Requesting and approving vacation

As an employee: requesting vacation

1. On the left, open Absences. On the right is the New request card — it is always open; there is no button you have to click to expand it.
2. Under Type, choose Vacation.
3. Enter From and To.
4. Optionally a Comment (“Flight is booked”, “Cover agreed with Ali”).
5. Click Submit request.

The result: The request has the status Requested and is visible to management. As soon as a decision has been made, Zeitflex sends a push notification to the app — also for a decline, with the reason in the text. This notification depends on the personal switch Approvals & decisions under Notifications; anyone who switches it off only sees the decision in the list.

When you submit, Zeitflex checks one thing: do you yourself already have an open or approved request for this period? If so, “A request already exists for this period” appears and the new one is not created. If you want to extend a vacation, withdraw the old request (see below) and submit a new one covering the full span.

Half days cannot be selected in the request form. If you only need Friday morning off, agree this with management and write it in the comment — the day is then counted as a full day.

As management: deciding

1. Open Absences. On the Dashboard, the Open requests tile shows how many there are.
2. Find the request in the list. The list shows the current calendar year, sorted by start date — the latest period is at the top, not the open requests first. Each row shows person, type, period, comment and the status as a chip; there is nothing to expand.
3. In the same row, click Approve or Decline.

When declining, a reason is required — at least three characters; without text the request cannot be declined. The person sees the reason in their notification. This is not an obstacle but a help: a refusal without a reason costs more trust than the refusal itself. When approving, Zeitflex asks nothing further — one click, done; there is no comment field there.

Zeitflex does not send management a separate notification when a new request comes in. The open requests are in the list and on the dashboard — one look a day is enough.

These absence types exist

Approved vacation and sick days flow as counts into the month-end close and the payroll export. Whether and how they are paid is decided by the payroll office — Zeitflex prepares payroll; it does not run it.

How the entitlement is calculated

The annual entitlement is stored for each person under Employees in the field Vacation days per year. When a person is created, 20 days are preset there; 0 to 60 are allowed. This number is the only source — Zeitflex knows no collective agreement and no works agreement.

From the annual entitlement, Zeitflex calculates the entitlement for the current calendar year using the pro-rata principle in twelfths:

• Only full months of employment count. A month is full if the start date is on the 1st of that month at the latest and the leaving date (if entered) is on the last day of the month at the earliest.
• Share = annual entitlement × full months ÷ 12.
• The result is rounded commercially to half days.

Taken are all approved days of the types Vacation and Special leave in the calendar year. Remaining vacation is entitlement minus taken, again rounded to half days. The person sees their remaining vacation in the mobile app in the Times tab as a ring next to the overtime balance. In the browser this figure is currently not available; there you find the list of requests under Absences.

Approved vacation days do not change the target hours: the overtime balance still calculates actual minus unchanged target. If your business credits vacation days as target hours, that is handled by the payroll office — Zeitflex supplies the number of days for it.

Withdrawing or revoking a request

A request is never deleted. It changes to the status Cancelled and stays in the list — with the original comment and an appended note. There are two ways to do this, and who may take which depends on the status of the request:

How to withdraw your own open request:

1. Open Absences.
2. Click Withdraw on the request.
3. Confirm. The note “Withdrawn by the requester.” is appended.

How management revokes an approved request:

1. Open Absences and the request.
2. Click Revoke and enter the reason (“Vacation postponed at the employee's request”, “wrong period entered”).
3. Confirm. The person concerned receives the notification “Entry revoked” with the reason — otherwise a day is missing from the balance at the end of the month and nobody knows why.

If the affected month is already locked for payroll or exported, an approved day in it can no longer be revoked — not even by the owner. Zeitflex then shows the notice that the month is closed. In this case the correction goes through the payroll office and takes effect in the following month; see Corrections after locking. A request that spans two months (28 March to 3 April) is locked as soon as one of the two months is locked.

An exception applies to sick notes and child-sick reports: because they count as approved immediately without a decision, the person may withdraw them themselves on the day they were entered — a typo in the date is thus sorted out in ten seconds. From the next calendar day on, only management can revoke them, with a reason.

The tax adviser can only view absences — they can neither decide nor revoke.

What Zeitflex can do for vacation — and what it cannot

Can:

• Request, approval, decline with a notification to the person
• Check whether the person already has a request of their own for the period
• Conflict display against the shift plan — as a breach for approved vacation, as a warning for a request still open
• Store the vacation entitlement per person, pro-rated in twelfths by full months of employment
• Entitlement and remaining vacation per person in the mobile app (Times tab)
• Withdrawal and revocation with a note instead of deletion
• Approved absences in your own calendar subscription if you wish (see Your shift plan in your own calendar)

Cannot:

• No team calendar across all people as a monthly or annual view
• No blackout periods (“no vacation during stocktaking week”)
• No automatic carry-over into the following year with an expiry date
• No minimum staffing rule (“at most two away at the same time”)
• No working-day count — calendar days are counted
• No half days in the request form
• No remaining vacation in the browser — the figure is only available in the mobile app

The business makes the decision; Zeitflex records it.

Frequently asked questions

I accidentally requested two weeks instead of one. What now?

As long as the request has the status Requested, withdraw it yourself and submit it again. If it is already approved, ask management to revoke it — they need a reason for that; “Period entered incorrectly” is enough.

Why does the vacation balance show fewer days than the contract says?

Two possible causes. First: the person joined during the current year; then Zeitflex only counts full months of employment. Second: an approved request ran over a weekend, and Zeitflex counted the calendar days. Both are described in the section “How the entitlement is calculated”.

Two colleagues have requested the same period. Does Zeitflex warn me?

No. The overlap check only applies to requests from the same person. Whether two people may be absent at the same time is something you see in the list of absences — and in the shift plan, as soon as a shift is on a day with an absence.

The month is closed, but the vacation was not taken after all.

The approved day is part of the exported month and can no longer be revoked in Zeitflex. Report the change to the payroll office; it corrects it in the following month. The request remains as a record.

Still stuck?

Write to support. If someone is absent at short notice, the orderly way for the shift is a shift swap; sick days work differently from vacation, see Sick note.