Insights & Updates
Practical guides, product news, and HR tips for small business owners and managers.
Free leave software usually means a demo with the useful parts removed. Ours is the full product, free forever for teams of up to five. Our founder explains the thinking.
We compared 11 staff leave tracking platforms, from enterprise HR suites like BambooHR and Rippling to lean specialists like Leave Dates and SimpleLeave, on price and functionality.
The UK's sickness absence rate looks like the envy of Europe. It's flattered by what it leaves out — and 2026's new sick pay rules could make 2027 a lot less flattering.
A list of who's off doesn't tell you whether your team can cope. See how Simple Leave's new Heatmap reports turn your leave data into a visual staff holiday planner.
A new By Policy Type view lets admins update one leave policy across every employee in a single table — built for cycle rollovers and policy-wide changes.
Most "free" leave trackers hide the thing you actually need behind a paywall. An honest look at what nine popular tools actually give you on their free tier, including where Simple Leave sits.
From 6 April 2026, the Employment Rights Act 2025 requires UK employers to retain adequate leave records for six years — including for former employees. Failure to comply is a criminal offence.
Twenty years of selling Excel leave trackers taught us exactly what spreadsheets can and cannot do. Here is what we learned — and why we eventually built Simple Leave.
Full-time, part-time, pro-rata, mid-year starters, bank holidays — here's exactly how UK holiday entitlement works, with worked examples and a free calculator.
When does a notice period actually start, and how do you work out the last day? A plain-English guide with worked examples covering calendar months, four-week notice, and end-of-month edge cases.
From annual leave and sick pay to maternity, paternity, and neonatal care leave — everything a first-time founder needs to set up compliant leave policies from day one.
We've released Working Patterns — a powerful new feature for teams with part-time staff, flexible shift patterns, or employees working across multiple locations with different national holidays.
Excel still serves many small teams managing employee leave — but not all trackers are equal. We compare the best options and explore where dedicated software makes more sense.
For years we helped businesses manage leave through Excel planners. Now we've built something better — real-time collaboration, mobile approvals, and automated tracking in one clean platform.