A vacation request is not a form, but a chain: confirm the cover, have the manager approve, check for overlaps, fill the calendar, update the leave balance, inform payroll. We build this chain in the environment you are already paying for, and add the expiry run for March 31 right along with it. You can see at any time who is away when and how many days are still open.
The vacation list lives in a spreadsheet, requests arrive on paper or by email, and by February at the latest the balance no longer adds up. In summer it then turns out that two people from the same shift are away at the same time.
Five chains that look the same in almost every company and are still run by hand today. These are typical workflows from our projects.
The request starts in a form or in Teams and then runs on its own: the assigned cover confirms that they will take over the period, then the manager decides. If the manager is absent themselves, the deputy steps in after a defined deadline instead of the request being left hanging. Every decision is logged with a timestamp.
Savings 10-20 min per requestAnnual entitlement, half days, pro-rated entitlement for mid-year starts and departures, special leave, unpaid leave, and carried-over leave from the previous year are tracked separately and updated with every approval. Employees see their own balance instead of asking HR. The spreadsheet as the source of truth is no longer needed.
Impact Balance always correct, no manual upkeepCarried-over leave must be taken within the first three months of the following year under Section 7(3) BUrlG. However, according to the case law of the Federal Labor Court, it only lapses if the employer has previously informed the employee of the remaining leave, called on them to take it, and warned of the impending expiry (BAG, 19 February 2019, 9 AZR 541/15). We automate exactly this run: individual notices with the specific balance, scheduled in multiple stages, every dispatch stored in an audit-proof way.
Impact Duty to notify provably fulfilledBefore approval, the workflow checks against the team's already confirmed absences: minimum staffing per department or shift, blocked periods such as stocktaking or peak season, company shutdowns, and bridge days. A conflict is shown directly to the manager within the request, not discovered only in July. Approved absences land automatically in the team's Outlook absence calendar and in the requester's own calendar.
Impact Conflicts surface before approval, not afterIf a certificate of incapacity for work arrives during vacation, the certified days are not counted against annual leave under Section 9 BUrlG: the workflow books them back onto the leave balance and changes the absence type. In parallel, the chain sets up the out-of-office notice and forwarding to the cover at the start of the vacation and removes it again afterward. At month-end, a checked summary of the absence days goes to payroll or your tax advisor, in the format DATEV expects.
Savings 1-2 h per month-end closeMost SMEs do not need new HR software with a per-user fee. We are not tied to one vendor: if Microsoft 365 fits, we build there; if it does not, we use n8n. That decision is made during the initial analysis, not based on license preference.
Microsoft StandardThe approval chain runs through the Approvals connector, and that is a standard connector: the Power Automate license already included in Microsoft 365 plans is enough to build and respond to it, approvers need no additional license. To be honest about it: as soon as we need a database or an external system via a premium connector, that is no longer covered by the Microsoft 365 license. We tell you in advance which path needs which license.
The request starts in Teams or a form, the leave balance sits in a SharePoint list with clean permissions, and the absences land in the team's Outlook calendar. That puts vacation planning where your people work every day anyway, not in yet another portal with its own password.
Beyond MicrosoftIf time tracking, shift planning, or payroll do not come from the Microsoft world, n8n connects the systems and passes the absence days on to payroll. Self-hosted on German servers on request, so that health and personnel data never leave your premises.
From the first conversation to a running vacation chain in 30 days, at a fixed price agreed in advance instead of an open-ended timesheet.
60 minutes: we go through your current process, from the request to payroll, and take a look at the spreadsheet holding your leave balance. Afterward you know which steps are worth automating and which are not.
You get the chain in black and white: triggers, approval stages, cover rules, expiry deadlines, interfaces. Plus a fixed price and a statement of which licenses the chosen path actually needs.
We build the automation in your environment and test it with real requests from one department, including the awkward cases: sick leave during vacation, an absent approver, a request spanning the turn of the year.
Your team learns to maintain leave entitlements, cover arrangements, and blocked periods themselves, without calling us for it. You keep control over every rule, and we remain available as a point of contact on request.
If the vacation request runs on a shout-across-the-office basis and a spreadsheet, expense reports, purchase requisitions, and time corrections usually do too. It is worth looking at approvals as a whole, because the mechanics behind them are always the same, which makes it the cheapest extension.
In the free initial analysis, we go through your vacation planning in 60 minutes and show which steps can be automated and which you are better off leaving as they are. No obligation, no sales pressure.
No, in most SMEs the existing Microsoft 365 environment with Power Automate, a SharePoint list, and the Outlook calendar is enough. That saves the ongoing per-employee, per-month fee that HR software usually costs. If you already use HR software, we do not replace it, but use it as a data source and build the missing steps around it.
Not automatically. Carried-over leave must indeed be taken within the first three months of the following year under Section 7(3) BUrlG, but according to the case law of the Federal Labor Court it only lapses if the employer has previously informed the employee of the specific remaining leave, called on them to take it, and warned of the impending expiry (BAG, 19 February 2019, 9 AZR 541/15). Anyone who cannot prove this notice continues to carry the open days forward. That is exactly why we automate the notice run and store every dispatch in a traceable way. For the specific arrangement in your case, please ask your lawyer; we build the technical process.
Days of incapacity for work proven by a medical certificate are not counted against annual leave under Section 9 BUrlG. In the automated workflow, that means: once the sick note arrives, the affected days are booked back onto the leave balance and the absence type is changed, without anyone recalculating in a spreadsheet. The corrected balance goes to payroll in the same run.
Yes, we pass the approved absence days to your payroll department or tax advisor at month-end, prepared in the format DATEV expects. What matters is separating the absence types: vacation, sickness, unpaid leave, and special leave are handled differently, and that is exactly where the follow-up questions arise today. You approve the dispatch; nothing is sent automatically without your control.
The chain runs in your own Microsoft 365 environment or, on request, with self-hosted n8n on German servers; the data does not travel to third-party services. Health data is especially protected, which is why we separate permissions cleanly: the manager sees that someone is absent, and only those who need it see the reason. Every access and every step is logged.
