5 Reasons to Stop Tracking Vacation in an Excel Spreadsheet

Employee vacation time has never been more precious in the age of intentional, value-driven work cultures. Admins and small businesses everywhere are trying to find and implement tactics to not only attract talent to their organization, but retain them well into the future to avoid turnover and wasted time on behalf of everyone involved in the hiring process.

When an employee at your company goes to officially request leave and reserve vacation time on their calendar, what message are they met with? An expectation to “check back later”, or a real-time system letting them know exactly where they stand for each day off – and even half-day – they have requested?

Read on for 5 reasons to stop tracking vacation in an Excel spreadsheet – starting today.

1. Singular Visibility & Purpose

When it comes to PTO, your vacation tracker of choice should cover all the bases that time off truly entails: leave types, insight into other team members, your PTO approval process, policy details, and more. Spreadsheets aren’t built to house this level of information – and neither is any other standardized template. A comprehensive, interactive leave tracker integrates all these and more into a seamless, easy-to-use system that allows for a consistent flow of communication and feedback day in and day out. You can even achieve a minimum of a 5X ROI by moving away from a spreadsheet to an automated system!

2. No Integration with Existing Workflows

Can your current spreadsheet system easily connect to Slack, update your Google Workspace and Google Calendar, and more? These popular workflows shouldn’t be standalone resources to your team. Working to see where and how PTO and vacation days can be visible in places like employee calendars and chat platforms shows everyone in your company that you’re willing to go above and beyond to keep functionality top of mind and your vacation tracker easy to follow wherever they’re working. Whether it’s the number of vacation days they have available, accrual metrics, approval stage, or more – Planleave offers your employees full access and full integration included with our straightforward pricing model.

3. Lack of Interactivity & Automation

After your team submits leave requests, are each of your company’s managers automatically met with notifications of those same time off requests and the ability to check for conflicts and compliance? Leave management shouldn’t take manual work to keep the process flowing through all the way to approval. When interactivity and automation are at play within your vacation tracker, you can stop being the middle man or woman and allow for your company’s leave tracking to speak for itself through a real-time system that keeps everyone informed and up to date.

4. Zero Cultural Value

Unsurprisingly, the impact your company-wide PTO has on your company always starts with your leave policies. Now whether yours is based on time spent with the organization, if you offer unlimited vacation from the jump, or anywhere in between, how you go about communicating it and the follow ups you put in place once vacation requests start trickling in is vital to your overall culture. Planleave requires no learning and is simple to use, which automatically transfers to a better user experience while also becoming a cultural benefit. Remember that all components of paid time off – from larger communication pieces to smaller parts like sick leave or doctor appointments – all accumulate in aiding how your employees feel about working for you every single day.

5. You Simply Deserve a Better Vacation Tracker

When any part of your job creates more work for you, that’s reason enough to move on to something that simplifies your days, improves your productivity, and lessens your frustrations. Consider Planleave as your new and improved vacation tracker today. With built-in customer support, no credit card required to begin your free trial, and comprehensive time tracking available to you and your entire team – we’re here for you. Get started now.