Absence management software streamlines the processes of requesting and approving time off, sick leaves and other types of absences. Also known as time-off management or leave management software, it helps managers review employee availability in a team calendar, automate leave balance calculations and use analytics to identify absence trends, notice absenteeism and burnout cases.
Modern absence management software is either standalone products or modules of HR suites – complex solutions for HR, payroll, performance management and more. If you are looking for a robust solution for absence management that offers more features and puts the main focus on managing leaves, then standalone software will be the choice for you.
Let’s see what leave management tools are currently available on the market.
Best Standalone Absence Management Software
1. actiPLANS
Key features:
- Leave management
- Automatic PTO accrual
- Powerful reports
- actiTIME integration
actiPLANS offers a transparent and time-saving leave management process. It supports an unlimited number of custom leave types that can be configured to affect PTO or Sick Days balance. With actiPLANS reports, you’ll be able to review your team’s absence history, upcoming leaves or employees’ leave balance changes.
actiPLANS seamlessly integrates with actiTIME, a work time tracking tool. Together they create a robust time and leave time management system that is helpful for HR, team managers, project managers and accountants. A native mobile app for iOS and Android allows you to submit leave requests away from the desk and inform your colleagues if you’re coming in late or leaving early.
2. My HR Toolkit
Key features:
- Employee leave management
- Automatic PTO accrual
- Multiple reports and charts
My HR Toolkit provides managers with comprehensive information on vacations, sick days and other types of leaves taken by the employees. Thanks to reports and charts, managers can identify trends and plan workloads for the future. Automatic Bradford factor calculation helps understand dynamics of the least predictable leave type – sick leave. The tool also calculates holiday entitlements for new employees, full-time and part-time staff automatically. It provides a request approval procedure for an easier leave confirmation. So, this solution is of help not only for HR managers, like its name suggests, but also for team leads and project managers.
3. E-Days
Key features:
- Absence tracking
- Unscheduled time off prediction
- Reports and charts
This employee self-service tool offers a smooth procedure of absence management and measurement. While reducing time expenses on leave planning, it also helps fight absenteeism. The system tracks trends of employee absences and helps identify and prevent unscheduled time off. Managers can view the dynamics on various charts that can be created in the software. Besides, the tool supports automatic calculation of Bradford factor. The system highlights the events of increased absences, helping managers handle absenteeism, plan work ahead and create a healthy and organized work environment.
4. HR Locker
Key features:
- Employee leave management
- Notifications
- Simple PTO balance monitoring
The tool is designed to make the leave management process in companies more efficient: it offers employee self-service features and a transparent attendance tracking process. Once configured for the company’s needs, HR Locker reduces administration overheads related to absence management. System users can see their leave allowance with all necessary details and get informed on leave requests and approvals by email notifications. This way, the leave management process in the company doesn’t take too much time and effort of both managers and regular employees.
5. TimeOff Management
Key features:
- Employee leave management
- Custom leave types
This is an open-source solution for small and medium businesses. It can be hosted on the company’s own server and integrated with other systems. For those who prefer avoiding additional efforts for deploying a time off tracking system, a cloud-hosted option is offered. The software supports custom leave types that can be recorded in the system and then displayed on calendar views for specific users, teams, and date ranges. Managers can limit the number of days that can be taken for each leave type and set up public holidays as non-working days in the system.
Best HR Suite Absence Management Software
6. TimeTac Leave Management
Key features:
- Time tracking
- Absence monitoring
- Simplified leave approval and planning
Leave management module of TimeTac time tracking tool offers a range of helpful features. It supports different leave types, allows absence monitoring, and provides a simple leave approval procedure. The app provides managers with a team calendar overview and statistics for planning future workloads. Compare upcoming work amounts with the available resources, avoid planning something important for public holidays and monitor absences within the team.
7. Staff2
Key features:
- Basic absence management features
- Monitoring of employee tardiness
- Custom leave types
Staff2 is an HR tool for small businesses. Its absence management module provides the core leave time requesting and tracking features: request approval, absence calendar and overview of employees who are in the office. It also allows managers to keep track of employees’ tardiness, including the reasons why they are late for work. The tool also supports custom absence types. It is possible to set up limits for each absence type: define how many consecutive days can be taken for that type and how many instances of that leave an employee can have per year.
8. Access Absence Management
Key features:
- Employee leave management
- Analytics & reports
- Mobile app
This absence management module is a part of Access – complex business solution for HR, payroll, finance management and more. This module allows teams to register and manage their absences using online interface or mobile app. The streamlined leave request process saves time on processing leave requests and notifies the team of the changes in employee schedules.
9. Appogee Leave
Key features:
- Employee leave management
- Sick days tracking
- Reports
Another HR tool with an absence tracking module that helps manage leaves, track sick days and prevent unscheduled absences, and overview trends within the team with the help of informative reports. Its configuration options allow adjusting the tool for specific companies’ needs, reducing leave management time. Appogee offers sickness tracking for better attendance and workload planning. Absence reporting and sick time charts visualize trends and take measures to prevent possible attendance problems.
10. Activ Absence
Key features:
- Online leave planner
- Holiday request management
- Reports
Activ Absence is a module of Active People HR software. There you can track and monitor sick days, see Bradford Factor score, and use reports to review absence trends. It is a good choice for remote and distributed teams – it is multilingual and supports global public holidays.
Benefits of Absence Management Software
Absence management software provides a number of benefits to businesses, managers, HR specialists and employees:
- Streamlined leave requests. No more paper applications, emails and Excel spreadsheets – users can request time off in a few clicks in online software or a mobile app.
- Unlimited leave types and statuses. Use absence management software for tracking uncommon leave types such as family leave, remote work, business trip – whatever suits your needs.
- Reduced leave processing time. After a user requests time off, their manager will be notified right away and will be able to approve the request in a few clicks.
- Smart vacation planning. Employees and managers can review past, current and future leaves in the team calendar, meaning they can prevent them from overlapping.
- Automated paid time off calculations. Define individual or company-wide PTO accrual rules or adjust the balances manually.
- Manage remote and distributed teams. Your employees don’t need to visit the office to ask for time off.
- Leave management on the go. Register absences, vacation requests, team notifications about running late or leaving early – all from your mobile phone.
Ready to Upgrade Absence Management in Your Company?
Absence management software can be expensive, especially, modules of complex HR suites. If you are looking for a full-featured reliable solution with absence management, team calendar, PTO calculations and integrations, try actiPLANS. If you are already an actiTIME user, you can connect the software and enjoy a single business management environment where you can manage time, projects, costs and employee absences. If not, explore actiPLANS with a free 30-day trial.
