Absence management software

Our absence management software will give you a complete and connected view of your absence across the entire organisation. You can easily submit, track and manage attendance, sickness, absence, and leave all in one place - via any device.

With sickness absence estimated to cost the UK economy over £100bn annually*, now is the time for your business to get on top of employee absence data.

Book demo Contact us

Our Access People solutions are trusted by 19,000+ organisations in the UK and Ireland

Key features of our absence management software

Simplify your leave management with our easy-to-use absence management solutions, packed with essential features to streamline workflows, boost team happiness, and save you time.

Efficient automation of time and attendance

Our absence management system compiles and calculates working hours and automatically highlights when average hours have been exceeded
Automated pro-rata adjustments for new joiners, leavers, changes in full time equivalence (FTE), length of service and promotions
Trigger points to highlight patterns of sickness absence that require further attention

Book a demo

Self-serve capabilities

Self-serve for employees – the ability to view annual leave entitlement, holidays carried over, days taken and upcoming booked leave, as well as request time off and submit timesheets and overtime
Self-serve for managers – simple one-click approval of holiday requests, timesheets and overtime

Explore HR self service

Smart integrations

Our absence management solution is a fully modular system, allowing you to add other modules to your package as your organisation grows – all accessible via single sign-on access
API integration capabilities
Integrated with payroll software to automate holiday, sickness and overtime calculations

Dynamic and customisable dashboards

12-month views of employee calendars, visible to all staff
Customisable leave types
Secure viewing level permissions, which can be set depending on role, team or department
Option to define approval criteria for different types of absence
Document upload functionality to support absence records, like fit notes and return to work interviews
Real-time customisable reports on employee planned and unplanned absences

Cloud-based with a dedicated mobile app

Our absence management solution is cloud-based, with no limit to employee numbers
The native mobile app enables managers and employees to view and manage leave on the go, with geofencing clocking solution and language preferences

Day Lewis Pharmacy success story

Day Lewis Pharmacy sought to bring their legacy HR and payroll functions together with a single integrated solution, to provide better visibility of shift patterns across all of Day Lewis’ sites to help improve the resourcing of key employees in their pharmacies.

Speak to an expert about your absence management needs

HR software for small businesses

Access PeopleHR

Designed for businesses with up to 250 employees, including startups.

Small Business HR Software

HR software for medium to large businesses

Access PeopleXD

Designed for businesses with 250 employees or more.

Medium to large business HR software

How our absence management software helps inform decision making

With our absence management solution, your employees can take ownership of their own data, leave and absence with self-serve capabilities, and your business will gain a better understanding of absence to help inform decision making.

Whether you want to replace outdated absence tracking software or are looking for an integrated and scalable HR suite, our absence management system offers both familiar features and cutting-edge functionalities.

Benefits of our absence management system

Manage absence across a workforce of any size
Mobile self-serve functionality to enhance the employee experience
Centralised absence data and trends to support capacity planning and prevent absenteeism and presenteeism
Reduce sick pay compilations and remove admin with automation
Set triggers and run real-time reports to develop data-led policies
Remain compliant with occupational and statutory legislation
Calculate the cost of absence and reduce the financial impact
Reduce costly absence data inaccuracies with payroll integration

Find out more about how to manage absence in the workplace, and the benefits for your business.

See our absence management software in action

Book a free demo

Seamless payroll integration

Process employee hours correctly and seamlessly transfer accurate absence data to payroll and online payslips.

Payroll software

Combine with roster scheduling

Discover the leading rostering solution on the market today with collaborative shift swapping and automatic rostering.

Rota scheduling software

End-to-end workforce management solutions

Your absence management software can be integrated with employee self-service tools and onboarding software so you can view everything you need regarding your people in one place.

Workforce management solutions

Proud to be working with 19,000+ organisations in the UK and Ireland

“Although our principle driver for a move of HR and payroll software and services was a financial one, the results of this change have far surpassed simply a monetary value.”

"The support we received from the Access People Project Team throughout the entire project has been fantastic… It would be challenging enough under normal circumstances but to do this during the pandemic is a huge achievement."

“Access People was the only provider we spoke to that could give us an end-to-end, secure, cloud-based HR and Payroll solution that works on any device, allowing us to transact and transform all on one platform. We can now go from roster to time and attendance, pay deductions, payment and beyond in one system.”

“The feedback we have received so far has been very positive and employees generally feel happier that we have made a difference to their working day. Commercially we will achieve the return on investment in two years. However, in real terms the hours saved for each manager are significant.”

“The ability to centralise a number of siloed systems had a profound impact on the effectiveness and efficiency of our HR team - especially as a multinational conglomerate. After the project, we saw significant improvements in key areas of the business, like employee retention and GDPR compliance.”

Absence management software FAQs

What is absence management software?

Absence management software is designed to help organisations to effectively keep track of attendance, sickness, absence and leave entitlements, all in one place. It equips managers with the tools to monitor absences and keep accurate records, while providing valuable absence related insights. Your HR team can use this data to develop absence management policies and programmes tailored to your organisation's specific requirements.

Learn more about effective absence management and how software can help.

How does absence management software work?

Absence management software works by providing a range of tools and features to help managers and HR teams keep track of staff absence across the entire organisation. At Access, we offer absence management software that is integrated with time and attendance management software, and this gives managers and HR teams:

Real-time notifications of staff absences and holiday requests
Bradford Factor scoring or similar automated sickness triggers
Full visibility of your team’s schedules and holiday bookings to avoid clashes and ensure cover is in place
Mobile functionality to track absences in any location, on any device, at any time
Powerful reports and analytics to help spot patterns and detect and resolve any problems with absenteeism before they arise
Ability to integrate with payroll systems to automatically update pay and reduce time to process employee hours

Why choose Access absence management software?

Our absence management system offers more than simple holiday requests and sickness tracking. With more than three million people using our tools every day, we understand that growing organisations want to automate their leave tracking and absence management processes. We also appreciate the need to drive operational efficiencies through centralised people analytics and data, and accurate reporting.

The modular nature will support your future scalability plans, while seamless integration with our wider HR suite means our absence management software can support the changing needs of your organisation as it grows.

What is the difference between absence management software and a staff holiday booking system?

Absence management software is a holistic solution designed to help organisations manage all absences on one system - from holiday entitlement to parental leave and sickness. It usually includes both a holiday booking system and more sophisticated absence tracking and management capabilities.

A staff holiday booking system has a more specific purpose, which is to help managers and employees to easily view, request and approve holiday requests in a central location.

What is the best leave management system?

The best leave management system removes the complexity from managing staff holidays and absences, and provides advanced reporting, alerts and automation of manual tasks to empower HR teams and managers to handle absence efficiently.

Many businesses benefit from a leave management system that provides self-service functionality allowing employees and managers to view holiday calendars, entitlements and book leave on the go, on any device, at any time. The software should also include an employee holiday tracker function for streamlined visibility of holiday bookings across large teams.

Additional key features include real-time notifications to keep managers informed of holiday requests and absences or when changes are made, and system alerts and updates so when laws linked to absence change.

Speak to one of our HR experts

Our HR and payroll software solutions support every aspect of your people strategy, from recruitment and onboarding right through to staff holiday booking, talent management, payment and rewards.

Speak to one of our experts to find out how our solutions can unite, integrate and optimise all of your people processes to maximise the success of your employees.

If you’re an existing customer, please contact support.

Get in touch