Xero: Understanding Leave

One of the main advantages of syncing HR Partner and Xero is that leave syncs between the systems. 

How does it work?

  • The leave type (policy) MUST be created in Xero; leave policies created in HR Partner WILL NOT flow through to Xero
  • Employees' balances flow through from Xero to HRP
  • Your staff request and approve leave in HRP and at the point of approval that leave is pushed through to Xero
  • Once the approved leave is sent to Xero, we cannot access it to modify or delete it. This means that deletion or modification to existing leave requests must be manually modified in Xero.

What do I need to know?

  • Xero calculates leave in hours only, so any policies that are a part of the integration will display in hours.
  • You must set up the statutory leave category to match your payroll (Xero UK customers only)
  • You must set up your Public Holiday Dates in HR Partner to match the public holiday dates in Xero
  • You must set up the Working Day Templates in HR Partner to match the weekly working days/hours for your employees in Xero

IMPORTANT: If you have staff who work irregular hours you need to be aware that Xero and HRP will calculate their leave in different ways. HRP uses Working Day Templates to accurately calculate the number of hours taken, whereas Xero calculates an average across the pay period. For example, if you have an employee who works the following weekly schedule:


Mon: 8 Hrs

Tue: (not working)

Wed: 6 Hrs

Thu: (not working)

Fri: 8 Hrs


Xero will average out their 22 hours over the 5 working day week totalling 4.4 hours per day.


So if this employee puts in leave from Monday until Wednesday, HRP would calculate

Monday 8 + Tuesday 0 + Wednesday 6 = 14 Hours.


However Xero will re-calculate the above as

every day 4.4 x 3 = 13.2 Hours