> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.ontime.hosai.app/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Leave overview

> The leave lifecycle from policy through balance, request and approval, and how approved leave lands on attendance.

Leave in OnTime runs the same way as everything else: a policy defines what is possible, a balance tracks what is left, a request is filed and approved by a person, and the result rewrites the affected day records.

## The lifecycle

```mermaid theme={null}
flowchart LR
  P[Leave type<br/>quota · accrual · rules] --> B[Balance<br/>per employee per year]
  B --> R[Request<br/>dates + duration]
  R --> A{Approval}
  A -->|approved| D[Day records<br/>set to Leave / Half]
  A -->|approved| B2[Balance debited]
  A -->|rejected| X[Nothing changes]
```

Every step is covered by its own page:

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Types & policies" icon="settings" href="/help/leave/types-and-policies">
    Defining the leave types your organization offers.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Balances & accrual" icon="wallet" href="/help/leave/balances-and-accrual">
    How balances are credited, carried forward and topped up.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Applying" icon="send" href="/help/leave/applying">
    Filing a request — and filing one on someone's behalf.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Approving" icon="check" href="/help/leave/approving">
    The queue, the decision, and what changes when you approve.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

## What a request consumes

The **working days** in a range, not the calendar days. Weekly offs and dates on the organization's holiday calendar are excluded, so a Friday-to-Monday request over a weekend is two days, not four.

Before submitting, the employee sees exactly this: how many working days the range comes to, how many weekend days and holidays were excluded, and what their balance will be afterwards.

## Half days

A leave type can allow half days. When it does, a request can be marked as a **first half** or a **second half**, and the affected date reconciles to `Half` rather than `Leave`.

## Paid and unpaid

Whether a day of leave is still paid is a property of the leave type. Loss of Pay is the unpaid one — a day of LOP produces a day record that payroll counts against pay rather than toward it.

<Note>
  Paidness is set on the leave type in your organization's data, but the leave-policies screen does not currently expose it as an editable field. Ask your OnTime contact if you need a type's paid status changed.
</Note>

## Approval depends on the type

Some leave types need only the employee's manager. Others need a second approval from HR. This is configured **per leave type** — not per employee, not by number of days. The employee is told which chain applies before they submit.

See [How approvals work](/help/concepts/approvals) for the shared rules on scope, two-step chains and the same-actor restriction.

## Comp-off

Comp-off is an ordinary leave type with an unusual source: instead of accruing on a schedule, it is credited when an employee's approved overtime falls on a holiday or on their weekly off. See [Overtime](/help/attendance/overtime).