Absence management software
Absence management software is one place to record and approve every kind of time off, so the answer to "who is off next Tuesday?" is on a screen instead of in somebody's head.
Holiday, sickness, maternity, the ones with no tidy name. Booked in the app, approved in a click, and kept for six years because that is now the law.
Paper forms had a good run
The record went to personal calendars
Upgrade to leave management software and your whole team gets their own personal calendar and annual summary. They can see and track their absences and plan their year ahead. Finally, they get a clear picture of when and why they are absent from work.
Using Timetastic's calendar integrations, staff can feed all absences instantly into their regular work calendar, a big step up from those holiday forms and outdated spreadsheets.
App and email notifications
One place to record and track every absence in the business. Requests from the desktop or the mobile app, approved or declined straight from an email, and every action lands on the calendars the same second.
See clearly, who’s off and when
The wallchart is the first thing you see when you log in. Who is off, who is in, where the clashes are. It gives you instant access to up-to-date absence information, offering a new at-a-glance view of who's absent and when. Use it to plan better, make sure busy periods are covered and avoid awkward clashes.
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Absence at a glance
The interactive wallchart shows you staff absences and availability in one simple calendar-like view.
Only the essentials
Get every detail you need, and nothing you don't. Simply scan in seconds to get the full picture with leave type icons, approval status, and more.
Book absence
Need to make or manage an absence request? Do it right from the wallchart screen. It is a visual gateway for all your absence management needs.
Pending requests
Manage absence requests that are yet to be approved and assess overlaps with other team members availability in one view. This greatly simplifies approvals for managers.
What makes Timetastic so special?
It’s everything you need, and nothing you don’t. For over 10 years, we’ve been building the best absence management software for small businesses. If you want absence management software that’s simple and easy to use, you have to double down on making sure each and every feature fights for its place. We all know software apps that are so jam-packed with features they are almost unusable—that’s not Timetastic.
Why does Timetastic work?
Timetastic works because it’s a single place for all your absence management-related tasks. It’s where you make your holiday requests, where you record sickness absence or any other staff absence. You can identify absence trends, update your calendars and keep track of annual allowances.
All those employee absence-related tasks that you currently use spreadsheets and calendars for, that’s what Timetastic replaces.
And it’s all wrapped up into one simple piece of software—on your desktop and a native mobile app, where everyone has access to the information they need.
Absence is not a small problem any more
UK employees took an average of 9.4 days off sick last year. It was 7.8 days in 2023 and 5.8 before the pandemic, so it has risen 62% in six years and it is the highest figure in over fifteen years.
Across the country that is 148.8 million working days, 4.4 days for every worker, and 2% of all working hours. Minor illness accounts for 30% of it, musculoskeletal problems for 15%, mental health for 9%.
Two things changed on 6 April 2026. Statutory sick pay now starts on day one instead of day four, and the lower earnings limit is gone, so part-time and lower-paid staff qualify for the first time. And every employer now has to keep records showing that annual leave and holiday pay were handled correctly, and keep them for six years from the day they were made. Getting that wrong is a criminal offence carrying an unlimited fine, enforced by the Fair Work Agency.
Acas sets out four things that have to be in those records: holiday taken, holiday carried over from previous years, holiday pay, and any payment in lieu of unused holiday when somebody leaves. A spreadsheet can hold all four. The question is whether it will still be there, intact and readable, in 2032.
A full set of features, so you can manage time off properly
Track, record and report every kind of staff absence: holidays, sickness, maternity, and the ones with no tidy name. Below, the features that replace the spreadsheet columns you built to cope.
You’d like a day off?
To manage absence better, you can group your staff into departments, set minimum staffing levels and highlight clashes before approving requests for time off.
For what reason?
Handle all types of absence - holidays, sickness, maternity, paternity, unpaid leave, compassionate. Create your own custom leave types here!
It’s a bank holiday
Timetastic comes pre-loaded with public holidays from over 250 countries and 3,000 regions. All you need to do is assign the relevant country to a staff member and their calendar is sorted.
Who’s working?
Create a work schedule for each of your team. You’ll be able to see who’s working and when. No more, "Who’s in next Tuesday?", you’ve got a schedule everyone can see and plan from. Want to go further and track time and attendance, with clock-ins and timesheets? Rota & Time Clock picks up where this leaves off.
Leave management software FAQs
A leave management system, or absence management system, is an easy-to-use platform that allows employees to view their holiday allowance and request time off – all in one place! It also helps managers approve requests and see who is taking time off, making it easier than ever before to assign resources and staff, especially during busier times of the year.
What absence management software does is take all those different pieces of the jigsaw puzzle to arrange time off work—spreadsheets, paper forms, a shared calendar, and maybe back-and-forth on email. And puts it all into one single system that’s always up to date. A single source of truth, full visibility.
So when your employees request a day off, all your calendars are instantly updated, and the reasons for employee absences are tracked, you can then identify patterns, report on them and spot absence trends if you need to. Holiday allowance is tracked and reconciled, so all your employees can see how much time off they have left and when they’ve taken time off. A whole lot of visibility that you can’t get from spreadsheets!
Certainly will. In fact, saving time is the number one benefit that our customers get from using Timetastic.
The first big saving is that your employees request time off in the desktop or mobile app. So they don’t have to pester you with questions or start a back-and-forth on email.
Next, you’ll have all those employee holiday requests and bookings instantly show on your calendar, so you can see which employees are off and when. You don’t need to update a spreadsheet or record of how much sickness they have taken or how much holiday allowance someone has left. All that is done for you, instantly. Just think about how much time that saves, and how many interruptions it’ll spare you.
Absence management software helps keep a record of any type of employee leave you can think of. Holiday entitlement, sick pay, sickness tracking. You can record maternity, paternity, compassionate and bereavement leave, anything you want. You can create as many different types of employee leave as you like in Timetastic.
Happier with Timetastic
Timetastic makes it easy for you to manage staff absence, rotas, attendance, HR documents and more. Whatever the size of your business, whichever industry you are in, Timetastic simply works.
Read how people like you use Timetastic
Their stories tell us how they took control of absence management and became healthier, happier places to work.
Watch how Timetastic works in just 10 minutes
Take a quick tour of the platform at your own pace and discover how easy it is to manage time off, schedules, and team visibility.
Book a live demo with the Timetastic team
Have questions or want a closer look? Book a live demo and we’ll show you how Timetastic can fit your team.
Mobile apps too
Your team can make use of the leave management software apps for Android and Apple to book an absence. No need to be in the office, everything is instantly tracked!
275,000+ people book their time off here
Set it up for your team before the next request lands.