Why it matters
Some time off isn't something a worker earns and spends — it's a perk you decide to offer everyone. A half-day on Summer Fridays, a paid day off for a birthday, a paid company holiday. These don't need a balance to track or a worker to be individually assigned. You just turn them on, and FabWise handles who gets what and when.
How it works
FabWise has two kinds of time off policies:
- Time off policies (Vacation, Sick, Personal, and similar) — a worker earns or is granted a balance, and requests draw it down. See Time Off Policies.
- Benefit policies — no balance, no individual assignment. Every active worker is eligible. The policy itself carries how many hours it's worth, and you turn it on or off for your whole shop.
Every FabWise account starts with three benefit policies already set up, turned off:
- Summer Fridays — 30 minutes off, by default.
- Birthday — a paid day off, 8 hours by default.
- Company Holiday — a paid day off, 8 hours by default.
The default hours are a starting point — change them to fit your shop from the policy's edit screen.
Where to find it
- Page: Time Off → Policies
- Path: Admin → Time Off → Policies
- Who can see it: Account owners and managers
What you'll see
The policies list
Your ledger-based policies (Vacation, Sick, etc.) and your benefit policies show together, grouped so you can tell them apart. Each benefit policy shows its name, its default hours, and a toggle — On or Off.
Applying a benefit manually
When a benefit policy is turned on, it shows up in a Benefits group any time you add time off for a worker — from the schedule or from their profile — right alongside your regular time off policies. Pick it, and the hours default to whatever the policy is set to (you can adjust them, say for a part-time worker). No balance check, no assignment needed — it just applies.
What to do
Turning on a pre-configured benefit
- Go to Time Off → Policies.
- Find the benefit policy you want (Summer Fridays, Birthday, or Company Holiday).
- Flip its toggle to On.
That's it — the policy is now live for your whole shop. If it has an auto-apply rule (see below), it starts generating time off automatically. If not, you can still apply it manually any time.
Setting up auto-apply
A benefit policy can generate its own time off automatically, so you don't have to remember to add it every week. Open the policy and choose a rule:
- Weekly — applies on the same day every week (Summer Fridays: every Friday).
- Annual date — applies on the same calendar date every year (Company Holiday: July 4th).
- Birthday — applies on each worker's own birthday. Requires the worker's date of birth to be on file — a worker with no birthday recorded is simply skipped, not flagged as an error.
Once a rule is set and the policy is on, FabWise generates time off up to two weeks ahead for anyone scheduled to work that day. You'll see it on the schedule in advance, the same as any other time off.
A generated day isn't set in stone. If a worker actually needs to work that day — someone's covering a job, say — remove that one day's entry and it's gone for good; FabWise won't regenerate it later.
Turning a benefit off (and back on)
Flip the toggle to Off any time — this is the whole "season" control. Turn Summer Fridays on in May, off in September.
- Anything already taken stays taken. Today's entries and anything in the past are untouched.
- Anything scheduled for the future is removed. If the policy had generated time off for upcoming days, those go away — the schedule reflects the policy being off.
- Turning it back on picks up where it left off. FabWise regenerates the upcoming days it removed. A day you deliberately removed by hand stays removed — only the days the toggle itself took away come back.
Common questions
Q: Does a worker need to be assigned to a benefit policy?
A: No. Every active worker at your shop is automatically eligible once the policy is on — there's no assignment step.
Q: Can I change a benefit's default hours after it's already in use?
A: Yes. Edit the policy and change the default hours — it affects new applications going forward, not entries already recorded.
Q: What happens to a benefit if a worker isn't scheduled that day?
A: Auto-apply only generates time off for workers who are actually scheduled to work — nobody gets an entry for a day they weren't going to be at the shop.
Q: I turned off Summer Fridays by mistake — did I lose the upcoming days?
A: No. Turn it back on and FabWise regenerates every upcoming day it had removed, exactly as it was.
Q: Can I set up my own benefit policy, not just the three pre-configured ones?
A: Yes — create a new policy and choose the benefit type when setting it up, the same way you'd create any policy.
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Last updated: 2026-08-29