Leave is filed and decided through the same panel and the same dialogs as any other request, so Submitting a Request and Approving, Rejecting and Reverting cover the mechanics in full. This article is about the parts that only apply to leave.
Filing it
New request from Leave Requests, then pick a leave type. Choosing one changes the panel: you get a From and To date instead of a single day, and once both are filled a blue strip appears with the day count.
That strip is the number that matters, and it is worth pausing on before you submit:
4 workdays (excludes holidays & the branch weekend)
Four, for a Monday-to-Friday booking, because one of those days is a public holiday. Nobody has to claim the day back — it was never counted.
If that figure looks wrong, it’s almost always one of two things: a public holiday missing from the calendar, or the branch weekend set to different days than the office actually takes. Both are worth fixing before people start booking around them.
A single-day request
Set From and To to the same date. There is no half-day option — the smallest unit of leave BeeHR handles is one day.
Asking for more than you have
BeeHR will let the request through and flag it Over quota for the approver rather than blocking it at submission. Whether somebody can take unpaid days, borrow against next year or be turned down is a management decision, and the product deliberately doesn’t make it for you.
The approver sees the badge in their queue, and it shows how far over when it can work it out.
What approving actually does
Approving moves the days from pending to used on that person’s balance, for that leave type, in that year. The dialog tells you the count before you confirm.
Rejecting releases them: pending goes back down, and nothing is consumed. That’s why a rejected request costs the employee nothing but the time they waited.
Both take a moment to settle — the balance updates within seconds rather than instantly, so if you approve and immediately reload the employee’s balance tab, give it a beat.
One thing approving does not do is mark the attendance grid. Those days show as gaps in attendance until somebody records them as On leave. See The Monthly Attendance Grid.
Changing your mind afterwards
An Admin can revert an approved leave request to Pending, and the balance recalculates on the way back — the used days return to available.
That covers the mistake case. It does not really cover the “they cancelled their trip” case: reverting leaves the request Pending in somebody’s queue again, which then needs rejecting to close it out properly. Rejecting a previously-approved request after a revert is the cleanest way to record leave that was booked and then given back.
Cancelling before a decision
While a request is still Pending it can be deleted outright, which removes it and releases the pending days. That’s the right move for a booking made in error.
Once it’s been approved, deleting isn’t available until an Admin reverts it — two deliberate steps, so approved time off can’t quietly disappear from the record.