Absences and Leave
Book holiday, log sickness, record TOIL, approve leave requests and keep an eye on everyone's balances
On this page
Attendance & Leave is where you book time off, approve requests from your crew, and see at a glance who's away and how much holiday everyone has left.
Premium
Absences, leave, TOIL and leave requests are part of Premium. On Core you'll see the Attendance & Leave section with a lock.
Where do I find it?
Click Team & kit in the top bar, then Staff › Attendance & time › Attendance & Leave. The page has its own row of tabs under the header:
- Requests — leave, sickness and TOIL waiting for a decision (with a count when there are any)
- Absence calendar — the whole team on a month grid, with a Who's off? card above it
- Leave — annual-leave balances for everyone
- Overtime & TOIL — banked TOIL hours across the team (see Overtime & TOIL)
- Sickness — sickness records for this year (see Sickness)
Leave rules sits on the right of the row and shows your club's leave settings.
Start with the card
The green Who's off? card tells you who's off today, who's off at some point this week, how many requests are waiting, and how much leave the team still has to take before the leave year ends. Tap Awaiting decision to jump to the requests, or Leave still to take to see the balances.
What's the difference between an absence and TOIL?
TurfWise keeps two kinds of time off, and both count as someone being off.
- An absence covers one or more whole days — annual leave, sickness, training and so on. Annual leave comes out of their holiday allowance in days.
- TOIL (time off in lieu) is a number of hours on a single date, taken from the hours they've banked by working overtime. It comes out of their TOIL balance, not their holiday.
Who can take TOIL?
Only people set up for TOIL can use it. On their profile, click Edit profile and under Overtime configuration choose TOIL (time off in lieu). Their overtime then banks as TOIL at the rate you pick.
How do I book someone off?
Click Add absence
It's the dark green button in the page header on Attendance & Leave and on the Staff directory, and under Quick actions on a person's profile.
Pick the person and the type
Choose the Staff member, then an Absence type: Annual Leave, Sick Leave, Compassionate Leave, Unauthorised Absence, Unpaid Leave, Training, Maternity Leave, Paternity Leave or TOIL.
Set the dates
For most types, enter a Start date and End date — the Duration updates as you go. For a single day you can tick Half day, which books half a day (0.5) against their allowance.
For TOIL, set the hours
Choose TOIL and you'll get a single Date and an Hours box instead (whole hours, from 1 to 24). The hours come off their TOIL balance when you save.
Add a reason and save
Add a Reason and any Additional notes. For sick leave you can tick Doctor's note provided. Then click Create absence (or Record TOIL).
An absence you book as a manager is approved straight away — it doesn't sit in the Requests inbox waiting for you.
TOIL can't overdraw
If someone hasn't banked enough hours, TurfWise won't record the TOIL — you'll see "Staff member does not have enough TOIL banked." Pending requests count against the balance too.
How do I approve leave requests from the crew?
Your crew request holiday, sickness and TOIL from the TurfWise mobile app. Their requests land in Attendance & Leave › Requests.
Open Requests
It opens on Pending. You can also look at Approved, Declined and Cancelled & reversed, and filter by employee or type.
Read the consequences before you click
Each request shows the dates and exactly what it will cost — for example "Annual leave: 12 → 9 days (−3)". It also warns you if other requests are already pending against the same balance, or if the dates clash with other leave or work.
Approve or decline
Click Approve or Decline. Click Detail to see when it was submitted, the reason and who decided it.
Each request is labelled Employee request or Manager recorded, so you can tell what the crew asked for from what you booked yourself.
TurfWise won't let a balance go negative
If approving would overspend someone's holiday or TOIL, the request says so and TurfWise refuses the approval. You also can't approve your own leave or TOIL — another manager has to.
Changed your mind after approving?
Approved requests have a Cancel button (for leave) or Reverse button (for TOIL). The days or hours go back into their balance.
How do I change or cancel booked leave?
Click the coloured bar on the Absence calendar, or the booking in the person's Attendance & leave tab. The Edit absence window opens.
- To change the dates, type, reason or status, edit it and click Save changes.
- To shorten it, change the end date and click Save changes.
- To cancel it outright, click Cancel this leave and refund the days, then Yes, cancel the leave. The booking is removed and the days go back on the allowance — this can't be undone.
Two things you can't edit
You can't move a booking to a different person, or switch it between a half day and a whole day. For either, cancel it and book it again.
Clicking a TOIL bar opens the TOIL instead, where you can approve, decline or reverse it.
How do I see who's off?
The Absence calendar tab shows the whole team for a month, one row per person, with a coloured bar for each absence. Use the arrows to change month, or Today to come back. The legend shows the colours in use that month, and each person's row shows how many working days they're off (a ~ means a booking runs over the month edge, so the count is approximate).
A bar with a dashed outline is awaiting approval. It's shown so you can see what's been asked for, but nobody is counted as off until it's approved.
For one person across the year, open their profile and go to Attendance & leave. You'll see their Allowance, Remaining, Carryover and TOIL, a Yearly planner grid, and their full absence history.
How does leave show in the Planner?
Booked leave and TOIL feed straight into the Planner, so you can see who's off when you're giving out work. A whole day off takes the person out for the day. A part day — like two hours of TOIL — reduces their available hours for that day, and is shown at the end of their shift (the usual early finish).
See The Planner for more.
How do I check holiday balances?
The Leave tab shows Total entitlement, Booked and Remaining across the team, then a bar for each person with days left, days booked against allowance and any carried-over days.
On a person's profile, if they started part way through the leave year you'll also see their pro-rata figure for this year.
Overtime & TOIL and Sickness
The Overtime & TOIL tab lists everyone's banked TOIL hours and whether they're on TOIL or paid overtime. See Overtime & TOIL.
The Sickness tab gives this year's sickness picture for the team — episodes, working days lost and who has been off. It's only shown to managers and admins. See Sickness.
Where do I set our leave rules?
Leave rules, at the end of the tab row, shows your current rules: annual-leave mode, default allowance, how bank holidays work, carryover and when your leave year starts.
To change them, click your initial at the right of the top bar, then Settings › People & attendance › Annual leave, and use the Annual Leave Configuration panel. You can choose between:
- 28 Days (Bank Holidays Bookable) — bank holidays are normal working days unless booked off
- 20 Days + Bank Holidays — 20 days' leave, with the 8 bank holidays off automatically
In the same panel you set your Holiday Year Period and Holiday Carryover — whether unused days can be carried over, the maximum, and how long people have to use them. When you change the mode, TurfWise asks whether to update existing staff who are on the default allowance.
A person's own allowance is set on their profile under Edit profile › Holiday allowance (days).
How is leave paid?
Below it, How leave is paid lists each kind of leave — annual leave, TOIL taken, sickness, training, compassionate, maternity, paternity, unpaid leave, unauthorised absence and shift swaps. Set each to Paid, Unpaid or leave it Not set, then Save. Nothing is set until you choose.
The payroll export and Send to payroll / GM use these: paid and unpaid leave hours get their own columns, and only leave that's Not set is asked about before the week is sent. A leave request in the Requests inbox shows Paid, Unpaid or Management must confirm the same way.
Can I record someone as late?
Yes. On their profile, click Mark as late and enter the date, their rostered start and the time they actually arrived. Lateness isn't an absence — it doesn't touch their leave — and it's listed separately under Lateness on their Attendance & leave tab.