Glossary

Every term the Leave Management module uses, in plain language. Where a figure comes from the Labour Act, 2003 (Act 651), the section is cited.

The period

Leave year

The accounting period leave is measured in: a start date, an end date, a carry-over cap, a forfeit date, an approval SLA and a liability ceiling. Created by setup or by closing the previous year, never by looking at a screen.

Carry-over cap

Days an employee may push into the next leave year. Everything above it is forfeited at the close. Default 5.

Forfeit date / forfeit warning

When days above the cap are lost (usually the year end), and how many days ahead the dashboard starts warning (default 60).

Year-end close

HR's explicit act of finishing a leave year: forfeit above the cap, mark the year closed, open the next year, write carried-in days once.

Closed year

A finished leave year. Read-only: no grants, adjustments or recomputation.

Leave types

Leave type

What the employee picks: Annual, Sick, Maternity and so on. Carries a category, five behaviour flags, a default number of days, and the approval stages it requires.

Category

Which standard kind of leave a type behaves as: Annual, Sick, Maternity, Paternity, Compassionate, Study, Unpaid, Other. Supplies defaults for the flags.

Accruing type

The one leave type that is earned month by month, carries over, forfeits and forms a liability. Normally annual leave. The system refuses a second.

Flat allowance

Any non-accruing type. Available in full from day one, not pro-rated, not carried over, not a liability.

Paid / unpaid

An unpaid type is deducted from pay, and months mostly spent on it do not earn accrual on the accruing type.

Certificate threshold

Days beyond which a spell of that type needs a supporting document. Default 3 for sick leave. Reported, not blocking.

Entitlement

Entitlement row

One record per employee per leave year holding the grant, the adjustment total, and everything the accrual computed.

Base entitlement

Days per year before pro-rating: the individual arrangement if typed, otherwise the rank allocation, otherwise the type's default days.

Individual arrangement

An annual or sick figure typed for one employee on the Entitlements page. Wins over the rank and survives a rank change.

Rank allocation

Default days per leave type for everyone on a rank.

Pro-rata factor

The share of the leave year the employee is in service, in whole months. A month counts if at least half of it was served.

Entitled

Base × pro-rata. This year's own allowance.

Accrued

The part of entitled that has been earned so far: completed months of service, in arrears, rounded to the half day.

Carried in

Days brought from the previous year at its close, already capped. Frozen; never recomputed.

Adjustment

A dated, reasoned credit (or claw-back) outside the ordinary entitlement: compensatory (time off in lieu), goodwill, transfer in, correction. Typed against a leave type.

Available

Entitled + carried in + adjusted. Everything granted for the year.

Taken / booked / pending

Approved leave already served / approved leave still to come / requested but undecided. Only the first two are deducted.

Remaining

Available − taken − booked − encashed − forfeited. What can still be booked.

Unbooked

Remaining − pending. Days nobody has even asked for.

Encashed

Days paid out in cash rather than taken. Today only on exit.

Forfeited

Days lost above the cap at the last close.

Accrued untaken

Accrued + carried in + adjusted − taken − encashed − forfeited. The liability in days.

Day rate

The employee's own latest basic pay ÷ 21.67 (260 working days over 12 months).

Liability

Accrued untaken × day rate, per employee, summed. Frozen monthly into a snapshot.

Liability ceiling

The board's tolerance for accrued untaken days. Sets the verdict and the reference line on the trend.

Requests

Request

An employee's application for leave: type, first and last day, half day, reason. Also raised by HR on their behalf.

Decision (approval status)

Whether the request was agreed: Awaiting decision, Approved, Rejected. Written once when the workflow concludes.

Stage (lifecycle status)

Where the request is now: Submitted, Undergoing approval, Scheduled, In progress, Ended, Withdrawn, Expired, Cancelled.

Voided

Withdrawn, Expired or Cancelled. Closed without the leave being served; nothing can act on it again.

Withdrawn

Pulled back by the employee before a decision. Kept on record.

Expired

The start date passed while undecided. Set by the nightly job.

Cancelled

Approved leave the employee will no longer take. Set by an approver, with a reason.

Revert

HR putting a decided request back to Awaiting decision, rebuilding the approval route from the start.

Retro-dated

Filed after the leave began. A control breach for annual and study leave; normal for sick and compassionate.

Half day

A single-day request counted as 0.5.

Resumption date / back at work

The day the employee is due back: the recorded resumption date, or the first working day after the end.

Actual resumption

When the employee actually clocked in again, reconciled nightly from attendance.

Cover

The colleague assigned to hold the desk while the employee is away.

Approval

Reviewer / approver

A person a request is routed to: supervisor, department head, HR Leave Approval Manager, or a reviewer configured on the workflow.

Mandatory reviewer

A reviewer whose decision is required. The request is approved when every mandatory reviewer approves; one rejection ends it.

Sequential / parallel

Whether reviewers must decide in order or may decide in any order. Set on the company's workflow.

HR Leave Approval Manager

The management role whose holder is the HR stage of leave approval. Assigned under Management Roles.

Approval SLA

Working days an approver has, per stage, before a request is late. Default 2. Drives the age colouring on the queue.

Age at stage

Days since the current stage opened, not since submission.

Approvers away

Approvers on approved leave today while holding open requests. Reported with their cover; not routed around.

Coverage

Staffing floor

The minimum number of people a department or sub-unit must keep available. Effective floor is the largest across a department's rules.

Breach / tight / covered

Available staff below the floor / exactly on it / above it.

Critical role

A job title so thin that two holders away together is itself a risk. Matched on the exact job title.

Releasable capacity

What a unit can let go in a week: headcount above the total of its floors, in days.

Compliance and patterns

Statutory rule

A check the records are tested against, carrying the clause it rests on. Types: minimum days, certificate required, taken in year, approval before start, reconciled with payroll.

Labour Act 651, s.20

Annual leave of at least 15 working days.

Labour Act 651, s.57

Maternity leave of at least 12 weeks.

Bradford factor

Spells² × days over the year. Flagged at 200 and above. Frequent short absence scores far above one long spell.

Edge-day share

The share of sick spells starting on a Monday or ending on a Friday, against the 40% chance alone would give.

Unmatched absence

An attendance absence with no approved leave behind it.

Automation

Accrual run

Recomputing every entitlement row. Nightly at 01:30, or by hand.

Snapshot

The month-end liability frozen into a record, for the trend chart. On the 1st at 02:30, or by hand.

Normalise

Converting requests written before the two-status model. Run once after upgrading.

Exit settlement

A proposal to pay out a leaver's accrued untaken days. Authorised and paid separately; only then are days written off.