PTO tracking software for small business
Track paid time off without a spreadsheet and without paying per employee. Accruals, carryover and proration are in every plan, including the cheapest one.
Free for teams up to 5 · No credit card
State rules, encoded and dated
California
effective 1 Jan 2026Healthy Workplaces, Healthy Families Act
Washington
effective 1 Jan 2026RCW 49.46.200
Five different accrual denominators, one engine
Accruals are not an upsell here
Vacation Tracker puts accruals and pro-rating in its Complete tier, which starts at a $75 monthly minimum. PTO Genius gates payroll integration to Premium. Day Off puts accruals in Pro. In PTODesk they are in Starter at $29, because a PTO tracker that cannot accrue correctly is a spreadsheet with a login screen.
Accrual that shows its working
Vacation · semi-monthly
24 periods / year15 days ÷ 24 pay periods = 0.625 per cheque
Tenure tiers step up on the service anniversary
0–2 yrs
10 days
3–5 yrs
15 days
6+ yrs
20 days
Balances you can defend in a termination conversation
Every figure is a sum of immutable ledger entries rather than a running total in a column. When an employee asks why they have 12.5 days, you can show them each accrual, each deduction and the date it landed.
Balances you can audit
Accrued
12.5
+0.63 this period
Available
8.5
4.0 pending
Used
6.0
this year
| 31 Jul | Accrual · semi-monthly | +0.63 | 12.50 |
| 19 Jul | Usage · 1 day, approved | −1.00 | 11.87 |
| 15 Jul | Accrual · semi-monthly | +0.63 | 12.87 |
| 15 Jun | Opening · prorated first year | +10.96 | 10.96 |
Every number is a sum of ledger entries — nothing stored that can drift.
State sick-leave rules, encoded and dated
Seventeen states and DC mandate accrual on four different denominators. Those rules live in a table with effective dates and statute links, and the same table drives the accrual engine — so the software and the reference page can never disagree.
State rules, encoded and dated
California
effective 1 Jan 2026Healthy Workplaces, Healthy Families Act
Washington
effective 1 Jan 2026RCW 49.46.200
Five different accrual denominators, one engine
Reports that match your pay cycle
Including semi-monthly, which is twenty-four periods a year and where most UK and EU-built tools quietly break. Export a clean CSV your bookkeeper imports without editing.
Reports payroll can import
Time off · pay period 17
1–15 SepHow this compares
The honest version. We are not the simplest tool in this category and we do not try to be.
| Pto tracking software | Typical | PTODesk |
|---|---|---|
| Accruals in the entry plan | Usually top tier | Every paid plan |
| Pricing model | Per seat, per month | Flat, per company |
| Mid-year hire proration | Often manual | Automatic, with the maths shown |
| Balance auditability | A number in a column | Immutable ledger entries |
| State sick-leave logic | Not encoded | Encoded, dated, cited |
Questions
Does PTO tracking software need to handle accruals?
If anyone is hired part-way through the year, yes. A frontloaded allowance is easy; earning time gradually and prorating a June starter is where most tools and most spreadsheets go wrong, and it is the number that gets disputed on termination.
How is this different from the time-off module in our payroll system?
Payroll records what it paid. It rarely models what was earned, and time-off is usually a per-person add-on that still cannot express carryover caps or a state accrual denominator.
Can we start without migrating everything?
Yes. Import your roster from a CSV with whatever column names you already use, set opening balances, and run alongside your sheet for a month if you want the reassurance.
Plans
Retire the PTO spreadsheet this week
Import your team from a CSV and go live in under an hour.
Try for free