How it works · Time off
How a leave request goes from a phone to the payroll.
Requests, approvals, balances and accrual, public holidays, work patterns and sick notes under the BCEA rules. Who acts at each stage, what andteam checks for them, and what reaches the payroll.
The stages, and who acts at each
An employee asks for time off in the portal or through the concierge. andteam counts the working days against their own work pattern and the public holidays, checks the request, and sends it to the right approver. Once approved, the leave is on the record, on the team calendar and on the next payroll period's changes. Your organisation chooses who holds the balances: andteam, with its own accrual, or the payroll.
Asking
- Step 1 of 7.EmployeePicks the leave type and dates, in the portal or the conciergeA half day is a morning or an afternoon
- Step 2 of 7.andteamCounts the working days and checks the request before it is sentBalance, overlaps, eligibility and public holidays
Deciding
- Step 3 of 7.ManagerApproves, or declines with a reasonSees who else in the team is off those days
- Step 4 of 7.andteamMoves to the next step, if your chain has one, then tells the employeeWith no approval steps, a request is approved at once
After approval
- Step 5 of 7.andteamRecords the leave against the balance and shows it on the team calendar
- Step 6 of 7.EmployeeUploads a medical certificate, where the sick leave rules ask for oneHR sees the file; the manager sees only whether it is in
- Step 7 of 7.andteamAdds the leave to the next payroll period's changes
Roles and permissions
- Employees request leave for themselves, and can withdraw a request while it is waiting.
- Approvers are whoever your approval chain names: the line manager by default, a named person, or a group. A delegate can decide while the manager is away. Nobody approves their own leave, even when the chain points back at them, and a delegate cannot approve their own.
- HR sets the leave types and policies, adjusts balances and loads opening balances.
- Other systems can file a request through the API in the employee’s name. It goes through the same chain, and the employee is told who filed it.
Rules and settings
- Who holds the balances. In andteam, balances accrue from each leave type’s policy and a request over the balance is refused. In the payroll, the payroll owns each balance and andteam shows its figure with its as-at date, with pending days beside it. Nobody can request leave until this is chosen.
- Leave types are your own list, each with a payroll code. A South African set is provided: annual, sick, family responsibility, bereavement, maternity, parental, study and unpaid leave. Each type says whether contractors can take it.
- Work patterns. A person works set weekdays, or an on-off shift cycle with hours per shift, and leave counts only their scheduled days. A leave type can be counted in days or in hours.
- Public holidays come from the company’s country calendar. A holiday on a working day is not counted as leave, and the request names it.
- Withdrawing. An employee withdraws a request while it is waiting. When someone leaves, approved leave after their last day is cancelled and reversed, in the balance and in the payroll.
- Declining needs a written reason, and the employee sees it. A declined request is closed; the employee asks again if they want to.
What andteam does, and what people decide
andteam counts the days, applies the work pattern and the public holidays, checks the balance, overlaps and eligibility, routes the request, accrues balances where andteam holds them, and puts approved leave on the payroll’s changes. It checks again at approval, so a request that is no longer valid, for example after a contract has ended, is not approved by mistake.
People decide whether leave is granted. HR decides the policies and any adjustment to a balance.
Where AI helps. An employee can ask the concierge for leave in their own words. The AI reads only the dates and the type. andteam builds the card with the days, the date they are back, any public holiday by name and the balance, and only Confirm books it. The AI never needs, and never sees, the reason someone is ill: medical certificates are filed unread.
Notifications and reminders
- The approver is told when a request arrives, and reminded if it waits. An approval that keeps waiting escalates to the approver’s own manager.
- The employee is told when their leave is approved, declined or withdrawn.
- If an approver leaves, their waiting requests move to the new manager.
South African specifics
The South African set follows the BCEA. Annual leave accrues at 1.25 days a month. Sick leave is 30 days in each 36-month cycle, with one day for every 26 days worked in the first six months. Family responsibility leave is 3 days a year, from four months of employment. Public holidays follow the Public Holidays Act, including a holiday that falls on a Sunday moving to the Monday.
For sick leave, a medical certificate is asked for under the BCEA’s defaults: more than two consecutive days, or more than two occasions in eight weeks. HR sees the file, managers see only whether it has been received, and the payroll never sees it. Health information never goes to the AI.
For developers
Approved time off is in the API as dates only, never the leave type, so a rostering or access system knows who is away without learning why. See Time off for rostering and List time off.
Step-by-step help for every screen is in the andteam help centre, inside the product.