LeavelyLeave year and leave calendars
How the Leave Year Policy of a company sets its leave years, and how Leave Calendars hold each year.
A leave year is the yearly period in which your company counts leave, and a Leave Calendar is one leave year that Leavely has created for your company.
How it works
The Leave Year Policy
When you set up a company, you choose its Leave Year Type on the Company leave year step. This choice and its start date make the Leave Year Policy of the company. A company added from the Companies page always uses the Calendar Leave Year Type. See Add a company.
| Option in setup | Leave Year Type | Each leave year starts on |
|---|---|---|
| Calendar year (Jan-Dec) | Calendar | January 1 |
| Fiscal year (Apr-Mar) | Fiscal | April 1 |
| Custom | Custom | The day you select in Leave year starts on |
For a custom leave year, Leavely uses only the month and day of the date you select. Each leave year ends on the day before the next one starts. If your fiscal year does not start on April 1, choose Custom.
You cannot change the Leave Year Policy after you create the company. Choose the start date that your contracts and payroll use.
Every Leave Calendar of the company uses the same Leave Year Policy. Each new leave year starts on the same day of the year as the previous one.
Leave Calendars
Each Leave Calendar covers one leave year, from its start date to its end date. The dates of a Leave Calendar do not change after Leavely creates it. Leave Balances and Leave Requests belong to one Leave Calendar.
When you set up the company, Leavely creates two Leave Calendars: the one that contains the setup date, and the one after it. An Owner or Admin adds later years in Settings > Calendars. Add the next Leave Calendar before the Current one ends. See Leave Calendars.
Year Label
The Year Label of a Leave Calendar is the year of its start date. For a Calendar leave year, the Year Label and the calendar year are the same. For a Fiscal leave year, and for a Custom leave year that does not start on January 1, a Leave Calendar also contains dates in the next calendar year. Its Year Label stays the year in which it starts. For example, a Fiscal Leave Calendar from April 1, 2026 to March 31, 2027 has the Year Label 2026.
You see Year Labels in Settings > Calendars. My Year shows each Leave Calendar by its first and last month instead of its Year Label.
Active Leave Calendars
A Leave Calendar is active until an Owner or Admin archives it. The Active Leave Calendars of the company control what employees can open and book:
- In My Year, the year list contains only Active Leave Calendars. When an Active Leave Calendar contains today, My Year opens it.
- In Wall Chart, the previous and next month buttons stop at the first month of the earliest Active Leave Calendar and the last month of the latest one.
- When you request leave, the date picker lets you select only dates in an Active Leave Calendar. Leavely rejects a request that starts in an archived Leave Calendar or outside all Leave Calendars.
Active does not always mean bookable. A Past Leave Calendar stays active until someone archives it, so employees can still open it in My Year. Whether they can book leave in it depends on Allow past leave requests in Settings > Company. Only an Owner can change this setting.
- When the setting is on, which is the default, employees can request leave on past dates in an Active Leave Calendar.
- When the setting is off, Leavely rejects a request that starts before today. A Past Leave Calendar is then active but not bookable.
Worked example
Assume that a company is set up on September 26, 2026. The table shows the two Leave Calendars that Leavely creates for each policy. The setup date is an example. The dates follow from the policy rules.
| Leave Year Policy | First Leave Calendar | Second Leave Calendar |
|---|---|---|
| Calendar | 2026: January 1, 2026 to December 31, 2026 | 2027: January 1, 2027 to December 31, 2027 |
| Fiscal | 2026: April 1, 2026 to March 31, 2027 | 2027: April 1, 2027 to March 31, 2028 |
| Custom, starts September 1 | 2026: September 1, 2026 to August 31, 2027 | 2027: September 1, 2027 to August 31, 2028 |
| Custom, starts October 1 | 2025: October 1, 2025 to September 30, 2026 | 2026: October 1, 2026 to September 30, 2027 |
In the last row, September 26, 2026 is before October 1, so the leave year that contains the setup date started in 2025. Its Year Label is 2025.
What happens when
A leave request crosses the end of a Leave Calendar
Leavely rejects it. A Leave Request must stay inside one Leave Calendar. Submit two requests: one that ends on the last day of the Leave Calendar, and one that starts on the first day of the next. See Request leave.
An Owner or Admin archives a Leave Calendar
Employees can no longer book leave in it, and its Leave Requests and Leave Balances stay. See Archive a Leave Calendar.
An Owner or Admin discards a Leave Calendar
Leavely deletes it and its Leave Balances. You cannot restore them. See Discard a Leave Calendar.
No Active Leave Calendar contains today
This happens when a leave year ends and no one added the next Leave Calendar, because Leavely does not add one when a year ends. It also happens when the Leave Calendar that contains today was archived while it was Upcoming.
Until an Active Leave Calendar contains today:
- Summary and My Year cannot load.
- No one can book leave from today on.
- Carry-over into the next Leave Calendar waits until that Leave Calendar exists and is Current. It cannot run after that Leave Calendar has ended. See Carry-over.
To fix it, an Owner or Admin adds the next year or unarchives that year in Settings > Calendars.
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