Free Excel Staff Holiday Planner Template

An Excel leave planner template is a great, free way to get started tracking absences. Our template is highly customisable and supports tracking absences in days and hours.

Below we go into detail on how to use the template and the available customisation options.

If you're looking to reduce time spent on absence management, you may also consider our annual leave management software.

Our managed system enables employees to book absences and view planned holidays on a self-serve basis. Greatly reducing queries, manager input and holiday clashes within the team.

Absences are still approved by a manager via the holiday request system.
Start a 30 day free trial to give it a try today.

Back to the Excel template, here's what you need to know...

Basics

Enter your employee names into the name cells on the first sheet, the names on the other sheets will pull through from the first sheet.

Monthly totals are displayed at the end of each row for each employee. Yearly totals are displayed in a separate tab called Totals.

The template differs slightly based on the 'Track absences in' option selected in the customisations.

Track absences in Days

Absences are recorded by inserting the relevant code into the cell for the day. For example, in case of sick leave, enter S into the cell.

All the absence types and their codes are shown in a handy key alongside the calendar month.

Track absences in Hours

Enter the number of absent hours into the cell relating to the day of the absence.

Leave types

Leave types are provided by default when using the 'Track absences in Days' option. These include:

• Vacation
• Half Day (morning)
• Half Day (afternoon)
• Quarter day
• Sickness
• Maternity/Paternity
• Compassionate
• Time off In Lieu
• Work from home

Half days can be recorded by using the H1 and H2 codes, these count as 0.5 in the totals.

There is also an extra custom leave types which you can rename and use as you need.

Totals breakdown

If tracking absences in days, the last tab of the template contains the totals of all absences for each employee as well as a breakdown by absence type.

The 'Absence count' field shows the sum of all absences while counting half days as 0.5 appropriately. It's a sum of the 'Absences this month' column across all months.

Customisation options

Our template is designed to be useful for the majority of teams with the default options but there are a number of customisation options.

Custom start date

Any start date can be chosen for your leave tracker. The default template will contain a full year from the start date specified.

For example, if your annual leave year matches the financial year from April to March, select April as the starting month.

Number of employees

Any number of employees can be specified. Whether you have 10, 20 or 100 employees this template is for you.

The employee names are pulled through from the first month (first tab) so you only need to set them once.

Working days

Non-working days are displayed as a light gray cell in the template. This is for display purposes only, they are given no special treatment when absence totals are calculated.

Year

You can define the year in which the leave planner template will start. Since the template is generated dynamically any year is supported. The leave planner template is ready for the year 2025, 2026 and beyond.

Number of months (multi year)

How many months do you want your absence tracker to cater for?

By default the template contains 12 months (1 year), you can generate a multi year calendar template by entering 24 months (2 years) or more.

Track absences in Days/Hours

This option changes the template quite a lot.

When tracking absences in hours you simply enter a number into a cell to signify the hours of absence taken. The totals are a sum of the hours. This option does not support leave type categories like the 'days' template does.

Tracking absences in days allowances you to specify the type of absence by entering a letter into the cell instead of a number. This option also allows you to track half day and quarter day absences. You also get the added benefit of an absence breakdown table by leave type on the totals tab.

Download

Questions about how to adjust the template once it's been downloaded? Check out the FAQ at the bottom of the page.

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We would love to hear how well our Excel template worked for you and how we could improve. Also check out our video explaining how to use the template on youtube.

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