Leave types and policies
A leave type in KAMI is an activity — the same object that defines working time, configured to be requestable and to accrue a balance. That is why leave shows up on the same calendar, in the same approvals queue, and in the same timesheet as attendance: to KAMI it is one system.
This article covers creating a leave type and the settings that decide how much leave people get, when they get it, and what happens to what they do not use.
Where: Settings › Calendar › Activities You need: the calendar settings right
When to use this, and when not to
| You want to | Use |
|---|---|
| Create a kind of leave people request — annual, sick, bereavement | A leave activity, here |
| Record a company-wide day off nobody requests | Bulk leave on Holiday rules |
| Set who approves leave | The approval matrix — see Approving attendance and leave requests |
| Change one person's balance | Balance adjustment — see Leave balances and accrual |
| Turn unused leave into money | Leave conversion and encashment |
Before You Start
Decide three things before you open the form, because they are awkward to change once people hold balances:
- Does it accrue, or is it granted? Accrual builds a balance over time. A granted type starts at a fixed number each year.
- When does the year turn over? Hire date, a fixed date for everyone, or the employee's birthday.
- What happens to what is unused? Carried over, capped, expired, or paid out.
How to create a leave type
Create an activity and set it as requestable — meaning employees ask for it, rather than the company rostering it. Then work through the settings that matter:
What kind of time it is
- Does this count as work? Leave normally does not, which is what keeps it out of worked-hours totals while still being paid.
- Paid or unpaid, and for paid leave the wage basis — basic or gross, daily or hourly. Gross includes allowances that basic does not, so this choice changes what a leave day is worth.
How much people can take
- Maximum days per request — a cap on a single request, not on the balance.
- Duration types allowed — full day, half day, partial day, or a range of dates.
- Restrict to a gender, where a leave type is legally gender-specific (maternity, paternity).
How the balance builds
- Accrual interval — monthly, quarterly, bi-annually or annually.
- Accrual limit — the number of days the balance is capped at. Without a cap, balances grow indefinitely.
- Default balance — a starting balance granted before any accrual, for types that are given rather than earned.
- Probation period — how many days a new joiner receives no leave. You can choose whether leave still accrues during probation and lands as soon as it ends, or does not accrue at all. The first is more generous and much more common.
When the year resets
- Anniversary type — hire date (each employee on their own cycle), a fixed date for everyone (
MM/DD), or birthday. - With a fixed date you can prorate a partial first year, so someone hired in October does not receive a full year's entitlement in their first two months.
What happens to unused days
- Carry over type — calculated from the anniversary date or the award date.
- Carry over limit — the maximum days carried. Leave it empty and everything carries over; set it to 0 and nothing does. An empty field and a zero mean opposite things here, which catches people out.
- Carry over expiry — how many months the carried days survive. The default is 3.
- Expiry month, and an offset to push the carry-over period back by a number of months after the anniversary.
How it is requested and approved
- Auto-approve — requests are granted as soon as they are made, with no approver. Reasonable for unpaid or informal types; rarely right for annual leave.
- Balance at request time — when someone books leave for a future date, does KAMI check the balance they have now, or the balance they will have then? Booking December leave in January only works if this is set to the balance at the time of the request.
- Terms — a list of things the employee must agree to before taking this leave.
- Requires consent — whether the employee must consent to the company scheduling this activity for them.
⚠️ Terms are enforced in the browser only. They are a prompt, not a control. Do not rely on them for anything legally load-bearing — put that in a company policy that records acknowledgement.
What Happens Next
- The leave type appears for employees to request, and in the approvals queue for whoever approves it.
- Balances begin accruing at the interval you set, subject to probation.
- Approved leave appears on the team calendar and in the timesheet, and paid leave carries its wage basis into payroll.
- Existing events do not pick up a changed setting. They snapshot their settings when they are calculated, so a change applies to new events only until you refresh the old ones — see How timekeeping is calculated.
Tips
- Set an accrual limit on every accruing type. Uncapped balances become a liability on the books and a shock when someone leaves and encashes eight years of annual leave.
- Prefer hire-date anniversaries for fairness, fixed dates for administration. Fixed dates make reporting and encashment simple because everyone's year ends together; hire dates are fairer to new joiners. Pick deliberately rather than by default.
- Accrue during probation. Not accruing saves very little and is the leave setting employees resent most.
- Test a new type on one person before releasing it. Create it, set a balance, book a day, and check the resulting event and payslip line. A wrong wage basis is invisible until payday.
Troubleshooting / FAQ
Q: Someone cannot request leave they clearly have. Check probation first, then whether the request exceeds the maximum days per request, then whether the type is restricted by gender. If the request is for a future date, check the balance-at-request-time setting.
Q: Balances did not carry over at year end. Check the carry-over limit — 0 means nothing carries. Then check the expiry: carried days expire after a set number of months, so they may have carried and then lapsed.
Q: A new joiner received a full year's leave immediately. Either the type grants a default balance rather than accruing, or fixed-date proration is off.