Accruewell documentation

Accruewell keeps leave balances, requests and approvals in Jira. Each person has a balance per leave type, worked out from your policy; requests count working days and go to the person's manager; the team calendar shows who's off.

Open it from Apps > Leave (Accruewell). Leave admins also find it under Jira settings > Apps > Accruewell.

Set up in five steps (leave admins)

1. Leave types. The first time, press "Start with Vacation, Sick leave and Personal day". Edit them under Settings > Leave types and policies, or add your own (study leave, parental leave, time in lieu). Per type:
   • Has a balance: untick for leave that is only counted (jury duty, parental leave).
   • Needs approval: untick for leave that is recorded straight away (sick leave reported after the fact).
   • Private: colleagues see it on the team calendar as "Away".
   • Half days, notice (a warning when the first day is too soon), long requests (a warning above N days), counts toward team limits.
2. Policies. Each type has a default policy and, optionally, a policy per location:
   • How days are earned: all at the start of the leave year, or a twelfth each month (credited on the first or last day of the month), or not at all (adjustments only).
   • Days per leave year for a full-time person; FTE scaling for part-timers.
   • Leave year: from the 1st of any month, or each person's start-date anniversary (a 29 February start celebrates on 28 February in common years).
   • Pro-rating: joiners and leavers get a share by calendar days employed in the leave year (366 in a leap year). Monthly accrual pro-rates the month they join or leave.
   • Rounding: whole, half or quarter days, or two decimals. Monthly accrual rounds the running total, so 20 days a year is always 20, never 12 x 1.5.
   • Carry-over: at most N days into the next leave year (empty: all of it; 0: none). Carried days can expire after N months; leave taken in the new year uses carried days first.
   • Maximum balance: earning pauses while the balance is at the cap.
   • Probation: N months from the start date in which days are earned but can't be booked, or in which nothing is earned (then the year is pro-rated from the end of probation).
   • Long service: extra days a year after N completed years.
   • Below zero: how far a request may take the balance below zero.
   • Requests can use: days earned by each day of leave (a monthly accrual can be booked ahead as long as it is earned by then), or everything the leave year will earn.
3. Locations. Name, time zone, working days and public holidays: presets for the United States (federal or common business days), England and Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Canada, Germany, France, Spain, the Netherlands, Australia and New Zealand, with each country's substitute-day rule. Switch off any preset day and add your own (one-off or every year, full or half day). The time zone decides when a day starts for people there: which accruals are in and which leave is already taken.
4. People. Add people one by one or import a CSV: person, manager, location, team, start date, end date, FTE (people and managers by email or Jira account id; press Check first, it changes nothing). Part-timers can have their own working days.
5. Opening balances and rules. Settings > Opening balances: each person's balance on the tracking start date (CSV: person, leave type, days). Settings > Rules and notifications: the tracking start, HR approvers, leave admin groups (Jira admins only), team limits, the notification work item and reminders.

How balances work

Balances are never stored. Each time you open one, Accruewell replays the policy from the tracking start: the opening balance, grants or monthly accruals, carry-over at each leave-year boundary, expiries, adjustments and every day of approved leave. So:

• Changing a policy, a person's start date or FTE, or a location's holidays fixes every balance at once.
• History on each balance card shows every line with the running balance.
• Balance today counts what has happened by today in the person's time zone. Available is what can still be requested: booked and waiting requests are taken off, and for "days earned by each day of leave" it never lets a later booked day go below zero.
• A request across the end of a leave year draws on both years.

Adjustments (Settings or a person's History, leave admins only) add or remove days on a date with a reason, for example days in lieu or a payout. Policy changes apply from the tracking start; to freeze past years, move the tracking start forward and import the balances on that date as opening balances.

Requesting leave

My leave > Request leave: pick the type and the first and last day; for half days pick "Afternoon only" on the first day or "Morning only" on the last (or a single half day). The preview shows the working days (weekends, holidays and non-working days are left out), what's available before and after, any warnings (short notice, a team limit, carried days about to expire) and who approves. Send it; your approver is told by Jira email if your admin set a notification work item.

You can cancel a waiting request any time, and approved leave before it starts (unless your admin turned that off).

Approving

Approvals lists what waits on you, with the balance before and after and who else on the team is off. Approve, or reject with a reason. You see requests:

• from the people who report to you (only direct reports, unless your admin allows the whole chain);
• as a delegate, between the dates a manager delegated to you;
• as the manager's manager, when the manager is on approved leave today with no delegate;
• as an HR approver or leave admin, for everyone.

Nobody approves their own leave. If a request no longer fits the balance, approval is refused; leave admins can approve anyway (it is logged).

While I'm away: pick a delegate and dates. New requests go to the delegate first.

Record leave for someone: managers, HR approvers and leave admins record leave for a person (for example a sick day called in). It is recorded as approved and the person is told.

Too many people off

Settings > Rules: a limit per team ("at most 2 of Platform off on the same day") and a default percentage for teams without one. Waiting requests count unless you untick it. The requester and approver see the days and names; or set "Refuse the request". Leave types can opt out (for example parental leave).

Team calendar

A month per screen, one row per person, grouped by team: approved leave in the type's color, half days as half blocks, weekends and non-working days in grey, each location's holidays in orange, days over a team limit in red in the header. Colleagues see private types as "Away" and don't see waiting requests; you see your own, your reports' and (as an admin) everyone's. Admins can limit the calendar to managers and leave admins.

Exports

Balances and exports > Download balances (CSV): one row per person and leave type with the leave year, carried in, entitlement, earned to date, adjustments, taken, booked, waiting, expired, balance today, projected year end and available. Download requests (CSV) for a date range. The files are built in your browser. If your browser blocks the download, open "Download didn't start?" and copy the text.

Notifications

Jira can only email people about a work item. Pick one in Settings > Rules and notifications (for example HR-1 "Leave notifications") in a project everyone who uses Accruewell can browse. Accruewell then emails approvers about new requests and reminders, and requesters about decisions, through Jira's own notify email. Without one, everything works in the app; the Approvals tab shows a count. If Jira refuses a notification (for example the person can't browse that work item) the audit trail says so.

Handing over work while you're away

Accruewell decides whether you can be away and keeps the record. It does not move your Jira work. If you also use Awaywell (Great Work's out-of-office app, https://greatwork.company/apps/awaywell), plan the same dates there and pick a cover: Awaywell hands your open work items and approvals to the cover and back. The two apps don't talk to each other; enter the dates in both.

Privacy

Sick leave can be health information. Mark it private so colleagues see only "Away", and ask people not to write medical details in notes. Everything stays in your Jira site's Forge storage; see the privacy policy.

When the subscription lapses

Balances, history and exports stay readable. Requests, approvals, adjustments, imports and reminders stop until the subscription is active again.