PTO tracker: a free spreadsheet and how to choose software

A PTO tracker is the record of how much paid time off each employee has earned, used and has left, plus who asked for which days and who said yes. For a small business, the right one depends on how many people you have, whether their hours change every week and how many states they work in. This guide compares the three common options, gives you a free spreadsheet version with the accrual formulas filled in, lists the legal rules any employee time off tracker has to get right, and ends with a checklist for choosing software when the spreadsheet stops working.

Three kinds of PTO tracker, compared

Most small businesses use one of three setups. None is wrong; each one fits a different size and kind of team.

• A spreadsheet. Excel or Google Sheets, kept by the owner or an office manager. Free, flexible and familiar. Every number in it is typed by someone.
• A standalone vacation tracker. An app built only for time off: a team calendar, request and approval buttons, and balances that accrue on a schedule. It usually sits beside your payroll rather than inside it.
• PTO inside a larger system. The time off module of an HR platform, a payroll service or a workforce app that also runs the time clock and schedule. Balances, hours worked and pay come from the same records.

The real cost of the spreadsheet is not the software, it is the copying. Every hour of accrual and every day of PTO is entered at least twice: once in the tracker and once in payroll. Our guide to paid time off explains the policy choices behind the numbers; this page is about where those numbers live.

A free PTO tracker spreadsheet you can copy

If a spreadsheet fits your team today, set it up properly. These three tabs are separated by tabs, so each one pastes into Google Sheets or Excel as columns. Create the tabs with the names shown, paste each block into cell A1 of its tab, and the formulas will work. The example rows use Dana Brooks, a barista hired at Northfield Coffee in Austin, Texas, on November 2, 2026, on a policy of 80 hours a year accrued per hour worked.

How the formulas work

• Hours earned = hours worked × accrual rate. Dana worked 82.5 hours in the November 1 to 14 period, so she earns 82.5 × 80 ÷ 2,080 = 3.17 hours. If she works 76 hours in the next period (an illustrative figure), she earns 2.92 more, for a balance of 6.10 hours. Use the unrounded rate in the formula; rounding it to 0.0385 first adds a few hundredths of an hour each period.
• The cap is the MIN(). The balance can never go above the cap in Settings. An employee at 120 hours stops earning until they use some time.
• The year-end row removes anything over the carryover limit. If Dana ended a year with 64 hours and a 40-hour limit, the adjustment would be −24. Delete this row in states where earned vacation cannot be forfeited.
• Per-pay-period accrual instead. Replace the Hours earned formula with a fixed number: 80 ÷ 26 = 3.08 hours a biweekly paycheck for a full-timer.
• Hours, not dollars. Track balances in hours. Where payout is required, it is owed at the final rate of pay, so a dollar balance goes stale with every raise.

The weak point of this PTO tracker spreadsheet is column B. Per-hour accrual is only as accurate as the hours you type in, so pull them from your time clock records, not from the schedule. And the request log only works if every request goes through it. One "sure, take Friday" in the hallway and the ledger is wrong.

What any employee time off tracker must handle

Spreadsheet or software, these are the rules your tracker has to follow. The figures below match our paid time off guide and are current as of November 2026; check your state labor department, because they change.

Accrual methods

There are three: per hour worked (80 ÷ 2,080 = 0.0385 hours per hour), per pay period (3.08 hours a biweekly paycheck for 80 hours a year) and front-loaded (the full amount on January 1, prorated for new hires). Many policies also add a tenure step, such as 120 hours a year from year three, which is 120 ÷ 2,080 = 0.0577 hours per hour worked. A tracker should let you set different rates by role or tenure and change them on a set date without rewriting history.

Caps, carryover and use-it-or-lose-it

A cap stops accrual at a ceiling. A carryover limit and use-it-or-lose-it remove hours at year end. States treat these very differently. The California Labor Commissioner says earned vacation vests as it is earned and cannot be forfeited at a set date, though a reasonable cap is allowed, and a PTO bank that mixes vacation and sick leave follows the same rules. Colorado, Montana and Nebraska also bar forfeiture of earned vacation. Your tracker needs a cap setting, a carryover setting you can turn off by state, and a log showing exactly when hours were removed and why.

State paid sick leave

As of November 2026, 20 states and Washington, D.C. require paid sick leave, and cities add their own rules. California's law, according to the Labor Commissioner, requires at least 1 hour for every 30 hours worked, lets employers limit use to 40 hours or 5 days a year and cap the balance at 80 hours or 10 days, and requires unused hours to carry over up to that cap. New York requires up to 40 hours a year at employers with 5 to 99 employees and up to 56 hours at 100 or more. Texas, where Northfield Coffee operates, has no statewide paid sick leave law. If you have staff in a sick leave state, the tracker must either run sick leave as its own balance or prove that the PTO bank meets the law's accrual, use and carryover rules.

Payout at separation

No federal law requires PTO payout. In most states the written policy decides, which is why the "Payout at separation" line in the Settings tab matters. Some states take a stricter line: California requires earned, unused vacation to be paid at the final rate of pay when employment ends for any reason (Labor Code 227.3), and Colorado, Illinois, Massachusetts, Montana and Nebraska also treat earned vacation as wages owed. California does not require payout of unused paid sick leave unless the employer's policy provides it, which is one reason some employers keep sick leave in its own bucket. A tracker must show an exact, dated balance on the last day so the final paycheck is right the first time. Our PTO payout by state table has the details.

FMLA running at the same time

Private employers with 50 or more employees in 20 or more workweeks are covered by the Family and Medical Leave Act, which gives eligible employees up to 12 workweeks of unpaid, job-protected leave in a 12-month period. Under the Department of Labor's rule at 29 CFR 825.207, an employer may require employees to use accrued paid leave during FMLA leave, so the paid hours run concurrently with the FMLA time rather than adding to it. The employer has to tell the employee, and the employee's ability to use paid leave follows the normal terms of the PTO policy. That means your tracker needs to count two things at once: hours coming off the PTO balance and weeks used out of the 12. Paid leave used for a reason that does not qualify does not count against FMLA. A team the size of Northfield Coffee is well under 50, so FMLA does not apply to it, but it matters as you grow. Read our FMLA leave guide for eligibility and notices.

Part-time proration

Per-hour accrual prorates itself: a part-timer who works 25 hours a week earns 25 × 52 × 80 ÷ 2,080 = 50 hours a year. Per-pay-period and front-loaded methods do not. If you use them, set a lower amount for part-time roles, such as 50 ÷ 26 = 1.92 hours a biweekly paycheck instead of 3.08, and decide how you handle someone who moves between full-time and part-time mid-year. California's Labor Commissioner says a vacation plan may exclude classes such as part-time or probationary staff if the plan says so clearly, but state sick leave laws usually cover part-timers anyway.

Other leave types

Bereavement, jury duty, voting time and military leave are often tracked apart from PTO, and some are set by state law. A tracker should let you add leave types that do not reduce the PTO balance. See our guides to bereavement leave and jury duty pay for how those usually work. Finally, keep the records: the Fair Labor Standards Act requires payroll records, which include PTO paid, to be kept for at least three years.

A buying checklist for PTO tracking software

If you are moving off a spreadsheet, take this list to every demo and ask the vendor to show each item on screen with your own policy, not a sample one. Our PTO tracking feature page has a shorter version; this one goes into more of the edge cases.

1. Your accrual method, exactly. Per hour worked, per pay period or front-loaded, with your rate, tenure steps and waiting period.
2. Where hours worked come from. If accrual is per hour, does the software read hours from its own time clock, from your payroll, or from a file someone uploads?
3. Caps and carryover by state. Can a California location run a cap with no year-end forfeiture while a Texas location uses a carryover limit?
4. Separate sick leave balances. With the state's accrual rate, use limit and carryover, if you need them.
5. Leave types that do not touch PTO. Bereavement, jury duty and unpaid leave.
6. FMLA tracking. If you have 50 or more employees, can it count FMLA weeks and PTO hours at the same time?
7. Part-time and status changes. What happens to accrual when someone moves from 40 to 25 hours a week?
8. Coverage before approval. Does the manager see who else is off, and the shift schedule, before saying yes?
9. The path to payroll. Does approved PTO reach the pay run on its own, as an export, or by retyping?
10. Final balance. Can you see an exact balance as of an employee's last day?
11. Employee view. Can employees see their balance and request time off from a phone?
12. History and audit trail. Who changed a balance, when and why, kept for at least three years.
13. Moving your data in. Who imports current balances, and how will you check them?
14. Price and contract. Check current pricing and what is included on each vendor's own site.

Honest trade-offs

Each option gives something up. Here is what, in plain terms.

Spreadsheet. It is free and does exactly what you tell it, which is also the problem. It has no request flow, no approval record and no link to hours worked or payroll. It depends on one person, and when that person is on vacation, so is the PTO tracker. It stays a good choice for a handful of people with fixed hours in one state.

Standalone vacation tracker. A good team calendar and a clean request flow, usually quick to set up. Its weak spot is the gap to payroll and, for hourly teams, to hours worked: per-hour accrual needs those hours fed in from somewhere. It fits salaried teams who plan time off weeks ahead.

PTO inside an HR or payroll platform. HR platforms such as BambooHR and Rippling, and payroll services such as Gusto, ADP and Paychex, include time off tracking as part of a broader HR or payroll product. Balances sit next to employee records and pay. What to check is how hours worked and the shift schedule get in, since many hourly teams schedule elsewhere.

PTO inside a scheduling or workforce app. Scheduling tools such as Homebase, When I Work, Deputy and Connecteam offer time off requests next to the schedule. Some include a time clock or payroll and some connect to a separate payroll provider. Features change often, so check current capabilities and pricing on each vendor's site. If you are also choosing a broader system, our guide to the best HR software for small business covers the wider decision.

Where Workzenly fits. Workzenly is a workforce app with the time clock, shift scheduling, PTO and payroll in one place, and one employee app for all of it. Employees request time off in two taps and see their balance first. Managers see who else is out before they approve. Balances accrue and update themselves, and approved PTO flows into payroll with pay stubs in the app. It fits best when one person out means a shift to fill, like a cafe, store, clinic or crew. If you have three salaried people who rarely overlap, the spreadsheet above may be all you need.

Switching from a spreadsheet without losing hours

Most problems after a switch come from bad starting data, not from the new tool. A few steps prevent them:

1. Pick a cutover date at the end of a pay period. Balances are easiest to check when all hours for the period are final.
2. Reconcile every balance first. Recalculate each employee's balance from their hire date or last known-good balance. Fix errors in the spreadsheet before you import them.
3. Show each employee their starting number. Ask them to confirm it. A dispute resolved now costs a conversation; one found at separation costs a final paycheck correction.
4. Close out pending requests. Approve or decline everything in the request log so nothing approved gets lost.
5. Keep the old file. Save the spreadsheet as read-only. It is part of your records.
6. Update the written policy. Tell people how to request time off now, in your employee handbook.

Workzenly imports your employee list and PTO balances from a spreadsheet during setup, so nobody starts from zero. The check in step 3 is still worth doing, because spreadsheet errors carry over.

Frequently asked questions