Leave of Absence Tracking Template
Three documents and three sheets that compute FMLA eligibility from hours actually worked and open an ADA review independent of that result.
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Case Register
Payroll says 1,377 hours. Hours actually worked say 1,242.
Marloe Logistics, fictional 240-person warehouse software company. Rosa Delgado, request dated 10 August 2026.
| What is being counted | Includes paid leave? | Hours | Vs. 1,250-hour test |
|---|---|---|---|
| Raw payroll "hours paid" total | Yes | 1,377 | Clears by 127 |
| Hours actually worked | No (excludes 5 paid weeks) | 1,242 | Short by 8 |
46 weeks actually worked at 27 hours a week is 1,242 hours. The other 5 of the 51 paid weeks were vacation and sick leave, which FLSA hours-worked principles exclude even though payroll still paid them. The 8-hour gap is the whole determination.
A downloadable leave tracker checks one number against 1,250 and stops there. The DOL's own FMLA hours-worked guidance states that the count follows FLSA principles, which exclude time on paid or unpaid leave entirely. Yet most templates run the test straight off a payroll export's hours-paid total, which still includes vacation and sick pay. A tracker built that way can clear 1,250 hours on paper while the employee is actually short of it, and nothing on the sheet says so.
Marloe Logistics, the fictional 240-person warehouse software company used across this cluster, received a leave request from Rosa Delgado on 10 August 2026. Her payroll export reports 1,377 hours paid in the trailing 12 months, comfortably over the threshold. Recomputing from her 27-hour weekly schedule, minus 3 weeks of vacation, 2 of sick leave and 1 unpaid personal week, leaves 1,242 hours actually worked, 8 hours short. The eligibility notice due five business days later states that reason by number, not a bare denial.
Devon Ling's case shows the other trap. His 480-hour FMLA bank, 12 weeks at a 40-hour schedule, hit zero on 29 June 2026 while a doctor's note still required a reduced schedule. Marloe's old policy read an exhausted bank as grounds to end his employment automatically. The ADA carries no hours or tenure threshold of its own, so the file opens an interactive-process entry the same day instead, documented with the same specificity a handbook's change summary already runs on. A 3-week modified-duty accommodation followed, reviewed on a stated date rather than left open-ended.
What is in the pack
Process Guide
Intake through return to work, with the FMLA hours-worked recalculation and the independent ADA trigger both walked through on real cases rather than described in the abstract.
Interactive Process Documentation
A log for every accommodation conversation: information requested, options considered, the decision and its reasoning, and a review date for anything granted on a temporary basis.
Manager Guidance
What a manager should do in the first conversation, which is route it, not decide it, plus the two policies to never say out loud: full healing before return, and automatic separation when a leave bank empties. The same discipline a workplace investigation needs from whoever first hears about it.
Case Register
One row per request with both determinations stated side by side: the FMLA test on hours actually worked, not a payroll total, and the ADA review opened independent of that result. Whether FMLA coverage reaches this employer and this worksite at all is a separate, earlier question, the one an HR compliance calendar's threshold tracker answers rather than assumes.
Deadline Tracker
Eligibility notice, certification and designation deadlines computed from each case's own request date, business days and calendar days kept separate rather than a single flat rule applied to both.
Return Planning
What happens as a leave bank approaches zero: the restriction still on file, whether a temporary accommodation is available, and a defined review date, the same specificity a documented policy gap is held to before it is called closed.
How it works
- 1
Send the request and the hours behind it
The reason given, hire date, scheduled hours per week, and every week of paid or unpaid leave in the trailing 12 months, not just a payroll hours total.
- 2
Get both determinations, computed and stated separately
FMLA eligibility from hours actually worked, and an ADA review opened whenever the request touches a medical condition, regardless of what the FMLA result says.
- 3
Deadlines land on the tracker from that case's own date
Eligibility notice, certification and designation dates, computed in business or calendar days as the regulation specifies for each one, not a single rule of thumb.
- 4
The file stays open past exhaustion if a restriction remains
A leave bank reaching zero opens or continues an interactive-process entry rather than a separation, with a defined review date for whatever accommodation follows.
Frequently asked questions
Is this template free?
Yes. The whole pack, the Process Guide, Interactive Process Documentation and Manager Guidance, plus all three sheets, downloads as real files with no signup. Edit with AI is a separate, optional path that creates a free account and installs the same pack as a private workspace.
How is this different from a normal leave-of-absence tracker?
A normal tracker checks eligibility against a payroll hours total and stops, treating an empty leave bank as the end of the process. This pack recomputes hours actually worked by subtracting paid and unpaid leave from the schedule, and opens an ADA review independent of the FMLA result, including after a leave bank is exhausted.
What counts as hours actually worked, versus a payroll total?
Hours actually worked excludes every hour of paid leave, vacation and sick pay included, and every hour of unpaid leave, following the same FLSA principles FMLA's regulations use. A payroll export's raw hours-paid total usually includes some of that paid leave, which is why it can read higher than the number that actually determines eligibility.
Does FMLA-ineligible mean there is no leave obligation?
Not necessarily. The ADA has no hours or tenure threshold, so a request tied to a medical condition can still require unpaid leave as a reasonable accommodation even when FMLA does not apply, unless granting it would cause undue hardship. The two determinations are tracked side by side rather than one deciding the other.
What happens when a leave bank runs out but a restriction is still on file?
The file opens or continues an ADA interactive-process entry dated the day the balance reaches zero, not a separation. A temporary accommodation, a modified schedule or duty for a stated period, gets a defined review date rather than staying open-ended. Requiring a full return to duty with no restrictions before that review date is the specific policy pattern regulators treat as unlawful.
What format are the downloaded files?
Word documents for the Process Guide, Interactive Process Documentation and Manager Guidance, and CSV spreadsheets for the Case Register, Deadline Tracker and Return Planning. All open natively in Word, Google Docs, Excel or Sheets, and recompute cleanly against an updated case export.
Find out what a case actually clears, and what it does not
Send the request, the hire date, the schedule and the leave weeks behind it. What comes back is the FMLA determination on hours actually worked, and an ADA review opened on its own, independent of that result.
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