Managing your workforce effectively requires a complete and accurate overview of both worked and leave hours. With Rentman’s leave management feature, instead of juggling multiple systems, manually transferring data, or dealing with incomplete availability records, you can ensure that your crew’s schedules remain accurate, up-to-date, and accessible in one place.
Using this feature, crew members can submit leave requests, managers can review and approve them within the platform, and all leave types—such as vacation, sick leave, and training days—are recorded in a structured and reportable way. This provides a reliable and legally compliant log of worked and non-worked hours, which can be easily exported for payroll and bookkeeping.
In this article, you will learn how to use your crew's leave requests in Rentman, which eliminates redundant data entry and reduces errors caused by inconsistent records across different tools.
Real-life scenarios
Here are some examples of how this functionality can be used:
Getting started with leave management
To start using leave management, there are a few things you need to do first: configuring the user role permissions and setting up hour types.
User role permissions
Crew members should have appropriate rights and access to modules that are relevant to them. You first need to give your crew members permission to access leave management in the Configuration module. For more details on leave management permissions, check out this article.
Hour types
The next step in getting started with leave management is setting up hour types. Rentman offers different default hour types to help track various kinds of work and time off. Here is what each one means:
- Worked Hours: the hours a crew member has worked.
- Holiday: time off for vacations or holidays.
- Correction: previously used to fix incorrect time registrations or adjust overtime paid instead of converted to time off. This hour type is now obsolete. You can use the Crew members module to add or reduce a specific leave balance. We recommend using our approving time registrations flow to adjust incorrect time registrations for your crew members.
- Sick leave: the hours a crew member is unavailable due to illness.
- Compensation: time off earned by working extra hours. For example, if someone worked longer on Monday, they can take Friday afternoon off as compensation.
Edit default hour types
You can also edit the default hour types to set whether they should have a balance, require approval, block availability, or include a payroll code:
- Navigate to the Configuration module > Time registration and leave > Hour types
- Select an hour type and click on Edit.
- Configure the options.
- Confirm
- Save
Color: the assigned color for the hour type. You can choose a unique color for each type, which will be displayed in the crew members' Leave Balance Totals column and the details sidebar.
Payroll code: the code linked to payroll for accurate processing when exporting hours.
Has hourly balance: determine if the hour type has a balance and whether it needs to be deducted from an employee’s balance (e.g., for vacation or compensation hours). If set to Yes, you must select a start date for when the balance begins tracking hours.
Block availability: determine whether this hour type prevents crew members from being scheduled during this time (e.g., for sick leave or holidays).
Requires approval: determine if a manager needs to approve the hours before they are recorded.
Add custom leave types
Besides the default hour types, you can add more leave types to your workspace specific to your company, such as training days. Here is how you can add custom leave types.
- Navigate to the Configuration module > Time registration and leave > Hour types
- Click on + Add leave type.
- Configure the options.
- Confirm
- Save
Payroll code: the code linked to payroll for accurate processing when exporting hours.
Has hourly balance: determine if the hour type has a balance and whether it needs to be deducted from an employee’s balance (e.g., for vacation or compensation hours). If set to Yes, you must select a start date for when the balance begins tracking hours.
Block availability: determine whether this hour type prevents crew members from being scheduled during this time (e.g., for sick leave or holidays).
Requires approval: determine if a manager needs to approve the hours before they are recorded.
Leave balance
Leave balances show how much of each leave type a crew member has available and can request. This helps track vacation days, sick leave, and other time off.
View leave balance
Crew members module
- Navigate to the people Crew members module and double-click on a crew member.
- Go to the Administrative tab > Leave balance
You can also add the Leave balance totals column to your crew members' overview or open the Details sidebar for each crew member to check their leave balance.
Leave requests sub-module
You can see your own leave balance in the Leave requests sub-module:
- Navigate to the Leave requests sub-module.
- Click on My leave balance.
- Click on each leave type to see the details.
You can view a crew member's leave balance within their leave requests:
- Navigate to the Leave requests sub-module.
- Select a leave request.
- Click on Details to see the details.
You can also see the leave balance when submitting a new leave request:
- Start a new leave request.
- Click on View leave balance.
Update crew members' leave balance
With the right permissions, you can update leave balances individually for each employee or import them in bulk.
Update a single crew member's leave balance
- Navigate to the Crew members module and double-click on a crew member.
- Go to the Administrative tab > Leave balance
- Click on + ADD BALANCE.
- Select the leave type.
- Add hours.
- Choose an effective date (the date when the leave balance change takes effect).
- Save
Update crew members' leave balance in bulk with importing
You can update your crew members' leave balances in bulk using the import function in Rentman. Your import file should include at least the following columns:
- Crew member's name
- Leave type
- Current leave balance
You can download an example file in Rentman:
- Navigate to the Crew members module.
- Click on the small arrow next to Import and choose Import crew member leave balances.
- In the pop-up that appears, click on Download an example file.
- If you are importing leave balances for multiple leave types (e.g., holiday and parental leave), include a separate row for each leave type per crew member. Each row should contain the balance for one specific leave type.
Once your import file is ready, you can start importing:
- Navigate to the Crew members module.
- Click on the small arrow next to the Import and choose Import crew member leave balances.
- Match columns and click on Next step.
- Check the data in the preview.
- Click on Import.
To learn how to update your databases in bulk, read this article. Once the update is complete, the old leave balances will be replaced with the new values from your import file.
Submit a leave request
Once you set up your leave types, add leave balances, and give the crew members the proper permissions, they can start submitting leave requests. Read this article to learn how to submit leave requests.
Edit a leave request
You can edit a leave request after it has been submitted to change the details. Read this article to learn how.
Manage leave requests
Once a leave request is submitted, you can approve, decline, or cancel it. This article explains how you can do it.
Leave requests sub-module
In the Leave requests sub-module, you can track all crew members' leave requests. You can export data for payroll processing, filter by hour type or crew member, and use other general filters in Rentman. Additionally, you can create and manage leave requests directly from this sub-module.