Absence tracking in a spreadsheet: where it breaks as the team grows

Let’s start with the unfashionable truth: a spreadsheet is the right first tool for tracking leave. It is free, everyone knows it, and at ten people it simply works. The interesting question is not whether spreadsheets are good - it is at what team size they quietly stop being one tool and become somebody’s daily job.

Around ten: it honestly works

One sheet, one person keeping it, everyone within shouting distance. Requests arrive in chat, the answer is “sure”, the file gets a row. Balances are small enough to check in your head, and if something is off, the fix is one conversation. If this is your company - keep the spreadsheet and bookmark this article for later.

Around thirty: first discrepancies

Somewhere past two dozen people, three things happen at once. Requests scatter across channels - chat, email, a hallway “I told you in May” - and some never reach the file. The balance in the sheet stops matching the balance in people’s heads, and every mismatch is now a small negotiation. And overlaps surface after approval: two of the three people who can close a release are suddenly away the same week, and nobody saw it coming because the sheet shows rows, not coverage.

None of this kills the spreadsheet. It just means the person keeping it now spends an hour or two a week reconciling - and the file has quietly acquired versions with names like final_v3.

Fifty to a hundred and thirty: tracking becomes a job

This is where the curve bends. Several teams, often several countries - which means different norms, different public holidays and different units in one file. A steady stream of “how many days do I have left?” - because people cannot see their own balance and have learned not to trust the sheet. Year-end arrives, and carry-over rules must be applied to every person at once, each with their own remainder. And one formula error multiplies silently across a hundred rows for months before anyone notices.

And the quietest failure of all: the person who keeps the file goes on leave themselves. The process they hold together goes with them.

What a system actually changes

Not magic - structure. Four things stop being manual work:

• A request is a request: submitted, approved or declined, with history. Nothing lives in chat memory.
• Everyone sees their own balance - so the “how many days do I have?” stream simply dries up.
• The rules - pro-rating, accrual, carry-over, expiry - are applied automatically and identically to everyone, including at year-end.
• Overlaps are visible before approval, not after - the calendar shows coverage, not rows.