# Approve or Reject Leave

Decide a request from the queue, and what each decision does to the balance and the calendar.

Deciding is one press. The work is what you do before it: checking the cost against the balance and the dates against everybody else's.

- Read the row. **Employee**, **Leave Type**, the span, the **Days** it costs and the **Reason** they gave are all on one line.

  ![Five rows of the Leave Approvals table. Eleanor Whitfield has five days of Annual Leave from 26 to 30 October for half-term. Kwame Boateng has a single half day on 19 October. Ade Fashanu has one day on 15 September. Hazel Bidwell has one day on 18 December. Fiona Kerr has five days of Sick Leave from 18 to 22 September, signed off for the week. Each row ends in a green Approve button and an outlined red Reject button.](https://www.sorviai.com/help/worklink/approvals/approval-rows.png)
- Check the dates against the attendance calendar if cover matters. The calendar shows approved leave in purple, so a clash is visible before you create it.
- Select **Approve** or **Reject**. The row leaves the queue immediately and the pending count drops by one.

  ![The Actions column of the Leave Approvals table, showing five pairs of buttons. Each pair is a solid green Approve button with a tick and an outlined red Reject button with a cross.](https://www.sorviai.com/help/worklink/approvals/approve-reject.png)

## What each decision does

|  | Approve | Reject |
| --- | --- | --- |
| The request | Becomes Approved, in green. | Becomes Rejected, in red. |
| Their balance | Pending days become Used. | Days go back to Remaining. |
| The calendar | The days show as Leave, in purple. | Nothing is booked. |
| Attendance | Those days count as leave, not absence. | The days stay open, and will read as absence if nobody works them. |
| The employee | Sees the outcome in My Leaves. | Sees it too, and can raise a fresh request. |

> **Note:**
>
> **Rejecting is not the same as leaving it**
>
> A request you never decide sits in Pending and keeps holding days out of the employee's balance. If the answer is no, saying so returns those days; ignoring it does not.

> **Tip:**
>
> **Sick leave that is already in the past is a record, not a decision**
>
> Backdated sick leave usually arrives after the fact, sometimes with a fit note attached. Approving it is what stops those days reading as unexplained absence on the attendance record.

## After you have decided

The request moves to Leaves, where it keeps its new status and its full history. Nothing is deleted, and the row stays findable by employee, type or period.