Free PTO tracking
spreadsheet.
Track paid time off in Excel or Google Sheets. Keep leave dates, approval status and the covering teammate together in one shared record.
Free .xlsx file · No signup · 200 leave records
Using Google Sheets? Follow the import instructions to create your team’s shared copy.
What is a PTO tracking spreadsheet?
A PTO tracking spreadsheet is a shared log of employee leave dates, approval status and covering teammates. Ample’s free Excel template holds 200 leave records and counts full weekdays, excluding entered holidays. It can be imported into Google Sheets; it does not calculate accrued balances or automatically approve leave.
One place for the dates and the details.
This PTO tracker is a leave log for teams that need a simple shared record. It calculates full weekdays between the start and end dates and keeps approval status, a covering teammate and handoff notes alongside each absence.
Best for Monday–Friday teams. Add your team’s holidays to exclude those dates. It does not calculate accrued balances, carryover, half-days or staffing coverage.
What’s in the PTO spreadsheet?
| Field | How to use it |
|---|---|
| Person and team | Keep one row per absence. Filter the table to find a person or team. |
| Start and end dates | Enter real spreadsheet dates, including the first and last day off. |
| Weekdays | A formula counts Monday–Friday, including both dates. Weekends and dates on the Holidays tab are excluded. |
| Holidays tab | Add up to 100 holiday or closure dates for the whole team. No holidays are prefilled. |
| Status | Choose Requested, Approved, Declined or Cancelled from the dropdown. |
| Cover and handoff | Name the covering teammate and link to a completed vacation handoff template. Confirm the teammate has agreed to cover; a name alone is not a handoff. |
| Review | Flags missing names, invalid dates, missing status or cover. It does not approve requests. |
A filled-in example, before you download.
Fictional example: Alex requests Friday, September 18 through Monday, September 21, 2026. Sam agrees to cover the support queue. Enter one row in the tracker:
| Person / team | Start | End | Weekdays | Status | Cover / handoff |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alex / Support | Sep 18, 2026 | Sep 21, 2026 | 2 | Requested | Sam — check the support queue at 9am; escalate urgent issues to the team lead. |
With an empty Holidays tab, Friday and Monday count as two weekdays. If your company closes on September 21 and you add that date to Holidays, the result becomes one weekday. This is an example closure, not a public-holiday claim. Keep the status as Requested until your team confirms approval.
The workbook stays blank when you download it. Add your own records in the yellow cells; preserve the formula columns.
How to use the Excel PTO tracker
- Download and open the file. Use Excel to edit the .xlsx workbook.
- Add one absence per row. Fill the yellow cells. Leave the Weekdays and Review formulas in place.
- Check the schedule. Avoid duplicate or overlapping entries for the same person. The spreadsheet does not detect overlaps automatically.
- Agree on cover. Check each affected day with the PTO coverage planner, then confirm the covering owner and handoff before recording your team’s approval.
- Keep one shared copy. Share through your team’s file storage so everyone refers to the same record.
How are PTO days calculated?
The template uses NETWORKDAYS to count full Monday–Friday days between the start and end dates, inclusive, excluding dates you enter on the Holidays tab. With no holidays entered, a Friday-to-Monday absence counts as two weekdays. If that Monday is listed as a holiday, it counts as one. A Saturday-to-Sunday absence counts as zero.
Formula reference: Microsoft’s NETWORKDAYS documentation.
How to total approved PTO days by person in Excel
The download contains a leave log and a holiday list. To add your own summary, create a new worksheet named Summary. Enter Person in A1 and Approved weekdays in B1. Put a person’s exact tracker name in A2, then paste this formula into B2:
=SUMIFS('PTO tracker'!$E$10:$E$209,'PTO tracker'!$A$10:$A$209,A2,'PTO tracker'!$F$10:$F$209,"Approved")It adds the Weekdays column only where the person matches A2 and Status is Approved. Add another person in A3 and copy B2 down to B3. Use consistent, unique names in the tracker so two people are not combined. Some Excel locales use semicolons instead of commas between formula arguments.
Check the inputs first. Resolve date warnings in Review and remove duplicate or overlapping records. The formula covers rows 10–209 across all dates in the log, including future approved leave. Filtering the tracker does not change this total. It does not calculate remaining entitlement or separate this year from last year.
| Person | Weekdays | Status | Included? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alex | 2 | Approved | Yes |
| Alex | 3 | Requested | No |
| Alex | 1 | Cancelled | No |
| Sam | 4 | Approved | No |
Alex’s total is 2 approved weekdays. If the three-day request is approved, it becomes 5. A zero total can also mean no matching approved records: check the spelling and status before interpreting it.
Formula reference: Microsoft’s SUMIFS documentation.
How do I add holidays?
Open the Holidays tab and enter each date, including its year, in the yellow Date column. You can add a name beside it. Use real spreadsheet dates and leave unused rows blank. The same list applies to all 200 leave records, so use separate workbooks for teams with different holiday calendars.
Troubleshoot your PTO tracker
- Weekdays is blank
- Check both dates and the Review column. Text that looks like a date will not calculate. Re-enter the dates using Excel’s date format and make sure the end is on or after the start. If a formula was overwritten, restore it from a fresh download before adding more records.
- The total includes a company holiday
- Add the date with its year to Holidays, cells A10–A109. A holiday name alone is not enough. The date must be a real spreadsheet date and fall within the absence to affect its total.
- A weekend request shows zero
- That is expected for Saturday–Sunday with this Monday–Friday template. It is not suitable for shift schedules or teams with different working weekends without changing the calculation.
- Declined leave still has a weekday count
- Weekdays describes the date range for every status. Use the Approved-only summary above when totaling approved leave. Do not add the entire Weekdays column and call it time taken.
- I need half-days or remaining PTO balances
- This workbook counts full weekdays and does not store an allowance, accrual rules or carryover. Use an hours-based tracker for partial days and a balance tracker that matches your policy for remaining entitlement.
Can I use it for unlimited PTO?
Yes. The spreadsheet records time off without subtracting it from an allowance. Requested, approved, declined and cancelled absences stay distinct. For more on this approach, read our guide to tracking unlimited PTO.
Set up the PTO tracker in Google Sheets
We imported this workbook into Google Sheets and checked the weekday formulas, holiday exclusions, status dropdown, date formats and review prompts. The download is an Excel file; these steps create a native Google Sheet in your own Drive.
- Download the free .xlsx template and upload it to Google Drive.
- Open the uploaded file with Google Sheets, then choose File → Save as Google Sheets. This creates a separate Sheets copy; the original Excel file remains in Drive.
- Give the Sheets copy a clear team name. Use that copy as the shared record so colleagues do not update two different versions.
- Check a Friday-to-Monday test absence with no holidays entered: it should count two weekdays. Add that Monday to Holidays and confirm the count becomes one. Clear the test record and example holiday afterward.
- Share the working copy with the teammates who need it. Keep the Weekdays and Review formulas intact, and use the same spelling for each person across records.
You can also add the approved-days summary above to the converted workbook. Review the totals against a few known records before relying on them.
Google documents the conversion process in Use both Excel and Sheets.
Choose the right kind of PTO spreadsheet
A leave log, a vacation calendar and a balance tracker answer different questions. Start with the question you need to answer:
- “Who requested time off, and who is covering?”
- Use this leave log. It keeps dates, approval status, covering owners and handoff notes together. Filter by person or team and total approved weekdays using the guide above.
- “Who is away at the same time?”
- Use the team vacation calendar for a monthly view, then check each day’s staffing with the coverage planner.
- “How much PTO has someone earned or has left?”
- You need a balance tracker with your actual allowance, accrual and carryover rules. This download records absences; it does not calculate remaining entitlement.
When should we move beyond a spreadsheet?
A spreadsheet works when your team can keep one record current and review coverage together. If that takes too much coordination, join Ample’s early-access list for a shared leave schedule, coverage reviews and handoffs. The free spreadsheet is available now without joining the list.
Prefer a monthly view? Use the free team vacation calendar to see overlapping absences and print the schedule.
Want the request and handoff forms too? Download the complete team time-off kit.
Check one absence before adding it to the log with the vacation days calculator. Choose Monday–Friday and the same holiday list to match this spreadsheet.