The Best PTO Tracking Software
Customize your PTO accrual rules, accept and approve time off requests, and automatically add PTO to timesheets and payroll with Buddy Punch.
A small business looking to move away from manually tracking PTO in Excel spreadsheets has much different needs than a corporation looking for a comprehensive HRIMS platform. So before you start shopping for PTO tracking software, it’s important to understand the three main options:
- Apps solely for PTO and leave tracking: These apps are used only for tracking and managing PTO and do not have additional features to help with other workforce management tasks. They’re typically the cheapest of all of the different types of leave tracking software.
- Apps that track time and PTO: These tools can be used for both employee time tracking and leave management. They can be used by your HR department for everything you need to automate payroll.
- Combined HR and leave management software: These are more robust HRIS/HRMS platforms with features like applicant tracking systems and performance management in addition to time-off tracking.
Knowing which type of platform you need before you start shopping can help you save on costs and build a shortlist of tools to test more quickly.
We’ve curated the list of the nine best PTO tracking software below to help you navigate the maze of choices and find the perfect fit.
The 9 best PTO tracking software
1. Buddy Punch
3. Day Off
4. BambooHR
5. Factorial
6. Clockify
7. Calamari
8. Replicon
9. Zoho People
1. Buddy Punch
Best overall PTO tracking software.
Buddy Punch sits at the top of our list due to its ease of use for both employers and employees, its wide range of features that make it useful for much more than just paid time off tracking, and its competitive pricing in the space.
In terms of PTO tracking, Buddy Punch has all of the core features you need.
PTO types
Buddy Punch comes with pre-set PTO leave policies (holidays, personal time, sick leave, vacation days, etc.), but you can also customize them. When you add a new time off type, you can make it either paid or unpaid.
PTO accrual rules
Set up PTO accrual rules based on:
- Pay periods: Add a specified number of PTO hours every pay period.
- Hours worked: Add a specified number of PTO hours depending on hours worked.
- Anniversaries: Add a certain number of PTO hours each year.
You can also customize accrual rules per employee. This can be helpful if you have different rules for salaried employees than hourly employees, or part-time versus full-time employees.
Additionally, you can specify how carry-over/rollover PTO works (i.e., if hours are lost at the end of the year or carry-over into the next year).
On the employee side, your team can log into the employee self-service portal and see their PTO balance whenever they want.
Time off requests
Employees can submit time-off requests in just a few clicks using Buddy Punch’s self-service portal, which is accessible on both desktop and mobile devices (mobile apps available on iOS and Android).
Employees can specify how much time they’re taking and what type of PTO they’re requesting, as well as leave notes for their managers.
On the admin side, you can set up rules for which employees need to have their time off approved (versus getting approved automatically) and which specific managers need to provide that approval. HR managers can also set it up so that supervisors receive real-time notifications for vacation requests by email.
Blackout dates
If your company has specific dates when employees cannot take off, you can set those dates as blackout dates in Buddy Punch. This either prevents employees from requesting time off for those dates or automates rejections for time off during those times.
Time off reports
Buddy Punch’s PTO reports provide an overview of things like how much PTO employees have to carry over, their total holiday time accrued, how much PTO they used in a given timeframe, and how much they have left to use.
You can filter this info by date (e.g., a specific payroll period) and export the report as an Excel spreadsheet or PDF.
Time off calendar
Employees, admins, and managers can see exactly who is off when using Buddy Punch’s time-off calendar feature. See all time off per month in a calendar view, or view it as a list.
Additional features
Beyond paid time-off tracking, Buddy Punch can be used for employee time tracking, timesheets, and a variety of other workforce management needs:
Time & attendance tracking
Employees can easily clock in/out using Buddy Punch’s web and mobile apps. You can then run reports for things like employee attendance and work hours.
Employee scheduling
Use Buddy Punch’s drag-and-drop schedule maker to easily create shift patterns and get full control over your employees’ work schedules.
GPS tracking
Capture GPS location data when your employees clock in and out. Review their locations on their time cards to make sure they were on site when billing time.
Geofencing
Create virtual boundaries around your job sites, then limit clocking in and out to within those boundaries to prevent employees from punching in off-site.
Overtime management
Create custom rules to calculate overtime based on location, work week, or policies. Plus, get notifications when employees are nearing overtime.
Payroll & integrations
Run your payroll processing through Buddy Punch, download your timesheet data, or send your payroll data directly to QuickBooks, Paychex, & more.
Finally, Buddy Punch is one of the highest-rated time card apps on Capterra, with nearly 1,000 reviews praising the platform’s great customer support, ease of use, seamless payroll software integrations, and flexible costs.
Pricing
Buddy Punch has a free 14-day trial — no credit card required. Its paid plans start at $4.49 per user per month, plus a $19 per month base fee.
Try Buddy Punch for Free
Track time off, attendance, hours, and PTO accruals in real-time.
2. Vacation Tracker
Best simple PTO tracker.
Most of the apps on this list do much more than just PTO tracking. Some are built for time and PTO tracking; some are fully-fledged HR suites with PTO tracking, hiring, and engagement monitoring tools; and some are complete workforce management suites.
But if all you’re looking for is simple time-off management and none of the other bells and whistles, Vacation Tracker might be right for you. It’s solely a PTO tracking app with only the features needed for PTO tracking, such as PTO accrual and carry-over rules, customizable PTO policies, and report generation and exporting.
Vacation Tracker also integrates with tools like Microsoft Teams and Slack that let your employees request time off directly through your preferred chat app and let their managers approve or deny those requests via chat app notifications.
In addition to team chat integrations, Vacation Tracker can also integrate with Google Calendar to show all employee PTO on the same calendar you use to work, making it easy to see who’s working and who’s out of the office.
Key features
- Calendar integration
- PTO accruals
- Time off in lieu (TOIL)
- Single sign-on
Key integrations
- Slack
- Microsoft Teams
- Google Workspace
- API
Pros
- Allows for full PTO and leave administration directly within Slack
- Easy to set up and use
- Pricing is lower than many other tools on this list
Cons
- Only allows for half-day and full-day time off requests
- Does not have the option to accrue PTO based on the number of hours worked
Pricing
Vacation Tracker’s plans start at $1 per user per month with a 25-user minimum and include PTO management, customizable leave types, PTO notifications, and calendar integrations.
3. Day Off
Best free option for small businesses.
Like Vacation Tracker, Day Off is another simple PTO tracking system that is solely for time-off tracking — and it also has direct integrations with Google, Teams, Outlook, and Slack. The big difference between the two is that Day Off has a free-forever plan that’s great for small businesses looking to save on costs.
On Day Off’s free plan, you can track employee PTO requests, see all of your team’s PTO on a calendar, and run reports — all for an unlimited number of employees. However, you are restricted to one PTO policy and approver, so it’s only practical for small businesses with simple approval processes.
Key features
- Approval workflows
- Balance resets
- Carryovers
- Blackout dates
Key integrations
- Google Calendar
- Outlook Calendar
- Slack
- Microsoft Teams
Pros
- Free plan offers a lot of features
- Easy for employees to use
- Nicely designed interface and helpful mobile app
Cons
- Lack of customization can cause issues for companies with international employees
- Customers report that setting up leave and sick time rules is not intuitive
Pricing
Day off offers a free plan that can be used for unlimited employees and includes a single approver, team, location, and policy. Its paid plan starts at $1 per employee per month and allows you to create multiple policies for leave requests (e.g. vacation, sick leave, parental).
4. BambooHR
Best human resources platform with PTO management.
On the opposite end of the spectrum from Vacation Tracker and Day Off is BambooHR, a complete human resources management tool.
HR teams can use BambooHR for literally everything they need to do, from payroll and benefits administration to hiring and improving the employee experience.
In addition to vacation time tracking, BambooHR comes with an applicant tracking system, onboarding and offboarding systems with templates and checklists, and employee engagement and performance monitoring tools.
In terms of PTO tracking, BambooHR has all of the features you’d expect. Set up multiple policies for unlimited PTO, accruals, or leave requests; visualize who’s off with a full-company PTO calendar; run reports to track trends in time-off requests; set up detailed PTO approval workflows; and more.
Key features
- Applicant tracking system
- Onboarding and offboarding tools
- Benefits administration
- Time tracking and payroll
- Employee satisfaction surveys
- Total rewards
Key integrations
- Culture Amp
- Talent LMS
- Oyster
- Checkr
- Greenhouse
- Cronofy
Pros
- All-in-one HRIMS system
- Highly customizable permission sets
- Easy to use even for less tech-savvy individuals
Cons
- Pricing can be confusing because many features are only available as add-on packages
- Default reports require a lot of customization
Pricing
BambooHR’s pricing is not publicly available. To get a quote, you have to request a demo with its sales team.
5. Factorial
Best low-cost HRIS platform.
If you’re looking for a platform like BambooHR but with lower costs, Factorial is a good option to consider. Like Bamboo, Factorial offers many HR software features to help with employee recruitment, onboarding, offboarding, and performance management, as well as employee vacation tracking. You can also run payroll using Cimplix.
Factorial also has a robust document management system that lets you build fillable PDFs for things like W-9s and send contracts and offers out for e-signatures.
In terms of PTO tracking features, Factorial has everything you’d expect, including unlimited time-off policies, custom absence types, PTO accruals, and customizable PTO calendar views. However, some PTO features, such as multi-level PTO approvals and blackout timeframes, are only available on higher-cost plans.
Key features
- Expense management
- Goal and OKR tracking
- Project management
- Time and time off tracking
- Applicant tracking system
- Employee scheduling
Key integrations
- Indeed
- Figures
- Sage 200
- Okta
- Cobee
Pros
- Intuitive and easy to use
- Helpful admin dashboard that consolidates all tasks and updates
- Priced lower than other HRIS platforms
Cons
- Not as customizable for businesses that have employees who are paid variable rates
- Employee survey and performance review features lack customizability
Pricing
Factorial’s plans start at $4.50 per user/month. No free trial is available; to view and test the tool, you must request a demo with its sales team.
6. Clockify
Best for agencies and consulting companies.
Similar to Buddy Punch, Clockify offers both attendance and employee leave tracking in one cloud-based solution. Employees can use it to clock in and out, request time off, see their schedules, and log time to different clients and projects. On the employer side, you can track employee absences and create an unlimited number of time off and holiday policies.
However, Clockify is better suited for agencies and consulting companies that do mostly online client work. It comes with a built-in timer that can be used to start and stop time tracking when working on projects for specific clients, allowing you to invoice clients down to the minute.
You can also use Clockify to create projects, estimate project hours, and assign specific project tasks to specific employees. From there, you can combine that data with your time-tracking data to monitor projects and predict project hours in visual reports.
Key features
- Custom PTO policies
- PTO accruals
- Color-coded policies and holidays
- Approval workflows
- Request time off in days, hours, or minutes
Key integrations
- QuickBooks
- Trello
- Asana
- Jira
- Salesforce
Pros
- All-in-one tool for time tracking, leave management, and project management
- Simple to use with an intuitive interface
Cons
- Confusing pricing with many different features split across six different plans
- Customers report occasional syncing issues between the desktop and mobile apps
Pricing
While Clockify does have a free plan for basic employee time tracking, that plan does not include paid time off tracking. Its plans that include PTO tracking start at $5.49 per user/month.
7. Calamari
Best for companies that are planning to scale.
If you know you need time-off tracking software but aren’t yet sure if you could also benefit from some of the time tracking and HR features of some of the other apps on this list, Calamari might be a good option for you. Unlike the other tools, it siloes these different features into different plans, giving you more flexibility as you scale.
As far as PTO tracking, you’ll get all of the typical features you’d expect, plus some advanced features like an overlapping requests report that lets you quickly identify staffing concerns caused by having multiple team members off during the same time periods.
If down the line you decide you want to do more than just track PTO, you can also add on Calamari’s time and attendance or core HR plans.
Time and attendance give you all of the traditional time tracking features, while core HR gives you org charts and searchable document storage with detailed visibility permissions.
Key features
- Built-in time off calendar
- Multi-language translations
- Holiday calendars for 110+ countries
- Custom time-off policies
- Request restriction rules
Key integrations
- Slack
- Jira
- Microsoft 365
- Basecamp
Pros
- Separate plans for different feature suites allow for lower costs initially while leaving room to grow as your business scales
- App text translates into five different languages: English, Polish, French, Spanish, and German
Cons
- Customers report that setup is difficult and the UI is not super intuitive
- Time off requests cannot be edited after they’re submitted and approved
Pricing
Calamari’s PTO tracking plan starts at $2 per employee per month with a $20 per month minimum.
8. Replicon
Best for companies that employ knowledge workers.
Replicon is a time management and PTO tracking tool that also includes productivity tracking features that are helpful for companies that employ knowledge workers. Its AI technology automatically places the time employees work into the right project buckets, eliminating the need for employees to track time manually.
This can help with identifying what types of tasks or applications account for the biggest loss in productivity across the organization, and it also ensures that if you’re doing project work for clients, all minutes spent on client work are properly attributed so you can invoice for that work.
As far as PTO tracking goes, Replicon offers portals for both employees and employers to request and administer time off. Set time off policies, establish accrual rules, create overdraw limits, and build workflows to automatically increase time off allowances at specific times like on employee anniversaries.
Key features
- Time off policies
- PTO overdraw limits
- Accruals
- Approval workflows
- Built-in time off calendar
Key integrations
- Salesforce
- Microsoft Dynamics
- Oracle
- SAP
- Ceridian
Pros
- Great, fast customer support
- Highly customizable to fit different types of needs and business models
Cons
- Setting up new users is difficult
- Unintuitive, so it can take a while to remember how to perform tasks you don’t do frequently
Pricing
Replicon’s pricing is somewhat complex because it offers a variety of different plans for tracking things like PTO, employee time, and projects. The lowest-priced plan that offers time off bookings is its TimeOff Plus plan, which is $6 per user per month.
For more advanced features like PTO accruals and custom accrual rules, you’ll have to upgrade to the TimeOff Enterprise plan, which is $8 per user per month.
9. Zoho People
Best for multi-lingual teams.
Zoho People is an HRMS suite that includes robust functionality for absolutely everything a people team might need.
In addition to basic attendance and PTO tracking, you get tools for course management and 360-degree feedback, an applicant tracking system, and an employee CRM, as well as payroll, expense, and case management features.
The big standout feature for teams looking for PTO tracking specifically is Zoho People’s muti-language feature. If your team is spread out across multiple continents, you can cater to everyone with a platform that’s available in more than 20 languages, including English, Spanish, Arabic, French, and Portuguese.
Key features
- Employee onboarding
- Attendance tracking
- Leave tracking
- Time tracking
- Shift scheduling
- Learning management system
Key integrations
- All Zoho apps
- Docusign
- Microsoft Teams
- QuickBooks
- Google Workspace
- Zapier
Pros
- Integrates seamlessly with Zoho’s entire suite of products
- One of the lowest-cost HRMS systems on the market
Cons
- Customers report that setting up the app is confusing and time-consuming
- Some features only work if you combine them with other Zoho products
Pricing
Zoho People’s plans that include paid time-off tracking start at $1.25 per user per month.
Choosing the right PTO tracker for your business
When you’re looking to streamline PTO tracking, some must-have features will make your life easier, such as:
- Accurate PTO balances for your team.
- A management system that lets you edit PTO balances.
- Custom leave rules (i.e., when and how PTO is earned).
- A way to receive and respond to time off requests.
- A way to restrict dates on your company calendar (i.e., blackout dates).
- A simple way to reconcile your team’s PTO with your payroll provider.
Beyond these features, it’s also helpful to find a tool that’s user-friendly. It should be available on the apps and devices your employees use most often, should integrate with the other software your HR department uses, and shouldn’t have a huge learning curve for employees.
Finally, consider the cost of the software and the potential ROI it can provide. While price is certainly a factor, it’s important to weigh the cost against the value and benefits the software can deliver in terms of time savings, efficiency gains, and improved compliance.