> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.hitaji360.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Leave Overview

> Leave management in Hitaji 360 lets you define the kinds of leave your organisation grants, hand each employee an allowance, let people apply for time…

Leave management in Hitaji 360 lets you define the kinds of leave your organisation grants, hand each employee an allowance, let people apply for time off, route those applications through approval, and keep an accurate running balance for everyone. It is built so that every change to an employee's balance — an allocation, an approved application, an encashment, an expiry — is recorded as a journal entry, so the numbers always reconcile and you can always see *why* a balance is what it is.

This page explains how the moving parts fit together. The detail pages linked at the bottom cover each part in depth.

**You'll find this at:** `/hr/leave` (the leave requests list is the day-to-day home; the other pages branch off from here and from HR settings)

> Hitaji 360 is **multi-business**. Leave balances, allocations, holiday lists, and requests all belong to a specific business. Before you allocate, apply, approve, or run a report, check the business switcher at the top of the app — a balance allocated in the wrong business will not show up where you expect it.

> 📷 *Screenshot: the Leave Management list with its All / Pending / Approved / Rejected tabs — to be added.*

***

## The big picture

Leave flows through five connected ideas. Reading them in order is the quickest way to understand the whole module.

1. **Leave types** define *what kinds* of leave exist (Annual, Sick, Maternity, Leave Without Pay, and so on) and the rules that govern them — how they accrue, whether they carry forward, daily limits, whether they are paid. Leave types are the master settings.
2. **Leave policies** layer approval and notice rules (notice period, max consecutive days, whether an approver is required). A policy is what an employee actually holds a balance under, and its name is the label shown across the leave screens. Note that in the current build the **Leave Types** and **Leave Policies** lists are maintained independently — creating a type does not create a policy, and the policy form has no leave-type selector. See [Leave policies](/hr/user/leave/leave-policies).
3. **Allocations / entitlements** give an actual employee an actual number of days under a policy, for a period. This is what creates a usable balance. Allocations are done in bulk through the **Leave Control Panel**.
4. **Leave requests (applications)** are when an employee — or HR on their behalf — asks for specific dates off. The request moves through statuses and, on approval, deducts from the balance.
5. **Balances and the leave ledger** are the running record. The ledger is an append-only journal of every credit and debit; the balance is the convenient running total. If they ever disagree, the ledger is the source of truth.

Around these sit two supporting concepts:

* **Holiday lists** record public holidays and weekly off-days. They influence how many working days a leave application actually consumes and how payroll counts days.
* **The leave approver** is the person (recorded on the employment record) who is expected to action an employee's requests.

***

## How a balance is built and spent

A balance is **scoped to an employment contract**, not just to the person. If someone is rehired on a new contract, they start with a fresh balance; the old contract's balance stays on record for reporting. A person holding two concurrent contracts in two different businesses keeps two separate balances.

Each balance row tracks several figures (all in days):

| Figure        | What it means                                                          |
| ------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Opening**   | Carried-in balance at the start of the year/period.                    |
| **Accrued**   | Days added — by a bulk allocation or by the earned-leave accrual cron. |
| **Used**      | Days consumed by approved leave applications.                          |
| **Adjusted**  | Manual plus/minus corrections.                                         |
| **Available** | The usable figure: opening + accrued − used + adjusted.                |

Every one of those movements is written to the **leave ledger** as a signed entry (`+` adds, `−` deducts). The balance row is a fast cache that Hitaji keeps in step with the ledger on every write.

> **Important — leave is deducted on *approval*, not on submission.** When an employee submits a request it goes to *Pending Approval* and **nothing is taken from the balance yet**. The deduction (a negative ledger entry plus an increment to *Used*) happens at the moment the request is **Approved** (or auto-approved when no approval rule applies). This is why there is no "provisional hold" to release if a pending request is rejected or cancelled — there was never a deduction to reverse.

***

## The request lifecycle at a glance

| Status (what you see) | Meaning                                | Balance impact                                                                 |
| --------------------- | -------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| **Draft**             | Saved but not submitted.               | None.                                                                          |
| **Pending Approval**  | Submitted and waiting for an approver. | None yet.                                                                      |
| **Approved**          | Cleared.                               | **Deducted** on approval.                                                      |
| **Rejected**          | Turned down by an approver.            | None (nothing was deducted).                                                   |
| **Cancelled**         | Withdrawn.                             | If it had already been approved, the deduction is **refunded** to the balance. |

The full mechanics — half-days, validations, who can approve — are on the [Applying for & approving leave](/hr/user/leave/leave-requests) page.

***

## Who can do what

Leave uses its own permission module (`hr-leave`) alongside the general HR permissions. The slugs that matter across the module:

| Permission         | Grants                                                                           |
| ------------------ | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| `hr-leave:read`    | View the leave requests list, a request's detail, and the leave calendar.        |
| `hr-leave:approve` | Approve or reject submitted requests.                                            |
| `hr-leave:config`  | Configure leave types, allocate leave (control panel), and manage holiday lists. |
| `hr:read`          | View aggregated leave reports (balance & ledger) for all employees.              |
| `hr:write`         | Raise (and cancel) leave requests on behalf of employees.                        |
| `hr:admin`         | Create/edit leave policies and entitlements; adjust an individual balance.       |

A dedicated leave-approver role typically holds `hr-leave:read` and `hr-leave:approve` but not the broader `hr:read`, so it can see and action the queue without seeing the rest of HR. Employees use the [self-service portal](/hr/user/self-service/my-leave), which is governed separately and only ever shows a person their own data.

***

## Where each piece lives

| Page                                                      | Route                        |
| --------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------- |
| Leave requests (list)                                     | `/hr/leave`                  |
| A single request                                          | `/hr/leave-requests/:id`     |
| Leave types, policies, entitlements, periods, block lists | `/settings/erp/people/leave` |
| Leave Control Panel (allocations)                         | `/hr/leave/allocations`      |
| Leave calendar                                            | `/hr/leave/calendar`         |
| Holiday lists                                             | `/hr/holidays`               |
| Leave balance report                                      | `/hr/reports/leave-balance`  |
| Leave ledger report                                       | `/hr/reports/leave-ledger`   |

***

## Related

* [Leave types & settings](/hr/user/leave/leave-types) — define the kinds of leave and their rules
* [Leave policies](/hr/user/leave/leave-policies) — the approval/notice layer and how it relates to a type
* [Leave allocations (control panel)](/hr/user/leave/leave-allocations) — give employees their entitlements
* [Applying for & approving leave](/hr/user/leave/leave-requests) — the day-to-day request workflow
* [Leave calendar](/hr/user/leave/leave-calendar) — see who is off and when
* [Holiday lists](/hr/user/leave/holiday-lists) — public holidays and weekly offs
* [Leave reports (balance & ledger)](/hr/user/leave/leave-reports) — audit balances and movements
* [My leave (self-service)](/hr/user/self-service/my-leave) — the employee's own view
* [Employment records & contracts](/hr/user/employees/employment-and-contracts) — where the leave approver is set