FabWise | Time Off Policies

Set up how vacation, sick, personal, and holiday time work for your shop — how it's earned, who gets it, and how balances start.

Why it matters

Time off tracked in FabWise means one place to see who's off, what they've earned, and what they've used — no separate spreadsheet, no guessing at a worker's vacation balance. Setting policies up correctly once saves you from manually correcting balances all year.

This article covers policies with a balance a worker earns and draws down — Vacation, Sick, Personal, and similar. For a company-wide perk like Summer Fridays or a paid Birthday day, where nobody needs a balance or an assignment, see Global and Benefit Time Off Policies instead.

How it works

A policy is a set of rules for one time off type — Vacation, Sick, Personal, Holiday, or a type you name yourself. Each policy picks one of four ways a worker earns time:

Per hours worked — a worker earns a fixed amount of time off for every block of hours they work. For example, 1 hour of vacation for every 40 hours worked.
Per pay period — a fixed amount is added every pay period, regardless of hours worked.
Annual front-load — the full year's amount is granted all at once, either on the calendar year or on the worker's work anniversary.
Manual — nothing is earned automatically. Balances only change when you grant time directly. This is the right choice for holiday pay: you decide when a holiday happens and grant it that day.

Every policy in FabWise is paid time off — there's no separate unpaid-leave tracking.

A policy can also set:

A maximum balance — earned time above this cap stops accumulating.
A waiting period — new workers don't start earning until they've been with you a set number of days (only available for the earn-over-time methods).
Whether balances can go negative — useful if you want to let a trusted worker take time before they've technically earned it.

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

Policies list

Every policy on your account, with its time off type, how it accrues, and whether it's active. Inactive policies are hidden from new assignments but keep their history.

Below that sits a second table: company-wide policies. These have no per-user balance and nobody is assigned to them — they apply to everyone. FabWise ships three, switched off: Summer Fridays, Birthday, and Company Holiday. Each has an Enable switch, and the switch is the only control you need — turn Summer Fridays on in May and off in September. See Global and Benefit Time Off Policies for how they apply themselves.

Creating a policy

Pick a time off type, name the policy (e.g. "Standard Vacation" or "Full-Time Sick Leave"), and choose an accrual method. The form only shows the fields that method needs — pick "Manual" and you won't be asked for a rate.

What to do

Assigning a policy to a worker

A policy does nothing until a worker is assigned to it.

Go to Time Off → Assignments.
Pick the worker and the policy.
Set an effective date — the date the assignment starts counting.

A worker can only have one active policy per time off type at a time. Assigning a new Vacation policy to a worker who already has one automatically supersedes the old assignment going forward — their history under the old policy stays intact.

Setting an opening balance

If a worker already has time off banked from before you started using FabWise, record it as an opening balance so their FabWise balance starts accurate.

Go to Time Off → Balances and select the worker.
Choose Opening balance, pick the policy, and enter the amount.
Add a note explaining where the number came from — this shows up in the worker's history.

Making an adjustment

Use an adjustment to correct a balance — a manual add or subtract that doesn't come from a request or a scheduled grant. Adjustments require a note, since they change a worker's balance outside the normal earn/use flow and someone reviewing later will want to know why.

Bulk grants and holiday pay

For a paid holiday, a company-wide shutdown day, or any time you want to hand out hours to a group of workers at once:

Go to Time Off → Bulk grant.
Pick the policy, the date, the number of hours, and the workers.
Submit — every selected worker's balance updates immediately.

A bulk grant against a manual policy (like a Holiday policy) records the hours as granted and used on the same day, so the balance nets to zero — it shows the holiday was paid without leaving a phantom balance sitting on the books. If a worker was scheduled to work that day, FabWise cancels the scheduled shift automatically since the day is now covered by paid time off.

Common questions

Q: Can I change a worker's policy assignment?
A: Yes — assign the new policy with an effective date. The old assignment ends and the new one takes over from that date forward. Balance history under the old policy is preserved.

Q: What happens if I try to change something in a week that's already been signed off for payroll?
A: FabWise blocks it and tells you which week is locked. Unlock that week from Timecards, make your change, then sign off again.

Q: Does a worker on a "manual" policy earn anything automatically?
A: No. A manual policy only changes when you grant time directly — an opening balance, an adjustment, or a bulk grant. This is the right fit for holiday pay, where earning isn't automatic.

Q: Why does granting a holiday show zero net change to a worker's balance?
A: The grant and the day's usage are recorded together, so the ledger shows both the hours granted and the hours used for that holiday — the honest record is "granted 8 hours, used 8 hours," not an inflated balance that never gets used.

Last updated: 2026-08-29

Time Off Policies