Overview
You can now set up and manage your company's leave allowances yourself, directly from Settings. A leave allowance (sometimes called a leave policy) is a set of rules for one kind of leave, for example "Annual leave – 28 days, resets 1 April" or "Company sick pay – 10 days, rolling 12 months".
Each leave allowance is built on a leave type (Annual leave, Sick leave, Training, Birthday leave and so on). Once created, allowances are given to staff through their contracts, and they then control:
which leave staff can book, and which leave managers can add for them
how much leave each staff member has, and how it is deducted
how leave hours appear on the rota and in payroll
Note: Leave allowance settings are being rolled out gradually. If you can't see Leave allowances in your Settings, speak to your Account Manager.
What's new
Self-serve leave allowances: add, edit and delete leave allowances from Settings → Leave allowances, without needing to contact Florence.
Leave types: every allowance is linked to a standard leave type, which sets its icon and how it's reported (holiday, sickness or training).
More than one allowance per leave type: for example, separate annual leave allowances for full-time and part-time contracts, or for different pay rates.
Choose which allowances staff can request: decide whether staff can request each type of leave themselves from the app, or whether only managers can add it.
Pay rate mapping: limit an allowance to particular pay rates, and add the external name and reference your payroll provider uses.
Counts towards contracted hours: choose whether leave hours count towards a staff member's contracted hours.
Leave allowance defaults: set which allowances new contracts receive automatically, by tier, role or location.
Who can do what
Action | Permission needed |
View, add, edit and delete leave allowances in Settings | Manage all Employee Contracts |
View contract defaults (including leave allowance defaults) | Manage all Employee Contracts |
Add, change or delete contract defaults, and move existing contracts onto them | Manage all Employee Contracts and Manage Payroll |
Add or edit leave on the rota or the Leave page | Your usual leave management permissions (unchanged) |
Request leave from the Florence Go app | Staff can request any allowance they hold that is marked Workers can request this leave |
Create a brand-new leave type | Florence only – contact your Account Manager |
Users who only have access to certain locations can only add or change contract defaults for those locations. Company-wide defaults can only be changed by company-level users.
Permissions are managed under Staff → Manage permissions for each manager.
How it all fits together
Leave type – the kind of leave (e.g. Annual leave). Florence maintains this list.
Leave allowance – your company's rules for that leave (e.g. "Annual leave – full time", 202 hours, resets 1 April). You set these up.
Contract defaults – decide which leave allowances each contract receives.
Staff member's allowance – once a contract holds an allowance, the staff member can have leave booked against it, and their balance is tracked.
Leave → rota → payroll – booked leave shows on the rota and flows into the payroll run using the allowance's settings.
Important: a staff member can only have leave booked against an allowance their contract holds. If a leave type isn't showing for someone, check their contract has that allowance.
Available leave types
When you add a leave allowance you pick from the leave types available in your region. In the UK these include:
Annual leave
Accrued leave (for zero-hours or bank staff who build up holiday as they work)
Sick leave
Unpaid or statutory sick leave
Training
Compassionate leave
Paid suspension
Birthday leave
Time off in lieu
If you need a leave type that isn't listed, contact your Account Manager and Florence can add it.
Adding a leave allowance
Go to Settings and select Leave allowances.
Click New leave allowance. The Add new leave allowance panel opens.
Choose a Leave type.
Enter a Name that your managers and staff will recognise, e.g. "Annual leave – nights".
Set whether the leave is Paid.
Tick Workers can request this leave if staff should be able to request it from the app.
Tick Counts towards contracted hours if leave hours should count towards the staff member's contracted hours.
Fill in the configuration section for that leave type (see below).
Optionally, add one or more Pay rate mappings (see below).
Click Add leave allowance.
Paid, Workers can request and Counts towards contracted hours are pre-filled with sensible defaults for the leave type you choose, but you can change them.
Configuration options by leave type
Annual leave
Annual allowance (hours) – the full-time yearly allowance.
Reset month and Reset day – when the leave year starts again, e.g. 1 April.
Deduction method – Exact hours (missing a 4-hour shift deducts 4 hours) or Whole days (a whole day is deducted regardless of shift length; several shifts on one day count as 1 day).
Sick leave
Sick allowance – in days or hours, depending on the deduction method.
Period type – Fixed (resets annually) on a reset date you choose, or Rolling (12 months).
Deduction method – Exact hours or Whole days. Payroll always records the exact hours missed.
Accrued leave
Accrual multiplier – how much leave is earned per hour worked (e.g. 0.1207).
Usage method – Paid automatically (accrued holiday is paid out with each pay run) or Paid on request (staff build up a balance and book it as leave). Staff can only request accrued leave from the app when it is set to Paid on request.
Other leave types (e.g. Birthday leave, Time off in lieu, Training)
Allowance (hours) – leave blank for unlimited leave.
Reset month and Reset day where a limit applies.
Pay rate mapping
Pay rate mappings let you control which contracts an allowance applies to, and how it is labelled for your payroll provider.
Pay rate – choose a pay rate to limit the allowance to contracts on that rate, or None (applies to all).
External name and External reference (optional) – the name and code your payroll provider uses for this leave. These are used in payroll exports.
You can add several pay rates to one allowance. Once staff hold the allowance, existing pay rates can't be removed from it, but you can still add new ones.
Editing or deleting a leave allowance
Edit: click the pencil icon (or the row) on the Leave allowances page. The Edit leave allowance panel opens. Make your changes and click Save.
Delete: click the bin icon and confirm. You can only delete an allowance that isn't held by any staff. If it is, the bin icon is greyed out with the message "This leave allowance is assigned to workers so cannot be deleted". Move staff onto a different allowance via their contracts or contract defaults first.
Deleted allowances are kept in the background so past leave and payroll history stays accurate.
Giving staff a leave allowance
Leave allowances are given to staff through their contracts, using contract defaults.
Go to Settings → Contract defaults and open the Leave allowances tab.
Click Add a default.
Choose who it applies to – a tier, role and/or location, or leave them blank for everyone.
Select the leave allowances this group should receive.
Choose whether the default is overridable – i.e. whether managers can change the allowances on an individual contract.
Save.
New contracts pick up the matching default automatically. Where more than one default applies, the most specific one wins – for example a "Nurses at Rose House" default replaces the company-wide default for those staff.
Updating existing contracts
When you change a leave allowance default, you'll be asked which existing contracts should move onto the updated allowances, and from what date. Changes can't be backdated earlier than your most recently finalised payroll run.
If contracted hours are also changing, you'll be asked what should happen to annual leave:
Keep allowances as they are, or
Recalculate for the new hours – pro-rata the annual allowance to the new hours, keeping the hours already used.
Contracts moving off zero hours stop accruing leave the day before the change, and any accrued balance is paid in the next pay run.
You can also view and change an individual staff member's allowances from their Employment details tab, where the default allows it.
How allowances link to leave
Managers adding leave on the rota or the Leave page choose from the allowances the staff member currently holds. Leave created by a manager is auto-approved.
Staff requesting leave in the Florence Go app only see allowances they hold that are marked Workers can request this leave. Accrued leave is only shown if it's set to Paid on request.
Each request is deducted from the matching allowance using its deduction method, and the staff member's balance updates.
Leave cards on the rota and in the app use the leave type's icon and your allowance's name.
Annual leave counts towards your location's weekly annual leave budget on the rota, and sickness counts towards Bradford factor scores.
How allowances link to payroll
Paid allowances send leave hours into the payroll run. Unpaid allowances (including statutory sick leave) are left out of paid hours.
External name and reference from the pay rate mapping are used to label leave in your payroll export, so it matches your payroll provider.
Counts towards contracted hours decides whether leave hours are counted towards a staff member's contracted hours when payroll works out their hours (and in the rota's weekly hours summary).
Leave is grouped in payroll reports and the SSP report by its leave type's category – holiday, sickness or training.
Accrued leave set to Paid automatically is paid out with each pay run; set to Paid on request, it's paid when the leave is taken.
Frequently asked questions
I can't see a leave type when adding leave for a staff member.
The staff member's contract doesn't hold that allowance, or the allowance doesn't cover their pay rate. Check their Employment details and your contract defaults.
A staff member can't request a type of leave in the app.
Check the allowance has Workers can request this leave ticked, and that the staff member holds it. For accrued leave, the usage method must be Paid on request.
Can I have two annual leave allowances?
Yes. Create one for each group (e.g. full time and part time), then use contract defaults or pay rate mappings to give each group the right one.
Why can't I delete an allowance?
It's held by at least one staff member. Move them onto another allowance first.
Can I rename a leave type?
Leave types are shared across Florence, so they can't be renamed – but you can name your leave allowance however you like.