Why manual leave tracking fails – and what to use instead
Missing vacation requests buried in email chains, spreadsheets with conflicting leave balances. Frustrated employees are waiting days in a row for PTO approval.
Sound familiar?
Manual leave tracking is riddled with errors, inefficiencies, and compliance nightmares that quietly drain your business of money, morale, and reputation.
Let’s break down why manual leave tracking is failing you and why it’s time to move to automated solutions like EARLY.
What does manual leave tracking fail you with?
You might not be aware of how many ways manual leave tracking fails you, so let me remind you.
It’s full of errors
With manual leave tracking, every leave request, every balance update, and every policy change is dependent on human input. But human input inherently breeds mistakes that are detrimental to your business…If you add more time off than they’ve earned, you give your team extra vacation at your expense. Conversely, if you accrue less time than they’ve earned, you erode their trust and increase their frustration.
📍 According to an analysis done by DataStar, manual entry data has an accuracy rate of 96%. That’s about 400 errors for every 10,000 keystrokes, compared to 99.96% for automated systems. Even a simple typo can cause payroll errors, disputes, or compliance failures.
It backfires with compliance issues
The cost of being out of compliance is 2.71 times higher than the investment into being and staying compliant (Global Scape study).
Manual leave tracking makes it almost impossible for you to keep airtight compliance. Labor laws are complex and ever-changing – that’s something manual systems simply can’t keep up with. So, you’re exposing yourself to costly lawsuits, fines, and reputational damage.
Remember the big scandal with Amazon’s unpaid leaves? A New York Times report revealed that Amazon’s leave system was a patchwork of software and processes that failed to communicate with each other. The result? There were big breakdowns in tracking, processing, and compliance, with missed pay, wrongful terminations, and lost benefits.
These problems have been described as the company’s “gravest human resources problems.”
It frustrates your team
When I, as an employee, can’t easily check my leave balances or I’m facing delays in approvals, my frustration grows.
Every employee works hard, so we all think we deserve our holidays. I want an experience that’s fast, transparent, and autonomous—and it’s not just me who wants that…
The ideal process for me as an employee is as follows: I request leave and have it approved quickly by the manager (as supposedly they are notified when I send my request). So, friction is reduced, unless it’s necessary. By friction, I mean no back-and-forth with my manager in an email or Slack to discuss my leave, but the possibility to add a note to my leave request, and they would see it.
It eats out your HR team’s time
The 2025 Leave Benchmark Report made by Tilt, properly managing a single leave of absence, including all consultations, documentation, and follow-ups, can take 20 to 25 hours per case.
Your HR teams didn’t sign up to be data entry clerks, yet that’s exactly what manual leave tracking turns them into! They can’t focus on what really matters, like talent development, employee engagement, and strategic workforce planning.
Manual leave management comes with a staggering opportunity cost paid by your HR team and your business in the long run.
Book a quick to see an automated leave tracker in action and end their spreadsheet struggles once and for all.
What’s the alternative? Automated leave tracking
Did you ever consider that spreadsheets impact an employee’s objective achievement? Me neither… But the 2025 Leave Benchmark Report proved it.
The report surfaced that employees returning from leave in a company that uses spreadsheets are less likely to achieve their OKRs than employees in companies using leave software.
And there’s more! The spreadsheet users were less likely to remain employed a year after returning. At the same time, employers using leave tracking software could offer 33% more paid parental leave than their counterparts.
Here’s what automatic leave tracking apps bring to the table:
- Zero guesswork: No more chasing down emails or double-checking spreadsheets. Everything’s tracked in real time in a centralized system, so you always know who’s off and when.
- Fast and streamlined approvals: Requests and approvals flow seamlessly, with notifications and in-app notes that cut out endless email chains and confusion. Requests are handled in seconds, not days.
- Automation: On a set-it-and-forget-it philosophy, automation wipes out the manual errors and boring admin tasks. Your HR team and managers take their time back for work that actually matters.
- Total transparency in real time: Your team can check their leave balance, submit requests, and see approvals right from their phone or laptop. No more “Where’s my PTO?” confusion.
- Cost savings: By reducing errors, eliminating manual processing, and preventing leave abuse, you’re saving significant amounts of money. That’s both in direct payroll costs and by avoiding legal penalties.
A closer look at an all-in-one leave tracker
I’ll introduce you to a specific case: EARLY’s leave tracking features and how these cover for what’s missing in manual sheets.
In essence, EARLY covers multiple functions, among which are leave tracking, overtime, and all types of time tracking.
Here’s what EARLY delivers where manual systems fail:
- All-in-one dashboard: Manage, approve, and track all types of leaves – PTO, sick days, unpaid leave – in a centralized place. On top of that, EARLY shows you overtime or deficit hours of each member, so you can keep your team balanced and on track.
- Self-service for your team: Your employees can submit and monitor leave requests from their mobile or laptop. No more waiting for days or overwhelming HR.
- Automated time reports: You can generate real-time reports for payroll, compliance, and management with a few clicks. Customize these with the indicators that you’re interested in.
- Customizable policies: Not everyone has the same leave allowance, so in EARLY, you can set different leave quotas and rules for each employee.
- Security on autopilot: Your sensitive employee info stays locked down, so you’re always covered when laws or policies change.
- Third-party integrations: If you need to transmit these leaves to a different tool, you don’t have to do it manually. Connected with over 3,000 other tools, EARLY streamlines your entire HR workflow.
- Mobile app: Your team can track their time and leave on the go, keeping everyone in sync, even if they work remotely from a beach.
But what if automatic leave tracking is not the right thing…
Pondering on acquiring a new tool or not is normal, but let’s take each what-if and understand it better.
1. “It’s too expensive.”
Let’s get specific with the exact costs for a leave tracker (EARLY, in this case):
- EARLY’s pricing starts at €7.50 per user per month (you can just test things out with its 30-day free trial)
- For a team of 15, that’s €112.50 a month, or €1,350 a year. This is a predictable, transparent investment for streamlined leave tracking and time management.
On the other hand, let’s get specific with costs for manual tracking:
- In 2022, the average company had a payroll accuracy rate of only 80% (EY). Each payroll error costs about $291 (approx. €270) to fix. For every 1,000 employees, errors in vacation and paid time off requests alone add up to over $219,000 (€203,000) per year. Small teams are not exempt from these costs, either, as each error quickly adds up to several thousand euros.
- Let’s not forget compliance risks: fines for noncompliance with labor laws can reach $1,000 (€930) per violation, according to the FLSA.
- Also, every absence managed manually can take 20–25 hours of HR time. If your HR team handles just 10 cases a year, that’s 200–250 hours of lost time that could be spent on strategic work.
In short: EARLY’s annual cost is a fraction of what you’re already losing to manual processes.
2. “It’s too hard to implement.”
Change can feel daunting, but leave management apps are designed for easy onboarding.
EARLY, for example, has a super clean and easy interface, and, if needed, it offers a short onboarding workshop to speed up your team. Plus, you don’t have to flip a switch overnight – you can roll out this new tool in phases.
3. “Our team won’t use it.”
When people see how much easier and faster the process is, they will adopt it naturally.
Here’s how the process can flow:
- An employee can effortlessly add time off by adding a PTO request directly to their EARLY calendar. They just need to specify the type of absence, duration, and notes.
- The manager is notified, approves, or disapproves of the request.
- Managers or HR members export leaves and work hours charts directly from the payroll tracker.
- Done ✅
4. “We’ll lose control of data security.”
It’s a valid concern, but spreadsheets and paper forms are actually far riskier. Anyone can access or lose them, and there’s no clear audit trail. On the other hand, a leave tracker like EARLY keeps your data safe with encrypted cloud storage. You also get access to access controls and detailed logs of who did what and when. You get more control and peace of mind with software, not less.
Easily manage all types of employee time off in one place: paid time off, sick days, time off in lieu, and many more.
It’s time to ditch spreadsheets and track leaves automatically
Ready to ditch those spreadsheets? The cost of manual leave tracking isn’t just measured in errors and wasted hours, but it’s reflected in frustrated employees, compliance risks, and missed strategic opportunities.
With solutions like EARLY, you’re investing in more than software. You’re investing in your company’s culture and future. The real question isn’t what it costs to switch, but what it’s already costing you not to.