The 9 Best Employee Absence Trackers in 2023

Things rarely go smoothly when you’re running a business. Whatever industry you work in, there will be days when your employees simply won’t be available. And this can be for many reasons, including vacations, sick leave, maternity leave, and much more.

Tracking employee absences not only helps businesses identify and address employee attendance issues but it also ensures that employees are paid for the actual work completed and that you stay compliant with local, state, and federal regulations.

Keeping track of absences with pen and paper or even excel files might be fine when you only have a few employees, but it will get messy very quickly. What you need is a digital solution that is designed to make absence tracking a pain-free process. 

We’ve put together a list of the very best employee absence tracker apps that will simplify how you stay up to date with when and why your employees aren’t working.

Our Top 3 Absence Tracker Picks

1. Connecteam – The all-in-one business and employee management absence tracker app; free for up to 30 users
2. Mirro – Easily set rules for request approval on all kinds of leave; 14-day free trial
3. Sage HR – Employees get a clear picture of PTO/leave balance from their mobile; 14-day free trial

If you’re in a hurry, jump to our comparison table to compare the best absence tracker apps listed below.

9 Best Absence Tracker Apps In 2023

Connecteam is an all-in-one employee absence tracker that gives you all the tools you need to receive, manage, and document your staff’s absences with complete ease, even while on the go. 

With this mobile solution, you can set up and manage your company’s time off policies for any kind of absence – paid or unpom/employee-timeaid – by choosing from a variety of policy templates or creating your own. 

Your employees can then submit absence requests straight from the mobile app for your review. You can choose to manually accept or decline absence requests or have the system do this for you according to your preferred settings. 

Connecteam’s time off management software will then automatically calculate and process the absence in line with your defined policies, notify the relevant employee of their request status, and document the process. This frees you from any unnecessary back-and-forth, complicated manual calculation work, or scattered processes. 

As an admin, you can always manage and oversee everything from a unified dashboard. And, of course, you can always quickly connect to any other employee management feature in the Connecteam app, such as your employee timesheets or scheduler, to fully streamline your workflow. 

Key Features

• Unified admin dashboard

• Customizable time off policies

• Time off policy templates

• Automatic paid time off calculation

• Time off balance tracking

• Instant notifications

Pricing

• Pricing starts at $29/month for the first 30 users

• Free trial: Yes. 14-days completely free 

• Free plan: For up to 10 users, without limitations

Mirro is a user-friendly absence tracker that allows managers to set their own rules for request approval. Paid time off is easy to ask for and easy for admins to take care of. This solution’s integrated calendar ensures that employees’ breaks don’t overlap and that requests for paid time off, no matter how short or long, are accepted or rejected in minimal time. Doctor’s appointments, vacations, and maternity leave are all accounted for.

Key Features

• Request leave

• Rules setup

• Remote work requests

• Time account

Pricing

• Standard plan starts at $9 per user/month

• Free trial: 14-day

• Free plan: No

With Sage HR, managers can quickly attend to leave and PTO requests from their employees, which are automatically synced onto a calendar upon approval. Employees can easily open their accounts, access their calendars, and have a clear picture of their balance of paid time off and leave. And this can all be done from the convenience of one’s mobile phone. Sage HR is an ideal software for real estate agents and manufacturing companies, amongst others.

Key Features

• Shared calendar

• Employee self-service

• Custom approval flows

• PTO approval

• Advanced reporting

• Custom policy rules

Pricing

• Sage HR Leave Management costs $5.5 per user/month

• Free trial: 14-day

• Free plan: No

A cost-effective absence tracker, Vacation Tracker is extremely easy to use and is specifically built for PTO requests and approval. This digital solution integrates with communication software such as Microsoft Teams and Slack, and its absence of management features provides teams with peace of mind and a stronger sense of organization. Other useful features include notifications, holidays settings, vacation day rollover, and more.

Key Features

• One-click leave approval

• Calendar dashboard overview

• Integration with Slack

• Leave balances

Pricing

• Core plan costs $1 per user/month ($25 minimum)

• Free trial: 14-day

• Free plan: No

Capture Leave is an absence tracker software that makes leave management a walk in the park. This cost-effective app makes it easy to stay on top of scheduled leave and vacations of employees. Capture Leave eliminates the pains of having to fill out paper forms and waiting for ages for requests to be approved. A comprehensive mobile solution that is easy to use for both employees and managers alike.

Key Features

• Automated accrual calculator

• Absence management

• Document management system

• Reporting

Pricing

• Capture Leave starts at $25 per month for up to 15 users.

• Free trial: 60-day

• Free plan: No

As the name suggests, Leave Board is a cloud-based dashboard that allows managers to easily track employee time-off, including vacations, and reducing absenteeism in the process. Users have instant access to a time-off allowance, a central team calendar, and a self-service portal. Even if businesses have multiple PTO policies, managers can still build custom time-off policies that automatically accrue. Employees can easily send all kinds of requests directly from the mobile app.

Key Features

• Leave management

• Employee self-service

• Employee database

• HR reports

• Integration with Slack

Pricing

• Pro plan costs $1.35 per user/month

• Free trial: 14-day

• Free plan: Yes

With Zoho People, managers have an absence tracker that allows them to accept leave requests from employees in an instant. Immediate responses mean that absences are handled quicker, and teams can stay organized in the process. Managers can easily send notifications and documents to employees and HR managers also have the ability to fix availability issues in no time at all (as well as preventing them from happening, to begin with).

Key Features

• Absence tracker

• Online timesheets

• Employee database

• HR workflows

• Generate reports

Pricing

• Essential HR plan costs $1 per user/month

• Free trial: 30-day

• Free plan: Yes

Time Off Cloud is an absence tracker app that streamlines PTO requests and general management workflows for both employees and managers. This digital solution makes time off approval painless and provides easy-to-read calendars and user-friendly calculations and reporting. These features combined help eliminate paper-based methods and the need for tedious manual processes like spreadsheets. An ideal solution for HR managers, business owners, and general managers alike.

Key Features

• Time off calendar

• Balances and reporting

• Accrual calculations

• Approval notifications

• PTO tracking

Pricing

• Time Off Cloud starts at $21 per month

• Free trial: 14-day

• Free plan: Yes

With Cezanne HR’s absence tracker solution, managers can handle absences and vacations with minimal effort. Sick leave, parental leave, and all other kinds of leaves are easy to manage, while seemingly difficult calculations are simplified. Managers can easily update their overtime rules and policies, as well as update employees’ entitlements based on their working hours. Employees can also easily request time off from the convenience of their mobile phones.

Key Features

• Employee self-service

• Approval workflows

• Time off in lieu

• Reporting

• Overtime management

Pricing

• Contact a Cezanne HR sales rep for a price quote.

• Free trial: Available with a price quote.

• Free plan: No

Quick Comparison Table Of The Best Absence Tracker Apps Of 2023

Frequently Asked Questions On Absence Tracker Apps

What should you look for in absence tracker apps?

Ultimately, absence trackers are specifically designed to streamline all varieties of employee leave. Here are some of the features that alleviate the pain of manually managing leave requests and tracking time off:

• Leave accrual: A proper absence tracker will track accruals based on business policies/state and federal laws so that employees don’t have to.
• Integration with payroll software: Employee leave generally has implications connected to payroll, so absence trackers often have integrations with popular payroll software like QuickBooks Online , Xero, and Gusto.
• Employee self-service: Employees have easy access to a dashboard where they can submit time-off requests and access their absence-related information.
• Integration with calendars: this means that everyone in the company can see exactly when specific managers/employees are taking time off.
• Mobile access: Many providers supply apps that allow employees to request time off directly from their mobile phones.
• Customizable approvals: Managers can customize the approval workflow to automate every step of the time-off decision process.

Are there employee absence trackers that are free to download? 

There are many absence tracker apps out there. As a matter of fact, this is a highly recommended way of testing the waters before you make a full commitment to a specific solution.

We recommend considering the solutions mentioned above, especially the ones that include a strong free trial period with all of the relevant features. If they also offer a free plan beyond its trial, then even better.

Connecteam offers a fully comprehensive version of its all-in-one software for a 14-day free trial, with everything you need to manage practically every aspect of your employees’ day-to-day – from time tracking and employee scheduling to employee communication and onboarding.

In order to benefit from its absence tracking capabilities, such as adding custom absences and admin request approvals, you will need to upgrade to at least the platform’s Basic plan, which is $29 per month.

The Bottom Line on the Best Absence Tracker Apps in 2023

As you can see, keeping track of all of your employees’ absence requests while ensuring absence-related policies and rules are always maintained is a fine balancing act.

Whether your employees need time off because they require sick leave, parental leave, or simply want a vacation, having software specifically designed to make absence tracking painless is a must.

All of the solutions mentioned above have the features required to eliminate dated methods of absence tracking, making this notoriously tedious workflow a walk in the park. 

We highly recommend trying out the free trials that these solutions offer. That way, you can get a better idea of which software is the best fit for your daily operations.

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