view to edit any aspect of the request. Note: Editing time off requests is coming in mid-November, 2020
When you approved a time off:
- The employee is notified per their Homebase preferences
- The time off is added to the schedule
When you reject a time off, the employee is notified.
Editing Time Off Requests
Managers can edit a pending, upcoming, or a past time off request.
- Navigate to the Time Off dashboard and click on the "View History" link
- Click on the pencil icon to edit a time off request
- Click Save to finalize the changes to a time off request
If you edit a PTO or Paid Sick Leave request, the employee's balance is automatically adjusted based on the edits. The edited time offs will also be reflected on the Time Off dashboard, on Schedule, and on Timesheets.
The employee is not notified when managers make changes to time off requests.
Time Off Tracking in Timesheets
Approved paid time off requests appear in the PTO column of the timesheets once the approved date has passed.
No time card is created for time off.
Time Off Tracking in the Schedule
- Approved time off requests of all types appear in the schedule.
- You will see the type of time off and the times requested (if not the whole day).
Time Off Settings
- Click the Gear icon on the Time Off Dashboard to access Time Off Settings.
- Customers on the Plus or All-in-One plan can set limits to the number of requested time offs that can be submitted or approved on a single day.
- Customers on the Plus or All-in-One plan can set a minimum number of advance notice days for time off requests.
Access & Permissions
Owners, general managers and managers can add and manage time off requests and policies.
PTO Glossary:
All of these PTO terminology can be confusing. Here’s a quick glossary.
Tenure: The amount of time an employee has been at a company. Employees sometimes receive more paid time off after certain tenure milestones.
Maximum Balance: This is the maximum amount of paid time off that an employee is allowed to have under a specific policy. You can set a maximum balance to any policy you create on Homebase.
Negative Balance: Some companies allow employees to take paid time off that they haven’t yet accrued, resulting in a negative paid time off balance. You can prevent this when creating a policy. If a policy disallows negative balances, employees are unable to request paid time off if they do not have sufficient hours accrued.
Carryover Limit: This dictates the number of hours of paid time off that employees can carryover to a new calendar year.
Homebase provides time off tracking for customers on all pricing tiers.
Plus or All-in-One Plan
In addition to tracking unpaid time off, you can create time off policies, set restrictions on request, track time offs in timesheets, and set up FFCRA (Covid-19) compliant sick policies.
Basic (Free) or Essentials Plan
On the basic plan, you can use the time off tracker to manage unpaid time off. You can add time offs from the dashboard, manage time off requests, and see time off history. Approved time offs appear in the schedule. All employees may request time off.
