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Staff Attendance & Leave

Staff attendance and leave aren't just HR paperwork — in 4SCH, they feed directly into payroll. This guide shows you how to record both quickly, accurately, and consistently.

Daily Staff Attendance​

Recording daily staff attendance takes seconds.

Marking Today's Attendance​

  1. Open Staff → Staff Attendance
  2. Today's date is pinned at the top
  3. Every active staff member is listed below with three quick-tap buttons:
    • Present (green)
    • Absent (red)
    • On Leave (blue, auto-set when there's an approved leave covering today)
  4. Use Mark All Present at the top to set everyone to Present in one click
  5. Then tap Absent for anyone who isn't in
  6. Click Save

Approved Leave Is Locked​

Anyone with an approved leave covering today is automatically marked On Leave — the row is locked so you can't accidentally overwrite their leave status. Hover the row to see the leave reason as a tooltip.

Browsing Attendance History​

The same Staff Attendance page has a tab switcher at the top:

Daily View​

The default view — one day at a time, every staff member listed.

Monthly View​

Calendar grid for the current month with totals per day at the bottom. Use this to spot a day where attendance dipped unusually (a strike day, a snowstorm, anything that needs flagging).

Per Staff View​

Pick a staff member → their entire month appears as a grid of coloured dots with totals on the right:

  • Present count
  • Absent count
  • Leave count

This is the view accountants love — it's the foundation of any payroll-related conversation.

Export​

Both Monthly and Per Staff views have an Export to CSV icon if you need the raw data for a spreadsheet.

Setting Up Leave Types​

Before you can approve a leave request, the school needs leave types set up. This is a one-time job at the start of each session year.

Adding a Leave Type​

  1. Open Staff → Leave Types (sometimes labelled Leave Masters)
  2. You'll usually see common defaults already: Annual, Sick, Casual, Maternity, Paternity, and an Unpaid category
  3. Click Add Leave Type and fill in:
FieldNotes
NameWhat staff will see when requesting leave (e.g. "Sick Leave")
Annual Allowance (days)How many of this type each staff member gets per session year
Paid togglePaid → no impact on payroll. Unpaid → reduces every salary component flagged as Affected by Leave.
Session yearAuto-selected to the current session
  1. Click Save

Why Session-Scoped?​

Each leave type is scoped to the current session year, so you naturally start fresh each new academic year — last year's allowances don't carry over.

Staff Requesting Leave​

When a teacher or other staff member needs to take leave, they request it themselves.

How a Staff Member Requests Leave​

  1. Sign in as the staff member
  2. Open My Leave → Request Leave
  3. The form shows:
    • Leave Type dropdown — each option shows the staff member's remaining balance next to its name (e.g. "Sick Leave — 8 days remaining")
    • From and To date pickers
    • Reason textarea
    • Optional Attachment (e.g. a medical certificate)
    • A live preview: "You are requesting 3 days of Sick Leave from 12 Aug to 14 Aug"
  4. Click Submit Request

The request appears on their My Leave → Requests list as Pending, and a notification fires to the school admin or principal who approves leave at your school.

Approving or Rejecting Leave​

As the approver, manage incoming requests from Staff → Leave Requests.

The Approval Queue​

  1. Open Staff → Leave Requests
  2. Filter to Show Pending only so you see what needs action
  3. Click any row to open the detail panel

The detail panel shows:

  • Staff name
  • Leave type
  • Dates
  • Reason
  • Attached document
  • Balance after this request — the most important number to check before approving

Approving​

  1. Click Approve (green)
  2. Optionally add a comment — the staff member sees this in their notification
  3. Submit

The status flips to Approved, the row disappears from the Pending filter, and a notification fires back to the staff member.

Rejecting​

  1. Click Reject (red)
  2. Add a comment explaining why — this is the kindest thing you can do for the staff member
  3. Submit

What Happens After Approval​

The approved dates are automatically marked as On Leave on the daily Staff Attendance page (and locked, so they can't be accidentally overwritten). No double-entry.

How This Feeds Payroll​

The reason attendance and leave matter so much is what happens next.

When you generate monthly payroll, 4SCH reads each staff member's attendance and approved leave for the month and applies the rules:

Day typePayroll impact
Paid leaveNo impact on the payslip
Unpaid leaveEvery salary component flagged as Affected by Leave is reduced proportionally for the days off
Absent (not covered by leave)Treated as unpaid for components flagged as Affected by Leave
PresentFull pay for the day

That's why getting attendance and leave right matters: payroll inherits all of it automatically.

Reports​

Staff → Leave → Reports gives you a per-leave-type, per-staff breakdown for any date range, exportable to CSV. Useful for:

  • End-of-year leave balance reviews
  • Comparing leave usage across departments
  • Spotting absence patterns

Troubleshooting​

"Mark All Present" doesn't apply to one row​

That row probably has an approved leave covering today — it's locked On Leave intentionally. Hover the row to see the leave details.

A staff member's leave balance is wrong​

Open Staff → Leave Types → [type] and confirm the annual allowance is correct for the current session year.

A staff member can't submit a leave request​

  • Confirm they're trying to request fewer days than their remaining balance
  • Confirm the leave type they're requesting still exists for the current session year

An approved leave isn't showing on the attendance page​

Refresh the attendance page. If it still doesn't show, open the leave request and confirm its dates are correct.

Video Walkthrough​

A 7-minute video version of this guide lives at video-tutorials/scripts/05-feature-focused/19-staff-attendance-and-leave.md.

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