Who it’s for: Employees, managers, administrators and HR teams using TOIL Awards & Expiry
Platform: Sense HR
Available on: Elite and Enterprise
Before you begin
Make sure:
☑️ The employee has a Holiday year configured in Sense HR.
☑️ The employee is covered by the applicable Event Manager rules for the Event that earns TOIL and the Event used to take TOIL.
☑️ The employee’s Profile Template includes TOIL Award and TOIL Allocation.
☑️ If the employee already has TOIL entitlement, it’s measured in Hours.
Overview
With TOIL Awards & Expiry, employees earn TOIL through Events chosen by their organisation and take it by booking the organisation’s TOIL Event.
The workflow manages the records behind the process automatically.
When TOIL is earned, it:
creates a TOIL Award;
adds the Award to the employee’s overall TOIL entitlement; and
gives the Award its own expiry date.
When TOIL is taken, it:
uses the employee’s available Awards in earliest-expiry-first order;
reduces their available TOIL entitlement; and
creates TOIL Allocation records showing how the booking used those Awards.
Employees don’t need to select or manage individual Awards when booking TOIL.
For an introduction to how the different parts fit together, see:
Earn TOIL from a qualifying Event
Book the Working Event your organisation uses to award TOIL.
The Events that earn TOIL vary between organisations. For example, your organisation might award TOIL for:
Overtime;
weekend working; or
another type of additional work.
The Event can award:
the amount of time booked;
a fixed number of hours for each day booked; or
a fixed number of days for each day booked, converted into Hours using the employee’s working hours for that day.
📖 Example: Alice’s organisation has configured Overtime to award the amount booked. Alice completes 3 hours of Overtime, so the booking earns 3 hours of TOIL.
Book the Event in Calendar or Planner in the usual way.
Whether the Event requires approval depends on your organisation’s Event Manager configuration.
If approval is required, no TOIL is awarded while the booking is waiting for approval. The workflow creates the Award when the booking is approved.
If approval isn’t required, the booking is approved automatically and can award TOIL when it’s booked.
🖊️ Note: If a qualifying booking is changed while waiting for approval, the TOIL Award is based on the version that is ultimately approved.
Each qualifying booking can earn TOIL only once.
Understand fixed TOIL Awards
Some qualifying Events award a fixed amount for each day booked instead of awarding their actual booked duration.
For example, an organisation could configure:
Weekend working → 4 hours TOIL per day booked
A one-day qualifying booking awards 4 hours.
A two-day qualifying booking awards 8 hours.
The Event’s recorded duration and the TOIL Award are separate. A Full day Event can remain recorded as a Full day in Planner while awarding a fixed 4 hours of TOIL for that day.
This means the Event continues to record what was booked, while the workflow applies the organisation’s configured TOIL Award.
Check the TOIL Award
When the qualifying Event is approved, the workflow creates a TOIL Award for the employee.
The Award records information including:
what earned the TOIL;
the Award date;
the expiry date;
the amount awarded;
how much has been used;
how much has expired;
how much remains; and
its current status.
The Award date is the first day of the qualifying booking.
The Award’s Notes also retain information about its source, including details from the earning booking. This can include notes entered on the original Event, such as a project or work reference.
Understand TOIL Award statuses
TOIL Award Status helps you understand what has happened to an Award:
Open — the Award still has TOIL available.
Exhausted — the available TOIL from the Award has been used.
Expired — unused TOIL remaining on the Award has passed its expiry date.
Withdrawn — the qualifying Event that created the Award was deleted.
The Award record remains part of the employee’s history as its status changes.
Check the employee’s TOIL entitlement
The Award is also added to the employee’s overall TOIL entitlement.
You don’t need to create the entitlement manually. If the employee doesn’t already have TOIL entitlement, the workflow can create it when their first qualifying Award is added.
Each new Award adds to the employee’s single, cumulative TOIL entitlement balance.
If the employee earns more TOIL later, new Awards are added to the same overall balance. Each Award continues to be tracked separately with its own expiry date.
If TOIL is already measured in Days
If the employee already has TOIL entitlement measured in Days, the workflow can’t add an Award in Hours to it.
When a qualifying Event would award TOIL in Hours:
the Award isn’t added;
the employee receives a No TOIL added email; and
their Line Manager is notified.
Further Events that award TOIL in Hours won’t add Awards while the employee’s TOIL remains measured in Days.
To use hourly Awards, an administrator needs to correct the employee’s TOIL entitlement so it is measured in Hours, then resolve the TOIL that wasn’t awarded.
🖊️ Note: The workflow doesn’t automatically convert an existing TOIL balance between Days and Hours.
Book TOIL
When the employee wants to take TOIL, book the organisation’s configured TOIL Time-off Event.
The booking uses the employee’s overall TOIL entitlement. The employee doesn’t choose which individual Award to use.
TOIL held in Hours can be booked as:
Full day; or
Time-based.
For Full day, Sense HR uses the employee’s standard working day to calculate how many hours to deduct from their TOIL entitlement.
Whether the TOIL booking requires approval depends on your organisation’s Event Manager configuration.
How the workflow chooses which Award to use
Employees don’t need to decide which Award supplies the TOIL for their booking.
Sense HR first checks the employee’s overall TOIL balance and the Event’s booking rules.
The workflow then checks the individual Awards behind that balance to make sure enough valid TOIL is available for the dates being booked.
It uses valid Awards in earliest-expiry-first order.
For example:
Award | Available | Expires |
Award A | 2 hours | 30 November |
Award B | 5 hours | 31 December |
For a 4-hour TOIL booking, the workflow uses:
2 hours from Award A; then
2 hours from Award B.
Award B has 3 hours remaining.
This helps use TOIL that would otherwise expire sooner.
If valid Awards can’t fully cover the booking:
a booking waiting for approval is declined automatically; or
an already approved booking is cancelled automatically.
An automatically declined booking includes a comment explaining the shortfall.
Check the Award after TOIL is booked
The workflow updates the Awards used by the booking.
Example:
Awarded: 3 hours
Used: 1 hour
Expired: 0 hours
Remaining: 2 hours
Status: Open
The Award and Allocation update automatically as the employee uses the TOIL it contains.
If Alice later uses the final 2 hours, the remaining balance reaches zero and the Award status becomes Exhausted.
Check the TOIL Allocation
The workflow also creates TOIL Allocation records showing how the TOIL booking used individual Awards.
An Allocation connects:
TOIL Award → booked day → TOIL booking
The workflow creates an Allocation record for each booked day and Award used.
This means one TOIL booking can create several Allocation records. For example:
a multi-day booking can create records for each booked day; and
a booking that needs more than one Award can create records against each Award used.
Employees don’t need to manage these records. They provide the audit trail behind the employee’s overall entitlement and bookings.
What happens if a TOIL booking changes?
When a TOIL booking is changed, the workflow recalculates how the updated booking is covered by the employee’s valid TOIL Awards.
It reverses the previous Allocations and allocates the updated booking again, using the Awards that expire soonest first.
This means changing the dates or duration of a booking can change which Awards are used.
The previous Allocation records aren’t deleted. They’re retained as Reversed so the full history remains available.
Historical Allocations aren’t deleted. Reversed Allocation records remain in the employee’s TOIL Allocation history, including the reversal date, reason and who performed the action.
What happens if a TOIL booking is declined or cancelled?
When a TOIL booking is declined or cancelled, the workflow reverses its Allocations and returns the TOIL to the Awards that supplied it.
If an Award is still valid, the returned TOIL becomes available to use again and the employee’s TOIL entitlement is updated.
If the Award has expired since the TOIL was originally allocated, the returned amount remains expired and can’t be used for another booking.
📖 Example: Alice uses 2 hours from an Award that expires on 30 November. Her TOIL booking is later cancelled after 30 November.
The 2 hours are returned to the original Award for audit purposes, but remain expired. They don’t become available TOIL again.
What happens if the Event that earned TOIL is edited?
Editing an approved Event after the workflow has processed it doesn’t recalculate its TOIL Award.
For example, if an Overtime booking was approved with the wrong duration, changing the existing booking afterwards doesn’t change the Award.
⚠️ Important: Check an Event that earns TOIL before it’s approved. If its Award needs to be recalculated, delete the Event and rebook it correctly.
If its Award has already been used to fund TOIL, review the affected TOIL bookings before deleting the earning Event. Deleting it withdraws its Award and can affect bookings that used it.
🖊️ Note: This is different from changing a qualifying Event while it’s still waiting for approval. In that case, the Award is based on the version that is ultimately approved.
What happens if the Event that earned TOIL is deleted?
Deleting the Event that earned TOIL withdraws its Award.
The workflow:
changes the Award status to Withdrawn;
removes the withdrawn amount from the employee’s TOIL entitlement; and
keeps the Award record as part of the audit history.
If none of the withdrawn Award has been used, no TOIL bookings need to be changed.
If some of it has already been allocated, the workflow tries to move the affected TOIL bookings to other valid Awards.
If other valid Awards can cover the booking
The workflow reallocates the TOIL automatically.
The employee keeps their existing TOIL booking.
If other valid Awards can’t cover the booking
What happens depends on the booking’s status:
a booking waiting for approval is declined automatically;
an already approved booking is kept, but the employee’s TOIL entitlement can become negative.
The employee and their Line Manager are notified so the situation can be reviewed.
What happens when an Award expires?
Each TOIL Award has its own expiry date.
The Award date is the first day of the qualifying booking, and the expiry period starts from that date rather than the date the booking was approved.
An Award can be used up to and including its expiry date.
After that date, the workflow processes expiry overnight.
Any unused TOIL remaining on the Award is:
recorded as expired
removed from the employee’s available TOIL entitlement; and
retained on the Award for audit purposes.
The Award status becomes Expired.
TOIL already used from the Award isn’t expired.
For example:
Awarded | Used | Expired | Remaining |
8 hours | 5 hours | 3 hours | 0 hours |
The Award therefore continues to show what happened to the full amount originally earned.
What happens before an Award expires?
If expiry reminders are enabled, the workflow can notify the employee, their Line Manager, or both before unused TOIL expires.
Your organisation chooses:
when reminders are sent;
who receives them; and
whether they’re sent by Email, Push notification, or both.
Use TOIL Award to understand what was earned
The TOIL Award screen is useful when you need to understand where an employee’s TOIL came from or what happened to it.
Use TOIL Allocation to understand how TOIL was used
Use the TOIL Allocation screen when you need to understand how an employee’s TOIL bookings used their Awards.
⚠️ Important: Don’t manually add, edit or delete TOIL Allocation records. The workflow maintains them automatically.
Basic Troubleshooting
An approved Event should have earned TOIL, but no Award was created
First check whether the employee’s TOIL entitlement is measured in Hours.
If an employee’s TOIL entitlement is measured in Days, TOIL Awards & Expiry can’t add an Award in Hours. When this happens, the employee receives a No TOIL added email and their Line Manager is notified.
If TOIL is already measured in Hours, check that:
the Event is included in Award rules in the TOIL Awards & Expiry configuration;
its Event name matches the workflow configuration exactly;
the booking reached Approved status;
the employee has a Holiday year configured;
the employee is covered by the applicable Event Manager rule; and
their Profile Template includes TOIL Award and TOIL Allocation.
If the Event was corrected by editing it after the workflow had already processed it, the Award isn’t recalculated. Delete the Event and rebook it correctly if its Award needs to be recalculated.
The employee received a No TOIL added email
A No TOIL added email can be sent when a qualifying Event would create an Award in Hours, but the employee’s existing TOIL entitlement is measured in Days.
To use Awards in Hours:
Correct the employee’s TOIL entitlement so it’s measured in Hours.
Resolve the TOIL that wasn’t awarded.
Check that future qualifying Events create Awards as expected.
🖊️ Note: The workflow doesn’t automatically convert an existing TOIL balance between Days and Hours.
The employee has TOIL entitlement but I can’t find TOIL Award or TOIL Allocation
Check the employee’s Profile Template.
The workflow automatically adds TOIL Award and TOIL Allocation to the shipped Employee Profile Template. If the employee uses another Profile Template, both screens need to be added through Screen Designer > Profile templates.
Don’t create an Award or Allocation manually to replace a record you can’t see.
A TOIL booking was declined even though the employee appeared to have enough TOIL
Sense HR checks the employee’s overall TOIL balance when the booking is made. The workflow also checks the individual Awards behind that balance.
Those Awards must contain enough TOIL and be valid for the dates being booked.
Check the employee’s TOIL Award records to see:
which Awards remain available;
their expiry dates; and
how much remains on each Award.
An automatically declined booking also includes a comment explaining the shortfall.
An employee’s TOIL entitlement has become negative
This can happen if an Event that earned TOIL is later deleted after its Award has already been used.
The workflow withdraws the Award and first tries to move the affected TOIL bookings to other valid Awards.
If there isn’t enough other valid TOIL and a TOIL booking is already approved, the booking is retained and the employee’s entitlement can become negative.
Review the withdrawn Award, the affected TOIL booking and the employee’s Allocation records.
TOIL has disappeared from the employee’s available balance
Check the employee’s TOIL Award records.
Unused TOIL is removed from the available entitlement when its Award expires. The Award remains in the employee’s history with an Expired status.
TOIL can also be removed when an Award is Withdrawn because the Event that earned it was deleted.
FAQs
Click for answers to frequently asked questions
Click for answers to frequently asked questions
Q: Does an employee need to choose which TOIL Award to use when booking TOIL?
A: No. An employee using the TOIL Awards & Expiry workflow books against their overall TOIL entitlement. The workflow automatically uses valid Awards in earliest-expiry-first order.
Q: Can one TOIL booking use more than one Award?
A: Yes. The TOIL Awards & Expiry workflow can use several Awards to cover one TOIL booking. It uses the valid Award that expires soonest first, then moves to the next Award where more TOIL is needed.
Q: Can one TOIL Award be used for more than one booking?
A: Yes. A TOIL Award can contribute to several TOIL bookings until its available amount has been used or expires. TOIL Allocation records show how the Award was used.
Q: Why is the TOIL Award different from the duration of the Event that earned it?
A: An Event configured with a fixed Award in TOIL Awards & Expiry awards the configured amount for each day booked rather than using the Event’s recorded duration. For example, a Full day Weekend working Event can remain recorded as a Full day in Planner while awarding a fixed 4 hours of TOIL for that day.
Q: Why do I still choose a Duration mode when booking an Event that awards a fixed amount of TOIL?
A: The Event booking and the TOIL Award record different things. The Duration mode records the actual length of the Event in Planner, while the TOIL Awards & Expiry workflow uses the configured fixed Award to determine how much TOIL is earned for each day booked. For example, an Event can be recorded as a Full day in Planner while awarding a fixed 4 hours of TOIL for that day.
Q: What happens if I edit an Event that has already earned TOIL?
A: The TOIL Awards & Expiry workflow doesn’t recalculate its Award. If the Award needs to be recalculated, delete the Event and rebook it correctly. If its Award has already been used to fund TOIL, review the affected bookings before deleting it.
Q: What happens if I delete the Event that earned TOIL?
A: The TOIL Awards & Expiry workflow withdraws its Award and removes the withdrawn amount from the employee’s TOIL entitlement. The Award remains on the employee’s profile with a Withdrawn status. If its TOIL has already been used, the workflow first tries to move the affected booking to other valid Awards.
Q: Why did an employee’s approved TOIL booking remain in place when the Award that funded it was withdrawn?
A: If a withdrawn Award was used by an already approved TOIL booking, the TOIL Awards & Expiry workflow first tries to move the booking to other valid Awards. If there isn’t enough other TOIL, the approved booking is retained and the employee’s TOIL entitlement can become negative so the situation can be reviewed.
Q: What happens if a TOIL booking is cancelled after the Award it used has expired?
A: The TOIL Awards & Expiry workflow reverses the booking’s Allocation and returns the TOIL to the Award that supplied it. If that Award has already expired, the returned amount remains expired and isn’t available for another booking.
Q: Why was a TOIL booking automatically declined?
A: The TOIL Awards & Expiry workflow automatically declines a TOIL booking waiting for approval if valid Awards can’t fully cover it. The booking comment explains the shortfall. Check the employee’s TOIL Awards, their remaining amounts and expiry dates.
Q: When does a TOIL Award start its expiry period?
A: A TOIL Award’s Award date is the first day of the qualifying booking. Its expiry period starts from that date, not the date the earning Event was approved.
Q: Can an employee use a TOIL Award on its expiry date?
A: Yes. The TOIL Awards & Expiry workflow allows an Award to be used up to and including its expiry date. Any unused amount is processed as expired after that date.
Q: Can I correct a TOIL Award or Allocation manually?
A: Don’t manually add, edit or delete TOIL Award or TOIL Allocation records. The TOIL Awards & Expiry workflow maintains these records alongside the employee’s entitlement and bookings. If a record appears incorrect, investigate the source Event, TOIL booking and workflow activity instead.