Overview
The Leave page shows an employee's leave history and current balances. From here you can view, create, and manage annual leave, sick leave, time in lieu, and other leave records for the current and past financial years.
The page displays:
- Leave balance widgets — showing remaining annual leave and sick leave entitlement for the current period.
- Leave bar chart — a visual summary of leave taken versus entitlement.
- Leave records table — all leave entries with dates, type, status, and duration.
Leave Types
Annual Leave
Full-time employees accrue annual leave at 20 days per year (4 weeks), pro-rated from their employment start date. This is the National Employment Standards minimum. You can override the entitlement per employee on their Employment Details page.
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All workers are entitled to a minimum of 5.6 weeks' paid annual leave per year. For full-time employees working 5 days a week, this equals 28 days — the statutory maximum.
The default in Beeswax for UK employees is 28 days. Employers may include bank holidays within this entitlement or offer them on top. You can customise each employee's entitlement on their Employment Details page.
Part-time workers receive a pro-rated entitlement. For example, an employee working 3 days per week is entitled to 3 × 5.6 = 16.8 days.
Reference: GOV.UK — Holiday entitlement
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Sick Leave
Full-time employees accrue 10 days of paid personal/carer's leave per year under the National Employment Standards. The sick leave entitlement can be overridden per employee on their Employment Details page.
Sick leave is tracked against a rolling balance. Unused sick leave accumulates year on year.
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Other Leave Types
Beeswax can also record leave types such as Time in Lieu, compassionate leave, bereavement leave, parental leave, maternity leave, paternity leave, and unpaid leave. The available balance treatment depends on the leave type and your account settings.
In the UK, sick leave tracking in Beeswax is for your internal records. The statutory obligation is Statutory Sick Pay (SSP), which is handled separately in payroll.
The default sick leave allowance for UK employees is 8 days. This can be overridden per employee on their Employment Details page to match your company's policy.
SSP key points (from 6 April 2026):
- Paid from the first day of sickness (no waiting period).
- £123.25 per week or 80% of average weekly earnings, whichever is lower.
- Payable for up to 28 weeks.
Reference: GOV.UK — Statutory Sick Pay
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Creating a Leave Record
Click Add Leave (or Request Leave) to open the form.
- Choose the leave type.
- Enter the First day off and Last day off, including both dates.
- For a half day, select Part of a day? and choose morning or afternoon. For a longer booking, you can start with an afternoon or finish with a morning.
- Check the summary: working days requested, when you return, available balance and balance after approval.
- Add an optional note and select Submit leave request. An authorised approver can select Approve this leave now and Add approved leave.
The calculation uses the company's Monday–Friday workweek, account time zone, configured working hours and regional public holidays. If your regular work pattern differs, contact payroll. Time in Lieu has its own hours-based form.
If a request exceeds your balance or overlaps existing leave, the form explains the issue and keeps your chosen dates. Correct the request before submitting.
Changes, cancellations and approval
Pending requests show Awaiting approval and are not deducted yet. Editing approved leave submits a change for approval; the original dates and balance deduction stay in place until the change is approved. Declining a change keeps the original booking.
Approvers can review dates, the employee's note, balance impact and overlapping team leave. Decline requires a reason, which remains visible on the request. Approval checks the balance again in case other bookings have changed it.
Employees can cancel upcoming leave. Approved leave that has already started must be handled by an administrator, including when a change is pending.
Leave Balances
The annual leave card separates available days, approved days and days awaiting approval. The request summary uses the same calculation and excludes the booking being edited before showing the proposed deduction.
- Annual leave (all regions): the employee's annual entitlement (20 days unless set on their Employment Details) is available for each leave year, prorated from their start date within that year. Approved bookings reduce the year in which they begin. The card also shows next year's available days.
- Time in Lieu: balances are displayed in hours on the Time in Lieu page.
Pending requests do not reserve extra balance. An existing approved booking remains reserved while its proposed change is awaiting approval.
Filtering by Date Range
Use the date range picker to filter leave records by period. By default, the current financial year is shown. You can select a custom range or choose a past financial year to review historical leave.
Leave Year
By default, Beeswax uses your financial year as the leave year. If your leave year runs differently, for example a calendar year from January, an owner or super admin can change it:
- Open Account Settings and edit the business details.
- Under the working hours, choose a month in Leave Year Starts. Choose Financial year to go back to the default.
- Save.
The leave year always starts on the first day of the chosen month. Changing it moves the year for every employee straight away, including the current year. Annual leave balances are recalculated over the new dates. Compassionate, bereavement, parental, maternity and paternity leave stay on the financial year.
Booking leave for next year
For accounts using annual leave-year allowances, employees can request leave in the next leave year before it starts. Each request is checked against the balance of the leave year its first day falls in, so leave booked for next year uses next year's entitlement rather than what is left of this year's. A request that runs past the end of a leave year counts entirely in the year it starts.
Compassionate, bereavement, parental, maternity and paternity leave work the same way, measured over the financial year.
Permissions
| Action | Owner | Super Admin | Manager | Accountant | Basic |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| View leave records | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | Own only |
| Create/approve leave | ✓ | ✓ | Create only ‡ | ✓ | ✗ |
| Request leave | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Delete leave | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ ‡ | ✓ | ✗ |
‡ Manager limits. A Manager can create and delete leave, but cannot approve it — approval is restricted to Owner, Super Admin and Accounts. They also cannot cancel approved leave that has already started.
About the Accounts role. The role picker calls this role Accounts; it is shown here as Accountant. It has full access to payroll, employee and Time in Lieu features. It cannot manage account settings or API tokens, approve payments, or change an account owner's role.
Tips
- Check balances before approving. The leave widget shows the current balance — review it before approving a request to ensure the employee has sufficient entitlement.
- Use the date range filter. Switch between financial years to compare leave patterns year over year.
- Set entitlements early. Make sure each employee's annual leave and sick leave days are correctly configured on their Employment Details page before they start requesting leave.