Every teacher, every leave type, every session. Allocated once, balanced forever.
A bulk page to allocate Casual, Sick, Earned and statutory leaves to every staff member at session start. Pick the credit frequency — monthly accrual, quarterly, half-yearly or yearly. Inkwelly tracks allocated, used, pending, encashed and carry-forward balances per teacher, per leave type, per session — always ready for the next application and the next salary run.
How most Indian schools allocate leave at the start of a session today
It is the first week of April. The trust has revised the leave policy by one circular. The head clerk opens an Excel sheet, types out the names of all sixty-four staff members, types '15' under CL, '10' under SL, '21' under EL, '180' under Maternity for the four eligible female teachers, '7' under Paternity for the eligible male teachers. By Friday she has the spreadsheet ready. The principal signs it. It gets filed.
By June the spreadsheet is irrelevant. The Hindi PGT joined in May — nobody updated her allocation. The Chemistry TGT exited in July — nobody removed hers. The new bus driver who joined in August has zero leave on record because the allocation sheet was a one-time exercise. When the same staff applies for leave in October, the office has to manually compute her balance starting from her joining date, the trust's accrual rule and any previous applications. Three hours of work for one application, and the answer might still be wrong.
Most school ERPs treat allocation as a single bulk import at year start. They do not handle accrual through the year, they do not handle mid-session joiners and exits, they do not roll EL forward at session boundary, and they certainly do not show a live balance to the teacher when she opens the Leaves form on her phone. The system that should be the source of truth becomes a stale snapshot that nobody trusts.
How Inkwelly Leave Allocation works — every employee, every leave type, every session
Open Employee Attendance → Leave Allocation and you land on the staff list for the current academic session. Filter by department — Teaching, Transport, Support, Administration. Click any teacher's row and you reach her per-employee allocation page where every active leave type from your Leave Types catalogue is listed: Casual, Sick, Earned, Maternity (if she is a female), Paternity (if he is a male), On-Duty, Compensatory Off and any specials.
For each leave type you set three things. totalLeavesPerYear — the appointment-letter number, typically 15 for CL, 10 for SL, 21 for EL, 182 for Maternity. maxLeavesPerMonth — the per-month cap if the trust enforces one (some trusts cap CL at one per month). creditFrequency — the most important field of the three: pick MONTHLY, QUARTERLY, HALF_YEARLY, YEARLY, BI_MONTHLY or AUTO. MONTHLY divides the annual allowance into 12 monthly credits — useful for EL where teachers earn 1.75 days per month. YEARLY credits the entire balance up-front in April — the typical pattern for CL and SL. AUTO follows the leave type's accrual rule from the catalogue — the default for most schools.
The EmployeeLeaveBalance record is computed live: totalAllocated (sum of credits issued so far), totalUsed (approved applications consumed), totalPending (applications pending approval that will deduct on approval), carryForwarded (rolled forward from the previous session), encashed (paid out at exit or year-end), and available — the headline number the teacher sees on her phone, which is totalAllocated + carryForwarded − totalUsed − totalPending − encashed. When she submits a leave application via Leaves, the available figure on her record drops the same second — no spreadsheet round-trip, no reconciliation lag.
At session boundary, Inkwelly runs the carry-forward rule from the leave type catalogue. For Earned Leave with isCarryForward = true and maxCarryForward = 30, any unused balance up to 30 days rolls forward into the next session as carryForwarded. The previous session's record is closed and archived; the new session's record opens with carryForwarded populated and a fresh totalAllocated computed against the new appointment-letter year. Nothing manual; nothing forgotten.
New joiners get an automatic allocation row created the moment they are enrolled and assigned to a primary department. The totalAllocated is pro-rated against their joining date — a teacher who joins on 15 October gets credited the months from October onwards, not the full annual allowance. Exits zero out unused balance for non-encashable leaves and trigger the encashment computation for Earned Leave at F&F.
Every guarantee Inkwelly Leave Allocation ships with on day one
- One row per (employee, leave type, session) — unique by database constraint, no duplicates ever
- Six credit frequencies — MONTHLY, BI_MONTHLY, QUARTERLY, HALF_YEARLY, YEARLY, AUTO — covering every Indian trust accrual pattern
totalAllocated,totalUsed,totalPending,carryForwarded,encashed,available— every balance dimension visible at a glanceavailablerecomputed live on every approval, rejection or cancellation — no stale balance anywhere in the system- Pro-rated allocation for mid-session joiners — a 15 October joiner gets six monthly credits, not twelve
- Carry-forward at session boundary — honours each leave type's
maxCarryForwardcap automatically - Allocation respects leave type
applicableGender— only female staff see Maternity rows; only male see Paternity - Allocation respects
applicableAfterMonths— EL allocation hidden for staff still in their probation year - Department-scoped — only leaves applicable to the staff member's primary department appear on her allocation page
- Bulk allocation by department — 'allocate the standard 15-CL / 10-SL / 21-EL set to every Teaching staff' in one click
- Per-employee override — the senior PGT with twenty years of service has 30 EL where the new TGT has 21; both are valid records
- Audit log — every change to allocation captures the actor, the timestamp, the IP and the before/after values
Walkthrough — the four screens of allocating leaves to a school in the first week of April
Six credit frequencies, one model
Indian schools follow at least four common leave-accrual patterns: yearly up-front (most CL / SL), monthly accrual (most EL), quarterly accrual (some trust-specific specials) and yearly with a probation cliff (most EL on probation). Inkwelly's creditFrequency field on EmployeeLeaveAllocation covers all four through a single enum: MONTHLY, BI_MONTHLY, QUARTERLY, HALF_YEARLY, YEARLY, AUTO. The accrual scheduler runs nightly — on the 1st of each accrual period it credits the next instalment to totalAllocated. The teacher's available balance grows the next morning without anyone in the office having to remember.
Six balance dimensions — the math the head clerk used to do by hand
The single number the teacher cares about — 'how many CL do I have left?' — hides five intermediate quantities. totalAllocated is everything credited so far this session. totalUsed is the sum of approved applications. totalPending is the buffer that will deduct if an in-flight application is approved. carryForwarded is what rolled in from last session. encashed is what was paid out at year-end. available is the result of all five. Inkwelly recomputes available on every state change — application submitted, approved, rejected, cancelled, encashed. The teacher sees the truth, the head clerk sees the truth, the F&F sees the truth.
Mid-session joiners and pro-rated allocation
A new TGT joins on 15 October. Her appointment letter grants 21 EL annually, monthly accrual. The pre-Inkwelly answer was 'we will work it out at year-end' — in practice meaning her first leave application got rejected because the office could not compute her balance. Inkwelly creates her EmployeeLeaveAllocation row the moment her primary department assignment is saved. totalAllocated is pro-rated to the months from October to March — six monthly credits at 1.75 days each, totalling 10.5 days. She applies for EL on 5 November and the form correctly shows her 1.75 days available so far, with the next 1.75 due to credit on 1 December.
Carry-forward at session boundary — the rule, applied automatically
On the night of 31 March, Inkwelly's session-boundary job runs across every active leave allocation. For each leave type with isCarryForward = true, it computes the unused balance and rolls forward up to maxCarryForward days into the next session's allocation row. A teacher with 26 unused EL and maxCarryForward = 30 carries all 26 forward; a teacher with 34 unused carries 30 (the cap) and the remaining 4 lapse. The previous session's row is closed; the new session's row opens with the correct carryForwarded and a fresh totalAllocated. The auditor's question 'how did 26 days appear in this teacher's April record?' has a one-screen answer.
“Pehle April mein ek Excel sheet banata tha aur saal bhar wo galat rehta tha. Ab joining ke time hi allocation ban jata hai, leave apply hote hi balance update ho jata hai. Ek calculation pure school ke liye automatic.”
Real-world allocation scenarios Inkwelly handles every term
1. April allocation for the entire teaching strength. First week of April, head clerk opens the Allocation dashboard, filters by Department = Teaching, hits 'Bulk Allocate'. She picks the standard set — CL 15, SL 10, EL 21 with monthly accrual, On-Duty unlimited — and Inkwelly applies it to all 41 teaching staff in one click. Maternity rows are auto-created for the 18 female teachers; Paternity rows for the 23 male. Total time: under five minutes.
2. Mid-session new joiner. The new Hindi PGT joins on 22 August. Her primary department is set to 'Hindi (Teaching)' on enrollment. Inkwelly automatically creates her allocation rows the same minute — CL pro-rated to 10 days (Aug to Mar = 8 months at 1.25 each), SL pro-rated to 6.7 days, EL pro-rated to 14 days at monthly accrual. She applies for two CL on 5 September and the system shows 8 days remaining without anyone touching the spreadsheet.
3. Mid-session exit. The Chemistry TGT exits on 31 October. The exit-formalities flow checks her allocation rows. EL is isEncashable = true and she has 12 unused days; the system surfaces a 12-day encashment line item on her F&F. CL and SL are non-encashable; their unused balance lapses at her exit date. The encashment calculation flows into her final salary computation.
4. Trust changes EL annual allowance from 21 to 24 mid-session. The trust circulates a circular on 12 December raising EL from 21 to 24 days for all staff with five or more years of service. The head clerk opens the bulk allocation tool, filters by 'Service Years ≥ 5', updates totalLeavesPerYear from 21 to 24. Inkwelly recomputes monthly accruals for the remainder of the session — the next month's credit is 0.25 days higher, reflecting the proportional increase. Historical balances are preserved; the change is forward-effective and audit-logged.
5. Department transfer. The PE teacher moves from 'Sports (Teaching)' to 'Coordinator (Administration)' effective 1 January. Her primary department changes; Field Visit Leave (scoped to Sports only) is automatically deactivated on her allocation. Casual, Sick, Earned and the new admin-specific leaves remain. The transition is one department-assignment edit; the allocation rows update the same second.
Common Leave Allocation operations Inkwelly covers
- Bulk allocate the standard CL / SL / EL set to every Teaching staff in one click during April week
- Auto-create allocation rows for new joiners the moment they are enrolled — pro-rated against joining month
- Auto-deactivate allocation rows for exiting staff — trigger encashment for
isEncashable = trueleaves at F&F - Roll forward unused EL at session boundary, honouring
maxCarryForward— no manual carry-forward sheet - Override per-employee — senior PGT with 30 EL while new TGT has 21, both valid
- Update an allocation mid-session for trust policy changes — forward-effective, historical balances protected
- Recompute live on every leave application approval, rejection or cancellation — no stale balance anywhere
- Filter by department, search by employee name, sort by status — manage 64 staff in one screen
- Audit log every allocation edit — actor, timestamp, IP, before/after values — ready for trust review
- Multi-language column headers — the head clerk in Hindi-medium school sees अवकाश instead of 'Leave'
See Leave Allocation live with your school's actual roster
Bring your latest staff roster (CSV or PDF), your appointment-letter leave clauses, and any trust circular updating the policy to a 25-minute demo. We will allocate leave to your full teaching strength in front of you and show the balances flowing into a sample [leave application](/features/leaves).
Limits, safety and the small print
One allocation row per (employee, leave type, session). The unique constraint at the database level prevents duplicates. If you try to allocate Earned Leave to the same teacher in the same session twice, the system rejects the second attempt with an explicit error. To change the allocation, you edit the existing row — the change is forward-effective.
Pro-rating uses calendar months, not the joining day. A teacher who joins on 1 October and another who joins on 28 October both receive six monthly credits for the October-to-March window in a MONTHLY accrual model. Day-of-month pro-rating is available on request for trusts that require it (typically large international schools); the default is calendar-month pro-rating because it matches Indian payroll convention.
Allocation for non-primary departments is not created. A staff member's EmployeeLeaveAllocation rows are scoped to her primary department only. If the same teacher holds a secondary teaching role in a different department (e.g., a Hindi PGT who also coaches Cricket), the secondary department's leave types do not generate separate allocation rows. The secondary role is treated as a teaching responsibility, not as a parallel employment.
Carry-forward runs at midnight on 31 March. The session-boundary job is scheduled at 23:55 IST on the last day of the academic session. Allocations modified after the boundary roll into the next session's record. If your trust runs on a non-April-to-March session calendar, the boundary date is configurable per school via academic sessions settings.
Encashment is computed at F&F, not at year-end. For isEncashable = true leave types (typically EL only), the unused balance is held in the allocation row through the session and paid out only at exit, not at year-end — unless the trust explicitly enables year-end encashment via a school-level toggle. The default matches the typical Indian-school appointment-letter clause; the override is one setting away.
Permission gating. Editing allocation requires iam:school:manage-leave-allocations permission. By default, this is granted to the Principal and the Head Clerk only. The accountant typically gets read access to allocation balances for payroll computation but not write access. Audit log captures every edit. The default role pack ships configured for a typical CBSE / ICSE school — adjust per your trust's policy in five minutes.
Belongs to
1 moduleFrequently asked
7 questionsHow long does April allocation take for a school of 64 staff?
Around six minutes of office time end-to-end. The head clerk opens the Allocation dashboard, filters by Department = Teaching, hits Bulk Allocate, picks the standard set (CL 15, SL 10, EL 21 with monthly accrual, On-Duty unlimited), saves. Maternity / Paternity rows are auto-created based on each staff member's gender. She repeats for non-Teaching departments with their respective sets. The whole exercise that used to take a week of Excel work is done in a single mid-morning sitting.
What happens when a new teacher joins in October — do we have to manually allocate?
No — allocation rows are auto-created the moment her primary department assignment is saved during enrollment. `totalAllocated` is pro-rated against her joining month: a 1 October joiner with monthly EL accrual at 1.75 days/month gets six monthly credits totalling 10.5 days for the Oct–Mar window. She applies for leave from her first day onward and the form shows her live, correct balance — no head-clerk intervention required.
How does the carry-forward of Earned Leave work at session end?
On the night of 31 March, Inkwelly's session-boundary job runs across every active EL allocation. For each row with `isCarryForward = true` and `maxCarryForward = 30`, it computes unused balance and rolls forward up to 30 days into the next session as `carryForwarded`. Any unused balance above 30 days lapses. The previous session's row is closed and archived; the new session's row opens with `carryForwarded` populated and a fresh `totalAllocated` for the new session. Fully automatic; no manual carry-forward sheet to maintain.
Can the same teacher have different EL allocation than her colleagues?
Yes — allocation is per (employee, leave type, session). The senior PGT with twenty years of service might have 30 EL where the new TGT has 21. Both are valid, independent records. Bulk allocation gives you the default set per department; per-employee override lets you adjust individual rows for trust-recognised seniority, mid-session policy revisions or specific contractual exceptions. Every override is audit-logged with actor, IP and timestamp.
What does the teacher actually see when she opens the leave-application form?
Her `available` balance for every leave type her gender and department qualify for. If she has 21 EL allocated, has used 6, has 2 in pending applications, carried 4 forward and encashed nothing, the form shows '17 EL available' — the result of `21 + 4 − 6 − 2 − 0`. She picks the leave type, picks the dates, the system blocks the application if she exceeds available balance, and on submit her `totalPending` ticks up while `available` ticks down the same second.
What happens to unused leave balance when a teacher exits the school?
For non-encashable leaves (typically CL, SL, On-Duty), the unused balance lapses at the exit date. For `isEncashable = true` leaves (typically EL only), the unused balance is surfaced on the exit-formalities flow as an encashment line item. The encashment days multiplied by the daily-gross rate flows into the final salary computation under [Employee Payroll](/modules/employee-payroll). The historical allocation row is preserved — her past balances stay queryable for any verification request from her next employer.
Can we change leave allocation rules mid-session if the trust updates policy?
Yes — mid-session changes are forward-effective. If the trust raises EL from 21 to 24 days on 12 December, you update the allocation rows (bulk or per-employee) and Inkwelly recomputes the remaining monthly accruals proportionally. Historical balances and approved applications are preserved at the rules under which they were processed. The change is audit-logged with the actor, the IP and the before/after values; the trust's circular is your reference document.
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