Your team’s absences
The Absences tab of the Time page shows who is away, and why, month by month. An absence recorded here counts its working days without weekends or the public holidays of the canton of work. Holidays become the days taken in the employee’s holiday balance; the other absences show in the month’s payroll and fill in the employer’s certificate when the employee leaves.
Before you start
- The Payroll and Time & projects modules are switched on: the absences are those of the payroll employees. See Turn on payroll and Turn on Time & projects.
- To record an absence, you need the right to manage payroll.
The team’s month
Open Time, then the Absences tab. The calendar (1) shows one row per employee and one cell per day, in the colour of the reason: Holiday, Sickness, Accident, Military or civil service, Maternity leave, Other parent’s leave, Unpaid leave or Other absence. A half day fills half a cell. Weekends are greyed out; a dot at the top of a cell marks a public holiday in the employee’s canton.
- The arrows change the month; This month brings you back.
- Whole team filters one person.
- The two buttons on the right switch between Calendar and List, which gives the person, the reason, the dates and the days counted for each absence. On a phone, the list shows first.
Click an absence to change it; click a free day to record one on that day.
Record an absence
Click Record an absence (2).
Choose the Person and the Reason.
Enter From and To. For a single day, choose Whole day, Morning or Afternoon. For several days, The first day starts at noon and The last day ends at noon count a half day at the start or the end.
Before you save, check what To Bill counts: the working days, the public holidays not counted with their name and date, and for a holiday the Holiday balance before and after.
Add a Note if needed, then click Save.
Two absences cannot cover the same half day: To Bill says so (“An absence is already recorded on …”) and does not save. For sickness during a holiday, for example, shorten the holiday first, then record the sickness. A morning and an afternoon with different reasons on the same day go together. An absence must fall within the employee’s employment.
How the days are counted
- Monday to Friday, without Saturdays and Sundays.
- Without the public holidays of the employee’s canton of work (on their record, Canton of work). To Bill follows SECO’s list of public holidays treated like Sundays, plus 1 August everywhere. A public-holiday afternoon, such as 1 May in Solothurn, leaves the morning.
- For an employee who works fewer than five days a week (Days worked a week on their record), each day counts for its share: at 4 days a week, a week of absence counts 4 days and a half day 0.4 days.
- A holiday that runs across two years counts its days in each year.
If the contract or the collective agreement counts differently, a day off granted for example, switch on Type the number of days by hand and type the Days. The list marks them typed by hand.
Cantons whose public holidays depend on the municipality
In Aargau, Fribourg, Neuchâtel and Solothurn, the public holidays depend on the district or the municipality: Fribourg, for example, does not keep the same days in mostly Catholic and mostly Protestant municipalities. To Bill takes the most common region and tells you so in the absence window. Choose the region on the employee’s record, under Holidays › Terms › Public holidays.
Who sees what
| Right | What it allows |
|---|---|
| Manage payroll | Record, change and delete absences, with their reason and note. |
| View payroll | See all absences, their reason and their note. |
| View or manage time, without payroll | See who is away and when, never why: a single colour, Away, with no note. |
The reason for an absence, sickness or an accident, is health data: it stays with the people who manage payroll.
Holidays and the balance
The holidays recorded here are the days taken in the employee’s holiday balance: their record lists them under Holidays taken in …, with the See in Time link. The carry-over, the pro rata entitlement and the corrections stay on the record. See Holidays.
In the month’s payroll and on departure
- The month’s payroll shows, under each employee, their absences of the month by reason, for example “Sickness: 2 d”. This is for information: To Bill does not change the salary because of it.
- When an employee leaves, the employer’s certificate for unemployment insurance takes their absences of the last 12 months (question 21), sickness or an accident during the notice period (question 13) and military service around the notice period (question 16). See When an employee leaves.
What To Bill does not do yet
- Reduce the salary for unpaid leave: correct the month’s payslip yourself, with your fiduciary.
- Compute and claim the income compensation (EO/APG: service, maternity, other parent) or the daily allowances for sickness and accidents: the compensation fund and the insurers pay them when the employer claims them.
- Track the right to salary during sickness (Bern, Zurich or Basel scale) and the protection against dismissal during sickness.
Legal basis
- Holidays: at least four weeks a year, five up to the age of 20, pro rata for an incomplete year, Art. 329a CO; the employer sets their dates, taking the employee’s wishes into account, Art. 329c CO.
- Public holidays: 1 August is treated like a Sunday throughout Switzerland, Art. 110 para. 3 of the Constitution; the cantons may treat up to eight other public holidays a year like Sundays, Art. 20a para. 1 ArG, the Employment Act (German version). List by canton: SECO’s annex, in German (also in French and Italian), as of 12.12.2024.
- The employer may process data about employees only where it concerns their suitability for the job or is needed to perform the contract, Art. 328b CO; health data is sensitive personal data, Art. 5 let. c no. 2 FADP.