Leavely vs Spreadsheets
Excel and Google Sheets feel free until leave tracking becomes a weekly admin job.
Spreadsheets are fine when there are three people and one manager. Once your team grows, manual leave tracking turns into formula checks, copied rows, missed clashes, stale balances, and approval trails buried in email or chat. Leavely replaces the spreadsheet with live balances, one-click approvals, a team calendar, sickness tracking, Bradford Factor monitoring, TOIL, and a proper audit trail.
Leavely
£8/user/mo
All features included. No tiers.
Spreadsheets
Free + admin time
Pricing at time of writing
Feature comparison
Comparison based on common manual leave tracking workflows in Excel, Google Sheets, and similar spreadsheet tools. Spreadsheet capabilities vary by template, configuration, and internal process.
| Feature | Leavely | Spreadsheets |
|---|---|---|
| Employee leave requests | Manual | |
| Manager approvals | Email/chat | |
| Automatic balance tracking | Formula risk | |
| Pro-rata entitlement calculations | Manual | |
| UK bank holidays built in | Manual | |
| Team leave calendar | Static view | |
| Department clash detection | ||
| Sickness absence tracking | Manual | |
| Bradford Factor monitoring | ||
| TOIL tracking | Manual | |
| Return-to-work forms | ||
| Role-based access control | ||
| Full audit trail | ||
| Employee self-service | ||
| No credit card for trial |
Why teams choose Leavely over Spreadsheets
No more broken formulas. Leavely calculates balances, pro-rata entitlement, carry over, and deductions automatically.
Approvals stop living in inboxes and chat threads. Employees request leave in Leavely and managers approve in one click.
Clashes are easier to spot because everyone works from the same live team calendar instead of copied spreadsheet versions.
Sickness absence is tracked properly, with Bradford Factor monitoring and return-to-work records included.
HR records have a real audit trail. You can see who requested, approved, changed, or cancelled leave without digging through files.
Employees can check their own balances and leave history, so managers stop answering the same spreadsheet questions every week.