This guide walks through five settings that let Collabin follow leave rules many companies use: monthly accrual, sub-quotas, minimum notice, the yearly consecutive rest check and reminders. Sub-quotas and blocking are available on the Advanced and Pro plans; minimum notice as a warning and reminders work on every plan.
1. Monthly accrual: what does 1/12 mean?
On the Allowance rules and year transition page for the whole organization β or per leave type in the leave type form β you choose when the yearly allowance becomes available:
- The full allowance from the start of the year β the whole yearly allowance can be taken from January.
- Builds up monthly β at the start of every month, 1/12 of the allowance is added to what was available so far.
Monthly accrual is not a monthly cap: unused days add up. With a 27-day allowance:
| Month | Available in total by then |
|---|---|
| January | 2.25 days |
| March | 6.75 days |
| June | 13.5 days |
| October | 22.5 days |
| December | 27 days |
Someone who has not taken anything until June can take 13.5 days at once in June. Two details matter:
- Requests are measured against today. If someone asks in March for 10 days in August, the request is compared with the 6.75 days built up by March: with a warning it can still be submitted, with blocking it cannot.
- Days carried over from last year are available right away; the 1/12 rule does not apply to them.
2. A sub-quota within a yearly quota
Some days are part of the annual leave but follow their own rule. In Poland, for example, 4 of the 20 or 26 days are "urlop na ΕΌΔ danie" β leave on demand that can be announced as late as the day itself. In Hungary, the employer has to grant 7 days a year at the time the employee asks for.
How to set it up:
- Create a leave type for the sub-quota (for example "Leave on demand") with a yearly quota, a default quota of 4 days and Block.
- Open the Vacation type and tick the new type under Sub-quotas.
From then on, the sub-quota days are taken from the vacation quota: with 20 days, 18 are left after 2 days on demand. The sub-quota's own limit (4 days) applies too. When the vacation type blocks, a sub-quota request cannot overdraw the shared pool either; when it only warns, approvers see a flag.
At the year transition, the unused sub-quota days stay in the main quota and are not carried over separately. On the dashboard, the sub-quota card says "Part of the Vacation quota", and the overall balance does not count those days twice.
3. Minimum notice
In the Request rules section of a leave type you can set how many calendar days before the first day of leave a request has to be submitted β for example 14 days. When someone asks later:
- Warn β the request can be submitted; approvers see a "Short notice" flag on the Approvals page.
- Block (Advanced, Pro) β the request cannot be submitted; the request form explains how far in advance it should have been made.
When a submitted request is changed, only the newly added days are checked: shortening a request or fixing its reason can always be saved. Leave recorded through the REST API is not limited by this rule, because integrations often record leave after the fact.
4. Checking the yearly consecutive rest
In many countries employees are entitled to a rest of about two weeks in one piece at least once a year: 14 days in Hungary and Poland, two weeks in Slovakia, 12 consecutive working days (Werktage) in Germany. On the Allowance rules and year transition page, turn on Monitor consecutive rest, set the number of days and tick the leave types that count β usually just vacation, as home office is work and sick leave is not rest.
A rest block is a run of consecutive leave days of the selected types together with the weekends and public holidays between them; a half day does not count as a whole day off. Leave from a Monday to the Friday of the following week is a 16-day rest together with the weekends on both sides.
The Rest periods tab of the Statistics page shows each employee's status β taken, planned (approved but still ahead), awaiting approval or missing β with an Excel export. The Statistics page is part of the Advanced and Pro plans.
5. Reminders about remaining leave
Under EU case law, untaken leave may only lapse after the employer has warned the employee. With Send reminders, on the dates you choose (for example 1 October and 1 December) every affected employee gets a notification and an email about
- the days of the year they have not planned yet, per leave type (counted with the full yearly allowance, minus approved and pending requests),
- and, when the consecutive rest check is on, a missing rest block this year.
Only employees with something to plan are reminded, and their notification settings are respected. Sick leave, unpaid types and sub-quotas are not included. Every reminder is sent once and logged, so you can show later who was warned and when.
Year transition with a default quota
When a yearly leave type has a default quota, employees without an individual value take part in the year transition too: their unused days are carried over up to the limit, and their row for the new year keeps following the default quota. If you raise the default later, their allowance grows as well.
In the REST API
GET /v1/leave-types also returns min_notice_days and notice_policy, and the deducting_leave_type_ids of a yearly type lists its sub-quotas. POST /v1/leaves responds with 422 QUOTA_EXCEEDED when a sub-quota request would overdraw a blocking shared pool β see the API quickstart.