Time Off

Let people book their own leave, get it approved, see what they have left, and take approved time off out of capacity and expected hours. Time off is available on Pro and Business and is off until an admin turns it on.

Turning it on

Settings → Preferences → Time off (workspace owners and admins):

Setting Options What it does
Time off Off / On Shows the Time → Time off tab to every internal member. Off by default.
Approval Not required / Required Not required by default: bookings are approved as soon as they are made. When required, a member’s request waits for their approvers under Time → Approval. Admins’ own bookings, and bookings an approver makes for someone they approve, are approved straight away. See Approving time off.
Leave year starts January … December The month each yearly allowance runs from. It can only change while no allowances have been set.
Default allowance A number, in days or hours Used for anyone without a personal allowance. Leave it empty to show no allowance.

Workspaces connected to CharlieHR keep booking leave there: Keito shows the synced leave read-only and does not offer native booking. See CharlieHR for the sync.

Configuring booking types

Workspace owners and administrators configure the catalogue under Manage → Time off types. The four familiar types—Annual leave, Sick, Parental and Other—appear automatically, and admins can add or rename types, decide whether new bookings count against allowance, change their order, and archive or restore them.

Archiving is deliberately non-destructive: the type keeps its name on past requests but disappears from the booking form. Changing whether a type counts against allowance affects new bookings only; existing requests retain the rule that applied when they were booked. Public holidays and CharlieHR leave remain system/provider types and are not part of this catalogue.

Booking time off

Open Time → Time off and choose Book time off. Owners and administrators can also choose Book time off beside a person in Team allowances to record dated leave for them.

  1. Pick the first and last day.
  2. Choose one of the active workspace time off types. The preview says whether it counts against your allowance.
  3. Choose Full day, Half day or Hours per day.
  4. Check the per-day preview. Weekends and days you do not work show as not a working day, 0; a public or company holiday shows its name, for example Tue 24 Dec — Winter break (holiday), 0. None of them are deducted; a half day is always half of that day’s hours.
  5. Add a note if you like and book. The toast reads Time off booked, or Request sent for approval when approval is required.

Your bookings are listed under Requests with their status. A request that is waiting says Waiting for approval beneath it; once an approver decides, it names them, for example Approved by Morgan Lee · 4 Oct 2026.

A request cannot overlap leave you already have pending or approved. You can change or cancel your own future or pending time off; past approved leave can only be changed by an admin.

Approving time off

When Approval is Required, a member’s request waits for one of their approvers, the same people who approve their timesheets:

  • Administrators approve anyone’s time off.
  • Managers approve time off for the teammates assigned to them.
  • Nobody approves their own time off. An administrator’s own bookings are approved straight away. A manager’s own request goes to the managers assigned to them, or to administrators if they have none.

When something is waiting, approvers see an amber dot on the Approval tab. The dot counts timesheets and time off. Open Time → Approval and use the Time off section, which lists each waiting request with the person, type, dates, portion, how much it takes and how much they have left after it.

  1. Choose Approve to approve the request, or Reject… to turn it down.
  2. When rejecting, add a Reason (optional) if you like. It is shown to the person and to other approvers. Choose Reject request.

Any one approver decides: the first approve or reject wins. If another approver got there first, or the person changed the request after you opened the page, the toast reads This request has changed and the list refreshes.

The person sees the decision under the request: Approved by Morgan Lee · 4 Oct 2026, or Rejected by Morgan Lee followed by Reason: and the reason. If a member changes the dates, portion or type of leave that has already been decided, it goes back to their approvers; changing only the note does not.

Booking for someone you approve

Time off that an approver books for someone they approve is approved straight away. The approver is recorded as the reviewer, the request reads Approved by Morgan Lee (booked on their behalf), and the person is emailed.

Turning approval off

If an admin switches Approval to Not required while requests are waiting, Keito asks Turn off approval?, for example 3 requests are waiting. Approve them now or leave them for review?

  • Approve all 3 approves every waiting request now.
  • Leave for review keeps them in Time → Approval until someone decides.
  • Cancel leaves approval on.

Either answer turns approval off and is recorded in the audit log. From then on, new bookings are approved as they are made.

Cancelling time off

Choose Cancel time off beside a request, then Cancel time off again to confirm, or Keep it to change your mind. You can cancel your own pending time off and your own future approved time off; past approved leave can only be cancelled by an admin.

Cancelled requests are kept, not deleted. They move to a collapsed Cancelled (n) group under Requests and stop counting towards the balance, capacity and expected hours.

Cancelling approved time off emails the approvers. Withdrawing a request that is still pending emails nobody.

Emails

Email Sent to When
Time off request from Sam Lee The person’s approvers: the managers assigned to them, or administrators if they have none A request is made, or a decided request is changed and goes back for approval
Your time off was approved The person An approver approves the request
Your time off request was not approved The person An approver rejects the request. The reason is included when one was given.
Time off was booked for you The person Someone else books time off for them
Morgan Lee cancelled approved time off Whoever approved it, plus the person’s current approvers; never the person who cancelled Approved time off is cancelled

Request emails link straight to the Time off section of Time → Approval. Every administrator can approve from there, even when the email went to the person’s managers.

Each person chooses which of these they receive under Profile → Notifications → Time off. Both are on by default:

  • Time off requests from people I approve — when someone you approve requests time off, or cancels approved time off.
  • Decisions on my time off — when your time off is approved or not approved, or is booked for you.

Your balance

The balance card shows the current leave year:

  • Allowance — your personal allowance for the year (plus any carry-over or adjustment), or the workspace default.
  • Taken — approved leave before today.
  • Booked — approved leave from today onwards.
  • Pending — requests still awaiting a decision; shown as a projection only.
  • Remaining — allowance minus taken and booked. Going over is allowed and shown as over by X.

Balances are computed live from your requests, in days or hours to match your allowance. A request that crosses the leave-year boundary counts each day in the year it falls in. Rejected and cancelled requests never count.

Holidays

The month calendar marks holidays with a hatched day and the holiday’s name on hover; the day’s label reads Holiday. Holidays come from two places, both set by administrators in Plan → Capacity:

  • the workspace holiday calendar (England and Wales, Ireland or United States federal), and
  • company holidays, workspace-wide days off such as a winter break, added one date at a time.

Holidays never count toward an allowance. A request that spans one deducts a day fewer, and the balance card is never reduced by a holiday. See Capacity Planning for setting them up.

Team allowances (admins)

Below the calendar, admins see a Team allowances table for the leave year with each person’s allowance, carry-over, adjustment, taken, booked and remaining. Use Set allowance to give someone a different amount or unit from the workspace default, to record a carry-over or adjustment, or to enter Already taken leave from before Keito without inventing historical dates. Already taken is added to dated past leave, so do not enter the same leave both ways. Use the row’s Book time off action when the actual dates should be retained. Carry-over and pro-rating are manual in this version.

Time off in your timesheet

Approved time off and holidays lower the hours Keito expects you to log. Your expected hours for a day are your working days or weekly capacity, less holidays and approved time off. No time entries are created for leave.

In Week View:

  • Day headers show a read-only chip: Annual leave 7.5h or Annual leave ½ day for approved leave, Holiday for a public or company holiday, and Off for a weekday you do not work.
  • Expected hours for the week show under Daily totals, for example Expected 18.75h.
  • Fill week on a row adds only the hours still expected, in that row: each day gets its expected hours less everything already logged that day in any row, so a day that is already full gets nothing. The button shows what it will add, for example Fill week (16.75h), and the toast confirms it: Added 16.75h across 3 days. If every day already has its expected hours, nothing is added (No hours added). When your week is empty and you have a single assignment, the offer reads Fill this week with expected hours (37.5h).

Pending time off does not count. It shows no chip, does not lower expected hours or what Fill week adds, and does not stop a reminder.

The weekly timesheet reminder is not sent for a week with no expected hours, for example when you are on approved leave or holidays all week. When leave or a holiday takes part of the week, the reminder says what is still expected, for example You have 16h expected this week and 6h logged.

Where time off is used

  • Plan (Business) subtracts approved time off from each person’s capacity. Pending requests show with a Pending label and never reduce capacity.
  • Timesheets — approved time off lowers expected hours in Week view, Fill week, reminders and the approval checks. See Time off in your timesheet.
  • Dashboard — approved time off and holidays come off available capacity, which utilisation is measured against. See Capacity Planning.
  • Time off never creates time entries and is never billable.

What time off does not do yet

  • Carry-over and pro-rating — Recorded by hand through Set allowance; nothing is calculated for you at the leave-year boundary.
  • Team page, reports and the weekly summary email — These still measure against weekly capacity, without taking out holidays or time off.
  • CharlieHR workspaces — Synced leave is read-only in Keito, and the booking form is not offered.