Free calculator
Leave liability calculator
What does your business owe in unused leave? Enter each person's unused PTO or annual leave and their pay. You get the value per person and in total, with an optional on-cost, and how it moved since last month. Nothing leaves your browser.
1People, unused leave and pay
Under each person, "Last month and earned" is optional. Fill it in to see how the liability moved.
2What the business owes
How the calculator counts
Hours times each person's hourly rate, then the on-cost and the movement.
Hours owed are the unused leave in hours, or in days multiplied by the hours in the person's working day. The hourly rate is the rate you enter, or for a salary the yearly salary divided by hours a week times 52. Value is hours multiplied by the hourly rate, per person, and the total is the sum of the unrounded values, rounded only for display. On-cost is the percentage you enter, applied to the value and shown on its own line.
For the movement, opening is last month's unused leave, earned is what you enter for the month and closing is the unused leave now. Taken is worked out as opening plus earned minus closing. Everything is valued at the rate you entered for the person, so a raise during the month is not separated out here. The change in value is the closing value minus the opening value.
For the bookkeeper
What a leave liability is
It is the money the business owes for leave people have earned and not yet taken. If Ann has 70.16 hours of PTO and is paid $32 an hour, that is $2,245.12. Add everyone up and you have the figure that goes into the books at month end or year end.
The month-end routine is always the same: what was owed last month, what people earned, what they took, and what is owed now. The difference is what the bookkeeper posts.
- Value per person and in total
- An optional on-cost for employer taxes or pension
- Opening, earned, taken and closing, with a journal summary
Other names for the same thing
Accrued leave, leave provision, accrued PTO and holiday pay accrual.
Depending on the country and the accountant, you will see accrued PTO liability, accrued vacation, accrued annual leave, leave provision, leave accrual, holiday pay accrual or leave balance liability. They all describe the value of untaken leave at a date.
United States: accrued vacation liability
General notes only. Whether and how to record it depends on your policy, your state and your accounting method.
Many US employers record accrued vacation or PTO as a liability when the policy lets people carry unused time over or be paid for it. Whether payout is required when someone leaves depends on the state and on your own policy, which the PTO payout calculator looks at for an individual. Your accountant decides what belongs on the balance sheet.
United Kingdom: holiday pay accrual
General notes only. Your accountant decides the rate and the period end.
Employers who owe or carry over untaken holiday often accrue holiday pay at the period end, valued at the person's normal pay. For the entitlement itself, see the UK holiday entitlement calculator and the UK holiday pay calculator. The on-cost field can hold employer National Insurance and pension if your accountant includes them.
Australia: annual leave and long service leave provisions
General notes only. Annual leave is covered here, long service leave is not.
Annual leave is usually valued as a provision at the employee's pay, often with on-costs such as superannuation added, which the on-cost field can hold. Long service leave is a separate provision with its own rules that differ by state. This calculator does not compute it. The long service leave calculator covers an individual's entitlement, and your accountant sets the provision.
In LeaveCalc
The same report, built from real balances
Add pay once and the Liability report does the rest, as of any date. Included in every plan.
Hours come from the real balances
No retyping. The report reads each person's balance as of any date, including past month ends.
Each person's own rate
Hourly, or a yearly salary converted with that person's own weekly hours. Rate changes keep a history.
Pay stays private
Only owners and managers who see every department can see or edit pay. It is hidden from the request page, Slack and Teams, and left out of exports for everyone else.
On-cost in its own column
Add a percentage for employer taxes or pension. The value and the on-cost are shown side by side.
How it moved
Opening, earned, taken, paid out and expired for each leave type, adding up to the closing figure.
Journal summary, CSV and print
Copyable debit and credit lines, a download and a print view, saved as a report and emailed monthly if you like.
What the calculator and the report do not do
No accounting advice, no long service leave, no tax and one rate per person.
The calculator values leave at one rate per person. It does not separate a raise during the month, does not compute long service leave, and does not apply tax. The journal summary is a calculation aid: your accountant decides how and whether to post it.
In LeaveCalc, the Liability report counts balance-tracking paid time off, time off in lieu and any leave you pay out when someone leaves. Sick leave, unpaid leave, FMLA and holidays do not carry value by default, though a switch counts every leave type that has a balance. People without a pay rate are listed with their hours and never guessed. Pay in a different currency from the company's is listed on its own row and left out of the totals.
Inside the app
The Liability report
Open Reports, then Liability. Pick the date, add an on-cost if your accountant uses one, and read the value by person and leave type. A second block shows how the figure moved between two dates and gives the journal lines.
- Download as a spreadsheet or print it
- Save it as a report and have it emailed each month
- People without a rate are listed, never guessed
How it works
Add pay once, then read it every month
A few minutes the first time, then one click at month end.
Add pay to each person
Hourly or a yearly salary, on the person's page. Only owners and managers who see every department can do this.
Pick the date
Choose the month end, add an on-cost if needed, and read the value of unused leave by person and leave type.
Send it to your bookkeeper
Copy the journal lines, download the spreadsheet, or schedule the report by email.
Pricing
Flat price by team size, the report included
Every plan has every feature except SAML single sign-on, which is for Business and Enterprise. You pay only when your team grows.
Free
$0per month
For teams up to 3 people
Pro
$15per month
For teams of 4 to 25 people, 14-day free trial
Business
$69per month
For teams of 26 to 100 people, 14-day free trial
Enterprise
$149per month
For teams of more than 100 people, no seat limit
No card for Free or the 14-day trial. Cancel any time, with a 30-day money-back guarantee on paid plans. Paying yearly costs ten months for twelve, and Business and Enterprise can pay a year by invoice.
Start freeFAQ
Leave liability, answered plainly
A leave liability, also called accrued leave or a leave provision, is what the business owes for leave that people have earned and not yet taken, valued in money. If someone has 70.16 hours of unused PTO and is paid $32 an hour, the value is $2,245.12. A bookkeeper adds this up at month end or year end so the accounts show it.
For each person, take their unused hours (or days times the hours in their working day) and multiply by their hourly rate. Add the people up. For a salaried person, convert the salary to an hourly rate first: the yearly salary divided by the hours worked in a year, which is hours a week times 52. If your accountant adds employer on-costs such as payroll taxes or pension, add that percentage on top. The calculator above does all of this.
The same way: unused annual leave in hours, times the hourly rate, per person, then the total. If the balance is in days, multiply by the hours in that person's working day first. Keep in mind that rules differ by country. In Australia, for example, annual leave and long service leave are usually separate provisions, and this calculator covers only the first.
List each person's untaken holiday at the period end, in hours or days, value it at their normal pay and add the total. Many UK employers do this at the year end for holiday that is carried over or owed. Your accountant decides the rate and whether anything else belongs in the figure, so use this as a working calculation.
That is a question for your accountant. The calculator has an optional on-cost percentage that is shown as its own line, so you can see the value with and without it. Leave it empty if your accountant does not use one.
Enter last month's unused leave for each person, and what they earned this month. The calculator works out what was taken, so that opening plus earned minus taken equals closing, and shows the change in value as a simple journal summary: the amount to move into or out of the leave provision against leave expense. It is a calculation aid and your accountant decides how to post it.
No. It runs entirely in your browser. The names, hours and pay you enter are not sent anywhere and are gone when you close the page.
LeaveCalc for Employers already holds each person's balance, so you only add pay once. The Liability report, under Reports, shows what the business owes as of any date, with the value per person and per leave type, an optional on-cost column, the movement between two dates and a journal summary. It can be downloaded, printed, saved and emailed each month. Pay is visible only to owners and managers who see every department.
This calculator and the Liability report are calculation aids. They are not accounting, tax or legal advice. Your accountant decides what belongs in the accounts, how it is valued and how it is posted, under the rules that apply to you.
Also see
Get the liability report every month.
Free for up to 3 people, no card. Add your team and their pay, and read what the business owes as of any date.