Absence Management

All absence lives in one place: vacation, sickness, childcare leave, comp leave and everything in between. Absence drives both the schedule and the payroll, so what is registered here has consequences in money.

The absence types

If the sick leave is caused by a work injury: tick Arbetsskada (work injury) on the sick leave. This can also be done afterwards.

Staff can choose the types themselves in the staff portal. Extra ledighetsdag is shown only when the restaurant has extra days off turned on, both there and in the manager's list. Arbetstidsförkortning is shown only in the manager's list, and only when the Tjänstemän (salaried staff) setting is Visita–Unionen. It applies to people with the staff type Tjänsteman: 8 hours a year full-time in 2026 and 12 hours in 2027, less for part-time. The balance is on the staff record's Tid och frånvaro (Time and absence) tab, and time not taken does not carry over to the next year. Pick the type that applies: use VAB when caring for a sick child, not Sjukdom, because they are calculated differently in payroll data.

Pregnancy leave is not parental leave. Register leave with pregnancy benefit as Graviditetsledighet. Parental leave and the ten days at a child's birth are reported as absence data in the employer declaration (Act 2024:1300), but pregnancy benefit is not covered by that duty, and absence data already sent cannot be corrected. Vendion therefore never sends absence data for pregnancy leave. The ten days at a child's birth are reported as temporary parental benefit.

Absence can also be registered as a half day, counting as half a day against the balance.

Sickness and childcare leave are approved instantly

Sickness and childcare leave are notifications, not requests — nobody asks permission to fall ill. They are therefore approved the moment they are registered and never enter your approval queue.

The other types are submitted as requests and wait for your decision. That includes 10 dagar vid barns födelse.

That has a practical consequence: an employee can withdraw their own request as long as you have not acted on it. Sick and childcare notifications cannot be withdrawn that way, since they are already approved. There you make the change as manager.

Sickness still needs a declaration. A sick report being approved instantly does not mean sick pay should be paid instantly. The employee gives their declaration in the staff app, and you follow up the declaration, medical certificate and report to Försäkringskassan in the Sjukuppföljning (sick follow-up) panel on the staff record's Tid och frånvaro (Time and absence) tab. See Sick Leave – Declaration, Medical Certificate and Reporting to Försäkringskassan.

Handling absence as a manager

1. Go to Personal › Personal › Frånvaro (Staff › Staff › Absence)
2. Select Väntar for pending requests or Alla for the full list
3. Read the dates, type and comment on the request
4. Click Godkänn (Approve) or Neka (Reject)
5. Add an optional comment and confirm the same decision in the dialog

If the person has too low a vacation balance you get a warning — but it does not block approval. You can approve more vacation than someone has left. Check the balance first. If you run payroll in Fortnox Lön there is no such warning — the balance lives in Fortnox.

If you change your mind, an approved absence can be deleted. The balance is then restored automatically.

An approved absence is also shown on the day's row under Personal › Tider (Time), with its type, for example Semester (holiday). A full day of absence gives no negative difference there. See Time Tracking – Review and Approve Work Hours.

Registering absence for someone else. You do not have to wait for staff to apply. The Absence view has Registrera frånvaro to enter absence directly — useful when someone phones in sick or when you enter vacation you already agreed verbally.

Absence you register yourself is approved immediately, regardless of type.

Reporting a shift as sick in the schedule

When someone phones in sick, the schedule is the quickest way:

1. Open Personal › Schema (Staff › Schedule) and click the person's shift
2. Choose the Registrera frånvaro (Register absence) tab and Sjukdom (Sickness)
3. Check the dates. If the illness covers several days, change Till (To)
4. Choose how the declaration is given, see below
5. Click Registrera frånvaro

Leave the shift in place. The shift is shown struck through with Sjuk (sick) in the schedule, without a warning. Sick pay is calculated on the shifts the person would have worked, so a deleted shift can take that day's sick pay with it. If you add a new shift on a day the person is already reported sick, you still get a red warning: that shift creates sick pay for a day the person was not scheduled.

The declaration in the same step. When you report sickness you choose Jag har fått försäkran (I have received the declaration, preselected) or Personen lämnar den själv i appen (the person gives it in the app). With the first, it is done: the declaration is recorded, staff get no prompt in the app and the reminder in the notification bell disappears. The choice is only shown to someone who may see the person's sick follow-up, i.e. someone with payroll rights or who may manage users. The same choice appears when you register sick leave under Personal › Personal › Frånvaro.

Remove or change. If you click a shift that is already reported sick, the Registrera frånvaro tab shows the sick report instead of the form. You can remove it there with Ta bort sjukanmälan (remove sick report). The whole sick report is removed, including the declaration, and it cannot be undone. To change only the dates, use Personal › Personal › Frånvaro.

Answering in time

Each pending request in the list shows when you should answer at the latest, and the notification bell warns when the deadline is near or has passed:

• Vacation: at least two months before the leave (Annual Leave Act section 11). If the request came in later than that, answering before the leave is enough.
• Leave of absence, permission, comp leave, extra day off and other: within 14 days and before the leave, if the restaurant has the Visita/HRF agreement (Gröna riksavtalet § 24).
• Parental leave, pregnancy leave, the 10 days at a child's birth, sickness and childcare leave have no deadline here: the leaves are a right under law, and sickness and childcare leave are approved instantly.
• Unpaid vacation and unpaid absence show no deadline.

Permission: reason and limit

When the type is Permission, the employee or you choose the reason. Gröna riksavtalet § 16 lists when paid permission can be granted:

• own wedding or own 50th birthday
• first visit to a doctor or dentist for acute illness or an accident, or a visit after referral by the company doctor
• the death or funeral of a close relative (also the interment of the urn)
• sudden serious illness of a close relative living at home
• a work injury, when the person has to go home for the rest of the working day

A close relative is a spouse, registered partner, child, sibling, parent, parent-in-law, grandparent or the person you live with permanently. If the reason is not on the list, choose Annat skäl (other reason).

Permission is at most one day. For a funeral it may also cover at most two travel days, so at most three days. If the permission is longer, or the reason is missing, a warning shows in the request and in the absence list. The warning does not stop you approving: the agreement says permission may be granted, and you can give more. The warnings show only when the restaurant has the Visita/HRF agreement.

When someone does not turn up: absence without notice

If someone who normally clocks in misses a published shift without clocking in and without a registered absence, and has not clocked in since, the notification bell warns the day after. The check covers people who have clocked in during the last 45 days; if you do not use the time clock, no such notices show. Find out why: register the absence, or correct the time under Tider (Times) if the person just forgot to clock in. The notice disappears by itself.

If the person has been away for 15 calendar days without getting in touch, the notice turns red. Under the Visita/HRF agreement the employment is then considered ended at the employee's own request (Gröna riksavtalet § 23 a). You must notify the person in writing at the last known address and send a copy to HRF. Then end the employment on the staff record.

Switching requests off entirely

If you do not want staff applying digitally, you can turn it off:

Personal › Inställningar › Schema › Tillåt frånvaroansökningar (Staff › Settings › Schema › Allow absence requests)

On: staff apply themselves from the staff view and you approve. Off: the form disappears and staff cannot submit new absences themselves — you register all absence yourself. Absence already submitted stays.

The setting is on by default.

How many days an absence costs

This surprises many people, and it is worth understanding before approving a long leave.

Vendion counts primarily against the person's schedule: if the schedule is published for the period, the absence costs exactly the days the person would have worked. If the schedule is not published yet — the normal case, since vacation is requested months ahead — the system falls back on Monday to Friday.

The judgement of whether the schedule exists looks forward only. A shift lying in the days before the leave says nothing about the days the leave covers, and therefore does not count as a published schedule.

Comp leave has its own order: the hours on the request are used first, then the schedule's hours, and only as a last resort eight hours per day.

The deduction from the monthly salary

For monthly-salaried staff, vacation, unpaid vacation, leave of absence, unpaid absence, parental leave and pregnancy leave give a deduction from the salary. Unpaid vacation gives no vacation pay for the days. Vendion counts the absence the way Gröna riksavtalet does: from the first day that would have been a working day, up to and including the day before the person is back at work.

• Up to 14 calendar days: deduction per hour for the scheduled hours
• More than 14 calendar days: deduction per calendar day, monthly salary × 12 / 365, days off included
• The whole calendar month: the whole monthly salary

Vendion finds the return to work in the schedule: the person's first published shift after the absence, at most seven days after the registered absence. A day the person actually clocked in also counts, as does the start of another absence such as sickness or comp leave. Several rows with no return in between count as one absence. If there are days between the rows, the schedule must be published past the gap.

Example: leave of absence Monday 6 to Friday 24 July, back Monday 27 July, is 21 calendar days, not 19. On a monthly salary of SEK 32,000 the deduction is SEK 22,093.15.

A whole month in several rows: if every day of the month is vacation, leave of absence or parental leave, or sickness from day 15, the whole monthly salary is deducted even if the absence sits in several rows. Sick days 1–14, childcare leave and part days do not make the month whole.

Put the shifts after the absence in the schedule. If the return is not visible in the schedule within a week, the deduction is counted on the registered dates, and Personal › Löner warns when you lock the period if that can affect the deduction. Publish the shifts after the leave, or check the deduction before you lock the period.

Childcare leave (VAB) and the 10 days at a child's birth are always deducted per hour for the scheduled hours, however long the absence. An extra day off gives no deduction. Sickness has its own rules, and hourly staff get no absence deduction. The full walkthrough is in Payroll Data – Calculate and Export.

Double registration is blocked

Two full-day absences on the same date cannot be saved — the system stops it outright. That prevents the same day from consuming both a vacation day and a sick day.

Two exceptions are deliberate:

• Sickness, childcare leave, the 10 days at a child's birth, parental leave, pregnancy leave and care of a relative may overlap vacation. Swedish vacation law gives the right to exchange vacation days for sick days when you fall ill during vacation.
• Half days are never blocked, since two half days can be perfectly correct.

Where the balances appear

Open the employee under Personal › Personal and go to the Tid och frånvaro (Time and absence) tab. The Saldon (balances) card holds the vacation balance for the current vacation year and the comp time bank with its most recent transactions. If the person has a time bank, it is there too, see Time Bank – Plus and Minus Hours for Monthly Staff. If the restaurant has extra days off for public holidays turned on, that balance is on the same tab, see the article Extra Days Off for Public Holidays.

The vacation balance follows payroll permission. If your payroll permission is limited to certain permission groups, you only see the balance for people in those groups. For others it says the information is shown only to someone with payroll permission for that person, not that there is no balance.

If the restaurant runs payroll in Fortnox Lön, no vacation balance is shown here. Fortnox calculates it, and the employee sees it on the payslip.

The employee sees their holiday balance in the staff portal under Tider › Frånvaro and while filling in a request, and the comp time bank and the time bank on Hem (home).

The vacation year follows Swedish vacation law and runs 1 April to 31 March — not the calendar year. A vacation week in February therefore belongs to the vacation year that started in April the year before.