Our Excel leave planner template is a free and most awesome tool to start tracking absences and all kinds of leave - it’s perfectly suited for smaller teams.

Our template is very customizable and allows you to track unlimited absences in either days or hours. It supports unlimited absence types, tracking in any amount of fractions you wish. It can also track deductible vs non-deductible time separately whilst providing monthly and annual breakdowns per employee per absence.

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Below, we’ll explain how to use the template and explore its customization options.

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Our system streamlines the entire process; enabling employees to request leave as well as view upcoming leave for their team - it provides a huge efficiency boost, with less manager involvement, and eliminates scheduling conflicts within teams.

Managers get notified and can approve leave requests through our web or mobile app. Try it out with a 14-day free trial today!.

And now, back to the Excel template – here’s everything you need to know…

Excel Spreadsheet Absence Tracking Basics

• You should always enter your employee names in the name cells on the first worksheet - the names on the other sheets will automatically appear from there.

Monthly totals for each employee are shown at the end of each row, while yearly totals can be found on a separate tab called “Totals.”

The template may vary slightly depending on the ‘Track absences in’ option selected in the customizations.

Tracking Absence in Days

Absences are recorded by entering the appropriate code into the cell for the day. For instance, to record sick leave, enter “S” in the cell.

A key displaying all the absence types and their corresponding codes is conveniently provided alongside the calendar month.

Non-deductible leave can be registered by setting the deduction to 0 (zero). The absence totals column will contain a sum of all deductible absences which have been taken for that period - non-deductible will be excluded from this figure by default however you can see view totals by absence type.

Tracking Absence in Hours

Enter the number of absence hours into the cell relating to the day of the absence.

Customizing Absence/Leave Types

We assign some default leave types when using the ‘Track absences in Days’ option. All these can be customized in the download page. The defaults include:

• Holiday
• Half Day (AM)
• Half Day (PM)
• Vacation
• Quarter day
• Sick Leave
• Work from home
• and more
• Half days can be recorded by using the HA and HP codes (these count as 0.5 in the totals).

You can customize additional leave types in the advanced section of the download area.

The Totals Tab

If tracking absences in days, the last tab of the template displays the total absences for each employee, along with a breakdown by absence type.

The ‘Absence count’ field shows the total number of absences, counting half days as 0.5. It is the sum of the ‘Absences this month’ column across all months.

Customization Options

Our template is designed to suit most teams with its default settings, but there are several customization options available.

Custom Start Date

You can choose any start date for your leave tracker. The default template covers a full year from the selected start date.

For instance, if your annual leave year follows the financial year (March to April), simply select March as the starting month.

Employees

You can specify any number of employees, whether you have 10, 50, or 100 etc. In the spreadsheet the Employee names are automatically retrieved from the first month (first tab), so you only need to enter them there to have them appear everywhere else.

Working Days

Non-working days are displayed as dark gray cells in the template. These are for visual reference only and don’t affect the calculation of absence totals.

Year

You can define the starting year for your leave planner. Since the template is dynamically generated, it supports any year, including 2024, 2025, and beyond.

Number of Months (Multi-Year)

How many months do you want to track? By default, the template covers 12 months (1 year). You can extend it to create a multi-year calendar by selecting 24 months (2 years) or more.

Track Absences in Days/Hours

This option significantly alters the template’s layout.

When tracking absences in hours, you simply enter the number of hours in a cell, and the totals are calculated based on those hours. This option doesn’t include leave type categories like the ‘days’ template.

Tracking absences in days allows you to specify the absence type by entering a letter in the cell, rather than a number. This option also supports half-day and quarter-day absences (or any fractions you wish), it also includes a breakdown of absences by leave type on the monthly tabs and the totals tab.