TOIL — time off in lieu

TOIL (time off in lieu) lets you credit people with hours for overtime worked, which they later spend as time off — without touching their holiday allowance. TOIL is an organisation feature; once enabled, it needs a leave type flagged “TOIL (spends the TOIL bank)” (see Leave types).

TOIL is always measured in hours, whatever unit someone’s holiday balance uses.

Grant TOIL (managers/admins)

From People → Allowance, the TOIL (time off in lieu) section shows the person’s balance and ledger, and takes new grants:

• Effective date — when the credit lands.
• Hours — in quarter-hour steps.
• Expires (optional) — leave blank for no expiry, or set a use-by date (“take it within 3 months”).
• Reason — e.g. “Saturday stocktake, 7.5h”.

Click Grant TOIL. The ledger lists every credit with its status (Pending, Active, Declined, Voided), expiry and reason. Made a mistake? Void an active credit — unless it has already been spent against, in which case the void is refused to keep the books honest.

Spend TOIL (everyone)

Book it like any other leave: My leave → + Book time off, choose the TOIL leave type, pick full or half days. The form quotes the cost live — “This request: 7.5h TOIL · 4h TOIL remaining after” — and blocks requests beyond the balance (admins can override with a reason). TOIL can’t be booked in hours mode; use full or half days.

Keeping an eye on balances

• My leave shows a TOIL card with the available balance and an amber “expiring soon” warning when credits are approaching their use-by date.
• People can enable the “Time off in lieu is credited to me” email in their notification preferences.
• The same balance, ledger and expiry warnings appear to admins on the person’s allowance panel.